The Giordano Bruno Institute
Pursuing truth and individual freedom since 1592
This is the new website of the Giordano Bruno Institute, home of the personal data locker as I have been dreaming about it for more than 20 years. This is what I was put on earth to do. Unfortunately, I had one try at it so far and didn’t succeed. I hope to have the money to try again. If you want to help, especially if you are or know any billionaires interested in digital privacy, personal freedom, and the AI alignment problem, please get in touch.
This is the choice I believe we are making today. We are collectively choosing to take the path on the left, rather than the one on the right:
Watch this video to learn what’s wrong and how we can fix it:
This is a shorter overview:
If this movie doesn’t scare you, you’re on the wrong web page:
These companies have all our data
You don’t have access to your own data. These companies LOVE having your data, because it keeps you on those platforms and deters competitors. Many of these companies sell your data to others for a profit. Most of them have your credit-card number. They have gone from being in the service business to being in the persuasion business.
From the Pew Research Report on Americans and Privacy:
70 percent of adults believe their data is less secure than it was five years ago.
72% of Americans report feeling that all, almost all or most of what they do online or while using their cellphone is being tracked by advertisers, technology firms or other companies.
47% of adults believe at least most of their online activities are being tracked by the government.
38 percent of adults say they sometimes read a privacy policy.
81 percent of Americans feel they have no control over the data companies and governments collect about them.
Privacy is power
Humans don’t value their personal data
I have drawn this on many napkins:
It formed the basis of the Pillar Project, which successfully raised over $20 million in 2017. Unfortunately, things didn’t work out, and I’m trying again to raise money.
The AI alignment problem
This is the AI alignment problem:
The personal data locker solves the AI alignment problem by creating an open, active marketplace for AIs. Rather than the CEOs of a few giant companies choosing our AI for us, we can all choose our own set of AI agents. As I explain in my essay, We are Now Entering a Period of Accelerating Stupidity, the problem is very real, and, as Robin (above) explains, competition is the way out. The Metaverse video at the top of this page goes into more detail.
Key components
You will build and use a self-sovereign digital identity
This means you are responsible for your own identity. Microsoft, the W3C, and others are coming together around the DID standard, which could be the foundation of identity for this century.
Own and maintain your own data
You will keep a record of all your travel, likes, comments, photos, videos, appointments, doctor visits, diagnostics, prescriptions, classes, grades, parking tickets, purchases, reading, people you meet, conversations, and much more. You own it. You control it. You use it for your benefit.
You don’t do it by hand
You’ll use software to accumulate, organize, and use your own data. These are your personal digital assistants. Today, we have Siri, Alexa, and Google. They seem free, but they are actually quite expensive. They work for their companies, not for us. This is the wrong model. You want to have your own software working for you on your own data on your own terms. You want to use all the APIs available to bring your data home.
Want to work for Google? You already do:
A market for personal digital-assistants
In the world I want to create, there is an open market for personal digital assistants that can use your data to help you best. If you don’t like your assistant, fire it and hire another one to work with your data. This open-source playing field gives consumers choices that are fundamentally different than the monopolistic solutions we have today.
From apps to services
Apps are traps. Apps keep our personal data on private-company servers. When we have proper, legal digital ownership of all our goods, and services are represented by digital tokens, markets become much more liquid. This is what I call the world of offers. It’s meant to replace apps, which haven’t scaled and are bottlenecks and traps for data and poor management of assets. We can transform apps into services. It’s part of the machine economy. For more on the world of offers, read The Pillar Project Gray Paper.
The world of offers
As described in Pull, you shouldn’t need apps. You should be able to see the world of online offers. As you specify what you are looking for, offers come in. And you take whichever offer you want. Accepting an offer enters both parties into a contract that specifies exactly what happens to the data.
Part of our initial app will be a generic comparison engine. You ask it for something, and it will bring you all the offers that match your request. To prevent spam, we will charge companies a small amount to access the platform. We will let any company compete, but we will also work to eliminate scammers.
From vendor-centric to user-centric
Today, we fit into a vendor-centric world:
They have their hooks in you. On each site: we register, set up our accounts, give our payment details, and manage our settings. We are part of their ecosystem. They are not part of ours. This is a “push” paradigm based on the old supply-chain model.
In my world, the customer is at the center:
With the personal data locker, the vendors and their brands don’t matter nearly as much. They have to offer the best product or service at the time the user wants to “pull” it.
Share data as needed
You should share your data with companies only as needed. You should give permission to use your data only for a very limited time or a single purchase. As you gather and control your genomic data, health records, and many more details, you will need help to manage all the permissions and sharing with others. Every time you share data, there should be a two-sided contract with obligations on both sides. I have written about this. Customer Commons is working on it.
Handsets begin to disappear. It’s very possible that in 20 years we no longer use handsets very much. That’s because the data will be in the cloud and much of the interaction will be by voice and various displays, either built into our glasses or in our environment. We could use our watches and earbuds and glasses to do most of what we want to do. Some of us will have various kinds of implants, either for identity or for interaction with our environment.
Screens and other devices will be all around us. Imagine that as you go from your home to a hotel in another city, your data just follows you, and you are always logged into (and out of) devices as you go. While this sounds like a wet dream for advertisers, they won’t know anything about you if you don’t want them to. For example, to use a toll road, you could accept to see/hear custom-tailored ads as you drive, or you could pay. You can be identified or anonymous. The choice will be up to you.
As the price of hardware comes down, it’s hard to see Apple selling $1,000 phones with 2-year contracts and $2,000 laptops we have to carry around with us, no matter how powerful they are. The real power is in the data and online processors. Today, we wouldn’t think of leaving home without our phones, but that will change.
Give Ray Kurzweil one minute to explain:
If you’re interested in learning more, especially if you can help me raise money, please use the contact form at the bottom of this page.
About Giordano Bruno
In 1590, Giordano Bruno wrote a book proposing that 1) the earth is round, 2) it revolves around the sun, 3) the sun is just another star, 4) the universe is infinite and has no “center,” and 5) reality is made up of tiny particles you can’t see using the naked eye. For writing those words, he was the last man burned at the stake by the Roman Inquisition. After his death, there was simply too much evidence that he was right. The church ended their capital punishment, paving the way for Galileo to popularize these concepts (though under house arrest for many years). Bruno is, philosophically speaking, the patron saint of science and reason.