Your data built the AI boom — but Big Tech is pocketing 100% of the equity

The article argues that regular people deserve a share of the wealth created by AI. Tech companies trained their AI models on data from millions of internet users. That includes social media posts, photos, reviews, and search history. But all the profits from AI are going to big tech companies and their shareholders. The author says this is unfair and proposes ways to claw back some of that money for the people who provided the data.

AI companies like OpenAI, Google, and Meta have become some of the most valuable businesses in the world. Their models learned from vast amounts of data scraped from the internet, including content created by everyday users. Unlike musicians or artists who can copyright their work, most people have no way to get paid when their data is used. Some proposals include a data dividend, where companies pay users for their contributions, similar to how Alaska pays residents from oil revenue.

If companies get rich from your data, you should get something back. This debate is about fairness and who really owns the value created by AI.