Vitalik Buterin warned that AI and brain-computer interfaces could intensify privacy risks, especially with ongoing data misuse. He argued that concentrating data control, even with good intentions, leads to long-term instability.

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Data should be maximally held by the users themselves, and cryptographic means used to enable aggregation of useful statistics without compromising individual privacy.

In the near future, we will probably see people making AI products that make even deeper intrusions into privacy: passively collecting your internet browsing patterns, email and chat history, biometric data, and more.

Buterin highlighted that centralization often stems from control over information. In his view, whoever owns the data ultimately wields the power.

Buterin raised the issue of governments being able to access anything with a warrant “because that‘s the way that things have always worked.” He noted that this point of view fails to consider that historically, the amount of data available for obtaining through a warrant was far lower.

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Vitalik Buterin