Blog:
Five ways HUMAN Protocol improves the foundations of the digital world
Notes of discord begin softly. Many don’t hear them until it’s too late. Some hear them too soon, and point to a problem that others cannot see, or which they recognize only as the disquiet that precedes an avalanche. It takes an event to bring into focus that which we are apathetic towards, or blithely ignore. It takes the ground to shake to realize that the foundations were built wrong; that they’re incapable of withstanding more disruption, which naturally, inevitably, is at the heart of everything yet to happen: the future.
We’ve created a remarkable world with imperfect tools, working with what we have to move closer to what we want. By improving the tools, we’re able to identify new answers. The hope of blockchain technology, and of HUMAN Protocol, is to repair, strengthen, and expand our digital world — to realize a new era of human labor and, through it, human and machine potential.
Here are five ways HUMAN Protocol aims to improve the foundations of the digital world.
Data tells a story. The level of detail attached to data determines how representative that story becomes; not just of the dominant culture, but of the world. To fuel a new generation of globally representative AI and ML technologies, HUMAN Protocol helps app developers increase the points of human-to-machine interaction. By increasing the frequency of human feedback, we can create more detailed and representative datasets, allowing machines to better distinguish humanity’s idiosyncrasies and cultural differences.
Images are, after all, symbols. A symbol may be interpreted entirely differently by any two countries, regions, or even communities. HUMAN Protocol helps produce less biased datasets (supported by research into bias in ML) that, in turn, can help create less biased, more powerful AI and ML technologies. For more information, read our AI whitepaper.
A loss of understanding is the paradox to our growing web of connection; we speak more but recognize and understand less. We struggle to accept contrasting interpretations of the world, and, in doing so, make strangers of one another. As the creators of AI and ML technologies, it is safe to assume that any inability to understand one another will pass to machines, creating an intelligence that whitewashes difference and homogenizes background.
HUMAN Protocol is focused on improving how we work together. Less biased technologies will, as a mirror, reflect back on us. Algorithms that we create in turn shape how we think and see the world. We create our own reality — and the datasets upon which algorithms rely determine whether we see a complete picture, or only part of a picture.
Understanding first requires an act of listening. Through HUMAN Protocol, application developers and organizations are better able to listen and account for differences in how we interpret information (images, gestures, clothes, etc.), and create more relevant datasets.
We produce data in the course of our everyday activities. That data tells organizations something about us, and something about the world. It fuels a trillion-dollar advertising economy. But while we produce data, we’re not rewarded for doing so. Data’s value is foremost enjoyed by those that process and store it: search engines, marketplaces, social media platforms, etc.
HUMAN Protocol democratizes access to data using blockchain technology: a transparent, distributed record of activities completed, work fulfilled, and value generated. This record is immutable. Through HUMAN Protocol, individuals will have access to available work and the reward for that work, stored in data, enshrined by the blockchain.
Organizations, on the other hand, would have access to more relevant and detailed datasets: data that is created in response to specific problems and questions, and to fuel a specific understanding. HUMAN Protocol is designed to help developers and organizations create targeted datasets through the listing of relevant data-labeling tasks.
Our globalized world connects billions into a monopoly controlled by a few. This is particularly evident within the gig economy, in which access to opportunity is gated by platforms and corporations. HUMAN Protocol aims to disintermediate the gig economy, returning control to gig workers — which we discuss in more detail within this piece — and, by making fungible all types of labor, unlock greater opportunity for global workforces.
A truly global gig economy should be open. Currently, corporates do not share their gig workforce. Freelancing platforms have helped the gig economy to flourish, but they remain closed to one another. Success on one platform cannot be transferred. And the underlying infrastructure — strangers required to trust one another in a digital marketplace — necessitates intermediary guarantees of security, to protect each party, which must be funded through fees.
HUMAN Protocol is working to create a digital landscape without walls; an open prairie of opportunity populated by inclusive, disintermediated, and secure global labor markets. HUMAN Protocol makes fungible human labor so that it can be transparently represented, qualified, validated, and rewarded.
The World Wide Web grew from a network of people into a network of systems and databases. As individual convenience has increased — through, among other things, the improvement of user experience — individual control has diminished. HUMAN Protocol believes that collectives work better when individuals are empowered to make choices — when they’re willing, valued participants of a system, and have the opportunity to be rewarded for the value they produce.
HUMAN Protocol supports the creation of decentralized global marketplaces. Without centralized control — in managing contracts, time, and the allocation of value — control is returned to the edges. That is, to the individuals that make up a network.
The fulcrum of control is choice. The more meaningful, rewarding choices we have, the more control we wield in our lives. When we start to recognize and represent all types of labor, immutably and transparently recorded on the blockchain, we increase the ways in which an individual has control over what they do, and how they live.
Through this, HUMAN Protocol improves the foundations of the digital world. We improve the way distributed parties work together, fostering greater connection and collaboration, and make our data, and the technologies that data enables, more representative of who we, as a species, are.
For more information on HUMAN Protocol, visit our website or blog. Alternatively, follow us on Twitter or join our community Telegram channel to stay up to date with the Foundation’s developments.
Legal Disclaimer
The HUMAN Protocol Foundation makes no representation, warranty, or undertaking, express or implied, as to the accuracy, reliability, completeness, or reasonableness of the information contained here. Any assumptions, opinions, and estimations expressed constitute the HUMAN Protocol Foundation’s judgment as of the time of publishing and are subject to change without notice. Any projection contained within the information presented here is based on a number of assumptions, and there can be no guarantee that any projected outcomes will be achieved.
