Web3 Needs AI—But On Our Terms

How Web3 Can Keep AI Open, Accountable, and Human-Centered

Author

Scott Kasten
May 01, 2025

Web3 Needs AI—But On Our Terms

AI isn’t just another tool. It’s quickly becoming the engine behind everything—from what you see online to how decisions are made about your job application, creditworthiness, or even your health.

And right now? That engine is controlled by a small handful of companies with little transparency, limited oversight, and zero accountability to everyday users.

That’s a problem.
But it’s also a wake-up call—and an opportunity.

The Problem Isn't AI. It’s Who Owns It.

Artificial intelligence in itself isn’t the enemy. (Blade Runner, The Matrix, Minority Report, and about 20 other movies notwithstanding.) In fact, when done right, it can unlock a better internet and a smarter society. But in all honesty today’s AI revolution has aspects that look a lot like Web2 all over again. A few giants collect the data, control the models, and monetize the outcomes—while the rest of us feed the machine.

Web3 exists to break that cycle. It's about ownership. It’s about transparency. It’s about moving away from centralized control toward a user-first ecosystem.

And that ethos? It needs to carry over to AI.

Why Web3 Is the Best Shot at Ethical AI

The AI world needs what Web3 already has:

  • Transparent systems with on-chain audit trails.

  • Decentralized governance to prevent single points of failure (or exploitation).

  • Token incentives that reward contribution and encourage collaboration.

  • Interoperability and open-source ethos to prevent AI lock-in.

This isn’t a hypothetical. Projects like Ocean Protocol, Fetch.ai, and SingularityNET are already showing what decentralized AI infrastructure looks like. It’s not perfect, but it’s a start.

Imagine an AI trained on user-contributed data—with clear opt-ins, compensation baked in, and privacy preserved by default. Imagine being able to own and train your own models, or delegate agents to interact with digital systems on your behalf—all governed by transparent, community-approved rules.

That’s the AI future Web3 can build.
But only if we build it on our terms.

Smarter Systems, Not Just Smarter Machines

We’ve reached a turning point. If Web3 ignores AI, it risks becoming irrelevant. But if it embraces AI blindly, it risks repeating the mistakes of Web2.

The challenge—and the opportunity—is to create smarter systems, not just smarter machines. That means prioritizing trust, privacy, and collective benefit over profit and power consolidation.

The big tech firms already have their roadmap. We need ours.

So here’s the call: support open-source AI. Back decentralized data and compute projects. Ask the hard questions about who controls intelligence in a digital-first future.

Because in the world we’re heading into, AI will shape everything.

And we all deserve a say in how it’s shaped.

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