Many technology companies would be more benign if they were owned and governed by their users.

Users have the most to lose from tech-driven addiction and automation,
and their data generate most of the companies’ value.

️User-owners would share in this value and have an incentive to keep companies from causing harm.

How might users come together to start and run more technology companies?

Bringing together a disparate and dispersed group of people is difficult;
-- economists call this the #collective #action #problem.

Influential nonprofits such as the
Center for Humane Technology and
Project Liberty can play an organizing role,
incubating a new generation of user-owned social media businesses.

While it’s a competitive field with entrenched players,
social media technology is not complex,
and there is a real hunger for more benign versions.

Existing firms can also be redesigned.

Instead of raising capital from profit-seeking corporations,
OpenAI could seek funding from users and give them representation on its board.

And with users on the board, the company might take more care to launch products safely
and dedicate resources to maintaining employment.

Most important, more of the financial gains of the AI revolution would flow to the people creating the value.

If #Keith #Gill,
also known as #Roaring #Kitty,
could organize retail investors to drive up the market value of #GameStop by $10 billion,
could a similar approach have been employed to acquire Twitter for users in 2022?

Given the millions of defections from the platform since Musk purchased it,
it may not be too late.

The government can also help if it’s not headed off by Big Tech political contributions.

The Small Business Administration,
the Department of Energy and
the National Science Foundation
should encourage user ownership of the companies they fund.

The venture capitalists of Sand Hill Road will of course scream that this is #socialism,
but they will be wrong.

It’s just business.