Andrew Hoppin: So you know, I made a slide deck for this pre­sen­ta­tion. And I made it just for this con­fer­ence and it’s kind of intim­i­dat­ing to do that for a room full of design­ers because I’m one of those peo­ple that like you lit­er­al­ly can­not read my hand­writ­ing. So, we’ll see how it goes, and I’ll get over it because I’m real­ly pas­sion­ate about what I’m here to talk you about today. I’m here to talk to you about trust. And I’m here to talk to you about how I believe we need to recov­er trust in order to make our world work bet­ter for all of us. And more impor­tant­ly than that, I think the peo­ple in this room can do some­thing about it, which is why I’m talk­ing to you about it today. 

So, let’s roll back to about 2011. Marc Andreessen famous­ly said soft­ware is eat­ing the world. And what I took him to mean from that is that no longer is soft­ware an indus­try, indus­tries are becom­ing soft­ware, right. Like soft­ware is everything. 

Okay. Now fast for­ward to 2017 and The Economist pop­u­lar­ized an adage ​“data is the new oil.” Now, I’m not par­tic­u­lar­ly fond of that adage but I think it’s instruc­tive nonethe­less. They were say­ing that data that pow­ers soft­ware is the thing that is pow­er­ful. And if that pow­er is reposit­ed in the hands of too few, there may be some exis­ten­tial risks that could result from that. And lo and behold I think that that’s what we’re see­ing in the world today. 

That said, I love data. And as Julie said in my intro­duc­tion I’ve been work­ing on it for a long time. I like open­ing up data. I’ve been work­ing in the open gov­ern­ment move­ment for a decade and I’ve had the pro­found oppor­tu­ni­ty to do things that I real­ly have seen make a dif­fer­ence, with data, in the lives of the com­mu­ni­ties that I’ve been part of. I helped New York City to fig­ure out how to bet­ter allo­cate its resources in response to demands from res­i­dents and com­plaints from res­i­dents about what they need­ed in the city. I’ve helped to struc­ture the law­mak­ing process in New York and make it data-driven and make it machine read­able and pro­gram­ma­ble so we could build user inter­faces that could help New Yorkers find out what was going on in the cham­bers that make our laws and actu­al­ly get involved in shap­ing the laws that we live under. 

Again, a use of data. I’ve helped orga­ni­za­tions that col­lect data about gov­ern­ments all across Africa and helped to adju­di­cate which ones are effec­tive and trans­par­ent, and which ones are corrupt. 

And the pow­er of data has nev­er been big­ger than it is today and I think this can be a great thing, even though it is also cre­at­ing some exis­ten­tial risks. Specifically I think it can be a great thing because not only do we have soft­ware which is eat­ing the world, and not only do we have data which is pow­er­ing or fuel­ing the soft­ware, but we have data now dri­ving arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence or machine learn­ing mod­els. Which are essen­tial­ly, to over­sim­pli­fy a lit­tle bit, they’re actu­al­ly iter­at­ing the soft­ware as we go. So the soft­ware’s not only pow­ered by data, the soft­ware’s get­ting bet­ter all the time because you’ve got data pow­er­ing arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence mod­els that in fact keep the soft­ware get­ting bet­ter all the time. It’s pro­found­ly pow­er­ful, and so for orga­ni­za­tions that have access to the right data—and a lot of data, often—and that have the best arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence mod­els, they can often make the best deci­sions. And in many cas­es, and this is going to grow in pro­por­tion over the years to come, bet­ter deci­sions than humans can make. So it’s immense­ly pow­er­ful, right.

And this pow­er can be used for good. I was with the UN Development Program about a month ago talk­ing about how their open data, of the sorts that teams I’ve worked with over the years have spent a lot of time try­ing to open up, cou­pled with data about the peo­ple and the house­holds in com­mu­ni­ties that they serve in dis­as­ter sce­nar­ios could be put togeth­er to dri­ve machine learn­ing or arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence mod­els that could help them to adapt their respons­es to dis­as­ters faster than humans could by them­selves. Immense pow­er for good. 

But, and here’s the big prob­lem: most of the consumer-driven arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence work that’s hap­pen­ing in the world today is being dri­ven by your data and my data as con­sumers. And it’s being used to sell things to us and to manip­u­late us. By and large, not for good. 

Facebook knows what I want to read. Amazon knows what I want to buy. Netflix not only knows what I want to see, it knows what to invest in now that I’ll want to watch in a year. And I like these things. I con­sume these ser­vices. I’m kind of aware that I’m giv­ing up some data for doing it but they pro­vide a lot of util­i­ty and val­ue to me. I even like to inter­act with arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence chat bots now, over human being cus­tomer ser­vice rep­re­sen­ta­tives, because I can usu­al­ly get in touch with them faster. 63% of us pre­fer to inter­act with AI chat bots for cus­tomer ser­vice and that ratio’s only going to grow as these arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence mod­els get bet­ter, and bet­ter, and better. 

