It's always about the people.

I recently spent an afternoon with a group of talented young adults talking about fintech, purpose, and profits. One of them asked: How important is 'people'?

And there it was. My favorite question.

Talking about people.

As I often say, our work is always about the community —?and the vibrancy of the cultures that are embedded within our ecosystem. Technology is merely a means to an end.

To break down the physical barriers that separate us.

To facilitate exchange of ideas.

To create a pathway for more people to turn their dreams and aspirations to reality.

To bring us closer to one another.

Beyond profits, what are our responsibilities to the society?

We have more in common than we are led to believe.

If we can put aside the labels and look deeper, we'd find that many of us want the same things. A financially secure life. A future for our children. A place to call home.

A community.

I hope that as we go on with our daily lives, we'd have a chance to pause and think about the people around us.

I hope that we can respect our differences and celebrate what brings us together.

Because together, we can achieve more.

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What I am reading ...

To regulate, or not to regulate? And how?

In the past two years, we have witnessed different approaches to AI regulations between EU, the U.S., China, and Japan. And the dust is far from being settled.

"There are many reasons AI companies are attracted to Japan, including the need for its companies to rapidly develop their digital capabilities and the country’s declining population, which is very open to AI."

One other attraction is that AI companies are permitted to learn from copyrighted images and other materials for commercial purposes without infringing copyright laws.

Speaking of training data and copyright, are we facing an "emerging crisis in data consent"? (h/t Andrew Bellavia Carla Gentry )

According to The Observer, "a rapid crescendo of data restrictions from web sources, set off by concerns regarding the ethical and legal challenges of A.I.’s use of public data, has restricted much of the web to both commercial and academic A.I. institutions. Between April 2023 and April 2024, 5 percent of all data and 25 percent of data from the highest quality sources has been restricted."

Given the current pace of companies working on improving A.I. models, some developers stipulated that we could run out of data between 2026 to 2032.

But worry not (yet?), investors are still pouring large sums of funding into the sector, especially generative AI startups.

In the first half of 2023, from January to July 16, 225 startups raised $12.3 billion from VCs, according to Crunchbase. And they may even match or exceed the roughly $21.8 billion they raised in 2023.

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In this week's One Vision Podcast ...

From acting as a silent back office partner to being an enabler of banking services and new business models, technology has transformed not only the partnership between the CIO, CTO, and lines of business, but also the customer experience. What is the next big opportunity when it comes to the future of banking? What role will technology such as artificial intelligence play?

In this episode of One Vision — FinTech Fuse! I chat with Vanja Tokic, expert retail strategy transformation manager at Raiffeisen Bank International AG on digitalizing the financial world and preserving the human touch. How will banking services being a commodity impact the future of financial services and banking business models? What role should banks play in society and an increasingly connected world, and how can we meet customers where they are? Tune in to find out!?

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