The Token Economy Requires Collective Data Governance by Yaniv Benhamou
Millions of people continuously generate the raw material on which AI is trained, yet almost none shares in the wealth it creates. This underscores the need for data cooperatives representing internet users, creators, and other rights holders to negotiate access to the content being fed to large language models.
GENEVA—For more than two decades, digital platforms have monetized our attention and social interactions. But today’s AI models extract value from another source: our collective knowledge. Every article, photograph, code, video, and online comment can be turned into training data—trillions of so-called tokens—and ultimately into value.