So it’s immense­ly pow­er­ful but it’s also immense­ly risky when it’s being used for this pur­pose. And it’s not just in this sce­nario that I kin­da know. I’m shar­ing data with Facebook and Amazon. Okay. Maybe I can make my peace with that. It’s also orga­ni­za­tions that I’ve nev­er heard of that are lit­er­al­ly buy­ing and sell­ing hun­dreds of data points about me and about hun­dreds of mil­lions of my fel­low Americans, and even some peo­ple here in Europe, with­out my knowl­edge. And cer­tain­ly with­out my per­mis­sion to use that data for the pur­pos­es they’re using it for. 

And this is cre­at­ing some real­ly dystopi­an sce­nar­ios. It’s lead­ing to dis­crim­i­na­tion in con­sumer finance and lend­ing. If I live in a poor neigh­bor­hood, even if I haven’t shared my data I may be dis­crim­i­nat­ed against in apply­ing for a loan in the United States. Same thing for health­care. If I live in a neigh­bor­hood with high inci­dences of can­cer, I may be dis­crim­i­nat­ed against in terms of my abil­i­ty to be insured in the United States because data is dri­ving mod­els that are say­ing I’m risky. 

It’s also famous­ly, obvi­ous­ly, under­min­ing elec­tions and democ­ra­cy and lit­er­al­ly being used to manip­u­late peo­ple. It’s even being used to cre­ate so-called deep­fakes which are cre­at­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tions of real­i­ty that nev­er exist­ed that are increas­ing­ly impos­si­ble to dis­tin­guish from reality. 

So these are some real­ly dystopi­an sce­nar­ios. So, now if you believe that data is the new oil, let’s stretch the metaphor a lit­tle bit. I think that if data’s the new oil, arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence is the worst kind of oil. It’s like the the dirty coal of petro­chem­i­cals, right. And we need to do some­thing about it. And what I think we need to do is I think we need to redesign the per­son­al data econ­o­my to opti­mize not for hav­ing the most data, but for hav­ing the most trust. 

So that’s what I want to talk to you about, is how can we go about doing that. In order to trust again we need pow­er, we need pow­er over our data again. How can we do that? 

Well, a lot of folks have said let’s break up Big Tech. They have the data, this is what The Economist was warn­ing us about in 2007, data’s the new oil. Break it up. 

Okay. Good idea, maybe. But, I don’t want twelve Facebooks. That would be worse for me than one Facebook, right? I don’t want to have to go to twelve places to go get val­ue from my pro­pri­etary data. I’ll be get­ting less val­ue, and I’ll arguably have even less idea where my data is or what it’s being used for. So if the data stays pro­pri­etary, break­ing up Big Tech does­n’t help. 

What about pri­va­cy laws? Well, absolute­ly foun­da­tion­al. I need rights. GDPR is a great start. Thank you Europe. It’s com­ing to the US. It’s already basi­cal­ly there in California and I think it’s going to become the rule not the excep­tion around the world. So yes, thank you. But it’s not near­ly enough. Because I’m still stuck with a choice between essen­tial­ly opt­ing out of the sys­tem and with­draw­ing my data, and no longer being able to go find my friends and in some cas­es even get jobs. Or, resign­ing myself to the fact that my data’s going to be used, and arguably even abused. So that’s a false choice. 

Okay. What else? What about con­tex­tu­al con­sent? What about if I could say, ​“Okay, Facebook. I’m okay with you using my data to con­nect me to my friends. I love that. I’m not okay with you using my data to show me polit­i­cal adver­tis­ing that’s gonna manip­u­late me.” Wouldn’t that be great? Well yeah, I think it would be great. We don’t have the tech­nol­o­gy pro­to­cols, let alone the open stan­dards that allow us to describe even what I just described in ways that machines and humans can under­stand and agree upon to be able to make that kind of nuanced choice. 

And it’s not just for what pur­pose, it’s also what part of my data. I may be hap­py to share data about my bad leg with my doc­tor, but not data about my men­tal health, right. I may want to share data but only for this peri­od of time when I real­ly need some­thing from the shar­ing of that data. I may be will­ing to share it with an enti­ty that I trust, but not with that oth­er enti­ty that I don’t trust. Or I may be will­ing to share it but in exchange for some­thing of val­ue that’s giv­en back to me. I would like to be able to make those kind of con­tex­tu­al con­sent choic­es but even if we had the enabling tech­nol­o­gy pro­to­cols for that…I’m busy. I have a full life. I don’t want to wake up in the morn­ing and try to make a new hun­dreds or even mil­lions of per­mu­ta­tions of choic­es about what is done and what is not done with my data. It’s nec­es­sary, it’s foun­da­tion­al, but it’s not prac­ti­cal and acces­si­ble for me as an individual. 

