a16z-backed crypto firm rebrands, shifts focus to solving AI’s global copyright headache

Palo Alto-based blockchain startup Story Protocol is rebranding arsenic DATA Foundation and shifting its absorption wholly to AI grooming infrastructure, with Kled laminitis Avi Patel joining the enactment arsenic main information officer, Patel told CoinDesk successful an email interrogation connected Thursday.

The DATA Foundation volition run the DATA Network, an onchain registry designed to verify the origins, licensing and consent past of datasets utilized to bid artificial quality models. The pivot moves the steadfast from targeting the broader intelligence spot marketplace to the specialized AI information sector, Patel said.

The startup’s displacement comes arsenic AI developers and Big Tech look mounting copyright lawsuits implicit the information utilized to bid their models and expanding unit to beryllium that datasets were collected with due consent. DATA Foundation is betting blockchain tin supply a transparent grounds of ownership, licensing and provenance for AI grooming data.

The rebranding follows Story Protocol's $140 cardinal successful cumulative task backing led by Andreessen Horowitz's a16z crypto, which Patel confirmed. He declined to remark connected the valuation reported by Gate arsenic $2.4 billion.

The protocol came nether the spotlight successful February owed to a token unlock delay. Its co-founder Sy Lee defended the determination saying its blockchain needed “more time” to physique usage.

Patel said the motorboat includes a nonstop integration with Kled AI, an opt-in quality information marketplace. According to the company, the integration registers 1.1 cardinal user-contributed records connected the caller network. As portion of the firm shift, Andrea Muttoni takes implicit arsenic CEO of the DATA Foundation.

Growing ineligible scrutiny

AI firms look increasing ineligible scrutiny and information exhaustion from scraping the nationalist internet, Patel said. DATA Foundation plans to code this by launching Trace, a nationalist audit and hunt level that creates unalterable cryptographic receipts for idiosyncratic information contributions. The receipts are designed to assistance AI developers verify the provenance, licensing and consent past of datasets earlier utilizing them.

"Trace publishes the audit record, not the data," Patel told CoinDesk. "What's nationalist is the receipt: contented hash, consent terms, licensing, outgo impervious and timestamps. There's thing to scrape connected Trace due to the fact that the plus itself is not stored there."

Patel added that the underlying information remains wrong the marketplace and requires a licensed transaction to access.

The web besides incorporates Poseidon, an AI information processing task that cleans and scores quality data. Poseidon runs a contributor app called Numo, which pays users stablecoins successful existent clip for submitting authenticated data.

To money these payouts, Patel said compensation is tied straight to completed transactions alternatively than precocious against aboriginal sales. Kled besides runs fiat payout rails alongside the stablecoin option, truthful contributor payments bash not beryllium connected immoderate azygous buyer's timing.

Patel said his squad is focusing improvement connected an upcoming fraud-detection protocol to corroborate that information is real, quality and archetypal alternatively than pirated oregon AI-generated.

"Labs won't licence information they can't verify," helium said. "Solving that is the full game, and it's wherever we're putting our resources."