Edward Snowden recently shared the importance of decentralization. He criticized AI-driven surveillance and venture capitalists’ control over blockchain.
The privacy advocate and former NSA contractor discussed decentralization at the Near’s Redacted conference in Bangkok, Thailand.
He also discussed cryptocurrencies, blockchain technology, and AI, including VC’s influence on blockchain projects. He especially mentioned Solana as his example of being “born in prison”. The reason for this is big funds by the VCs. According to him, such kind of financial backing can prevent blockchain networks from running independently.
Snowden criticized heavy VC funding
While acknowledging Solana’s fast growth, he said that the investors hold more than enough ownership. Apart from that, he mentioned that Solana could “become something” in the future.
Snowden based his talk on the necessity of decentralization in its role in preventing close surveillance increased by AI.
According to him, AI-backed surveillance has allowed governments and big corporations to collect huge amounts of personal data and eventually grow towards real-time monitoring.
Snowden said;
“They want to train it on everything, and they want to be able to say, you know, who looks anomalous […] Look at everybody, look at the whole human body, and pick out anybody who is weird.”
He criticized Solana’s initial reliance on heavy VC investment which compromises the decentralization and independence that the blockchain network should be based on.
He referenced past concerns that were shared during a vote by Andreessen Horowitz, a venture capital firm regarding the deployment of Uniswap v3 on BNB.
His main concern was the fact that large stakeholders can maintain greater control over so-called decentralized projects, which goes against the philosophy of blockchain technology.
He also advocated for open-source tools
Edward Snowden also talked about open-source tools as a way to combat centralization, and referred to them as “incredibly empowering.”
Regarding this, he stated, “The bottom line is, you guys can do this yourself […] I’m telling you guys you don’t understand, if you’re not using it, you need to use this […] the sky’s the limit.”
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