Okay. So, what about per­son­al data wal­lets? You know, what if I actu­al­ly lit­er­al­ly took my data back and had cus­tody of it here and not in Facebook’s cloud. Well again, great idea. I think it’s real­ly impor­tant and foun­da­tion­al, but there’s still a prob­lem. I may choose to with­draw my data from that sys­tem for my own rea­sons, but what if you don’t? And what if you look like me, what if you live near me, what if you have a sim­i­lar genet­ic make­up to me? I’m still sub­ject to the con­sent choic­es that you make. And the real point here is that even if we had con­trol over our data, in this per­fect decen­tral­ized data stor­age world, we still need to think about col­lec­tive data gov­er­nance. Because our data and our choic­es about our data affect each other. 

Okay, so how can we actu­al­ly prac­ti­cal­ly do some­thing about this? What I’m real­ly excit­ed about is an idea called con­sumer data trusts. And a con­sumer data trust would be a new legal enti­ty that I could del­e­gate, as my proxy, all this respon­si­bil­i­ty to, okay. So it would roll up my new­found rights that GDPR and oth­er privacy-related laws give me; my new­found abil­i­ty to actu­al­ly take phys­i­cal cus­tody of my data in a data wal­let or in a local device; my abil­i­ty to make con­tex­tu­al con­sent choic­es about yes, use my data for this but not for that; and it would roll up those new pos­si­bil­i­ties and those new respon­si­bil­i­ties into an enti­ty that had the sophis­ti­ca­tion to be able to real­ly do that, and that had a fidu­cia­ry respon­si­bil­i­ty to me, not a prof­it rela­tion­ship or prof­it motive relat­ed to me. 

And so crit­i­cal­ly it would have that abil­i­ty to bal­ance the ten­sion between the things that actu­al­ly want. I want that net­work effect. I want to be able to find my friends. I want good research to be done that will help devel­op new cures for new dis­eases. I want all that. I want big pools of data. I want great AI mod­els that can learn from that data fast. I want good deci­sions to be made. I just want it to be done in a way that’s bal­anc­ing this ten­sion between pri­va­cy and shar­ing, and I want to bal­ance what’s good for me as well as with what’s good for my cohort, my com­mu­ni­ty, our soci­ety. I think we need a new enti­ty that has a fidu­cia­ry respon­si­bil­i­ty and the tech­no­log­i­cal sophis­ti­ca­tion to do that. 

So, how could this actu­al­ly hap­pen? Well I think it’s real­ly a roll-up of— It sounds real­ly com­pli­cat­ed, I know, but I think it’s a roll-up of a lot of things that are already under­way. So, RegTech, there’s a lot of great RegTech inno­va­tion that helps com­pa­nies like my lit­tle healthtech start­up deal with com­plex com­pli­ance issues with reg­u­la­tions, and laws, GDPR, HIPAA, what have you. 

Storage tech. There are whole lot of great star­tups work­ing on decen­tral­ized data stor­age. They’re ear­ly, except for you know, one quite notable one—Apple—that I think is doing inter­est­ing work in this world as well. So there’s real inno­va­tion in stor­age tech. 

And con­sent tech. This con­tex­tu­al con­sent pro­to­col that I men­tioned is being worked on as well. 

So I think real­ly data trusts are just a way to actu­al­ly take all of these emer­gent new oppor­tu­ni­ties and to orga­nize them under an enti­ty who’s gonna have a respon­si­bil­i­ty to me, not a respon­si­bil­i­ty to Facebook, not a respon­si­bil­i­ty to my gov­ern­ment, and also a respon­si­bil­i­ty to us as a society. 

And if you’re think­ing this is a great idea, sounds great, I’m inter­est­ed, but I have a job to do, it sounds real­ly com­pli­cat­ed? Well…yeah, maybe you should have a job to do. I actu­al­ly think this is going to be huge new indus­try. I think the trust stack will be as big as cyber­se­cu­ri­ty. So if you want a job in this, it might be some­thing to think about. 

So where are we in the tra­jec­to­ry of this becom­ing not just an idea but a real­i­ty? There are a num­ber of orga­ni­za­tions that’ve done ear­ly pro­to­types of data trusts of var­i­ous sorts. Some of them don’t relate at all to con­sumer data, they’re relat­ed to envi­ron­men­tal and oth­er data, where there are some trade-offs to make in terms of shar­ing between orga­ni­za­tions and an ecosys­tem that don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly trust each oth­er. But some of them are work­ing on con­sumer data. I’m work­ing on a pro­to­type of this with the Global Center for the Digital Commons in health data, for example. 

And the real key mes­sage is I think the time is now. I think we need this, and I think as I said at the begin­ning, the peo­ple in this room can do some­thing about this. If you val­ue trust, I think you can help us make trust some­thing that is valu­able again, okay. So, I would like you…or I invite you, between now and the next Interaction Week, to go into your orga­ni­za­tion and look at where you could poten­tial­ly pro­to­type a data trust. Doesn’t need to be all-encompassing, does­n’t need to be all your use cas­es, all your data, all your users. But find one you think might be well-served by a data trust. And if you’re not sure how to go about it call me up and I’ll help you. 

I think if a num­ber of us go off and do this, we’ll make great strides, even in just the next year, from mov­ing from a metaphor that I don’t much like: data is the new oil, to a metaphor that I like a lot: trust is the new pow­er. Thank you.