Key Takeaways from Building & Investing in Sovereign Tech

originally published on medium

Last week I had the opportunity to attend Building and Investing in Sovereign Tech, hosted by The Female Funder’s Club, here in Los Angeles. I made a commitment to myself this year to become more involved in the tech ecosystem of Los Angeles, seeing what’s emerging as we navigate unprecedented disruption. For a city like Los Angeles, I was a bit unsure if we had the credibility or even enthusiasm to be a tech hub. As a San Francisco native, everything else pales in comparison (and yes, the egotism that comes with being from SF is part of the problem).

But that’s no longer true. The hustle and creative zeal that has made LA the entertainment capital of the world has also given us a unique opportunity to break through the walled gardens of Big Tech. We are reclaiming innovation (perhaps with a bigger focus on consumer appeal) and a lot of incredible work is happening here. I was thrilled to attend this gathering of visionaries, enthusiasts and curious minds.

Some key takeaways

Solutions Focus:

The summit acknowledged the very real dangers of our technological trajectory. But host Kate Lynch opened the event with a focus on “radical imagination” to build a future we will all fall in love with. This wasn’t a convening to maximize our stress and render ourselves hysterical. It was an opportunity to share ideas and discuss how we can reaffirm our agency. For instance, Jeff Turner gave us insight into the funding of open source technologies — something that has already had trillions of dollars invested in it. There’s a stubborn belief around open source that it can’t compete with privately owned code or it won’t get the investment it needs, but Jeff showed how that’s not the case. He also spoke to the benefits of crypto and decentralized AI to counter increasing surveillance, censorship and other infringements. He closed with the the encouragement of “be rebellious”.

Butterfly Effect in Finance

Madelina Preda shared about impact investing. Impact investing is “results driven” rather than performance based. And to be honest, I remain a bit skeptical that impact investment has gained more traction or credibility. I’ve done the impact investing/social impact business model and it’s not as straightforward as it might sound. “Impact” is notoriously hard to measure. It’s not a ubiquitous metric, but something unique to each situation. However, I was encouraged by Madalina’s story about the start up Betterfly, out of Chile, that works with employers and their employees to help them create personalized insurance plans and safeguard benefits. Impact investing — to me — still has to show a margin in order to succeed. It can’t just be mission. Perhaps we can extend our definition of “performance based” to include things like “quality of life”?

Big Tech is Centralizing Power

Big Tech is doing everything it can to protect its business models. This is where we see abuses of power, everything from digital rights management (DRM) schemes, incompatible software and hardware, planned obsolescence (shout out to California’s new right to repair law that took effect July 1st), and predatory distribution and licensing practices. Jay Freeman, of iPhone jailbreaker frame, broke down some of the current abuses of power and how even well intentioned policy won’t be enough (especially when it comes to jurisdiction). He spoke to the amazing work coming out of Electronic Frontier Foundation which I highly suggest digging into.

Realitycraft

Probably my favorite session was from EVO who shared her work on creating new realities in XR. She was the only speaker who directly addressed issues of consent, trust and transparency when it comes to generative AI. She also shared how we will need to “let go of our idea of ownership” — a refreshing idea that complements open source technology nicely.

There were of course good overviews of DeFi, AI, robots, and discussions of humanity and ethics. But what really struck me was a comment from one of the audience members who described sovereign tech as the following:

“Sovereign tech is immutable data (blockchain) plus decentralized analysis (AI).” This is a surprisingly elegant way to describe reliable and responsible tech infrastructure. I can’t wait to learn more.

I haven’t included all my notes on the summit, as that would be a tedious read, but I do want to flag: what was missing from these conversations?

Harm and Repair

Nearly each session spoke to harms experienced as a result of these technologies. Anything from financial disenfranchisement to 3D printing guns. I don’t know if harm is inevitable, but I do believe we are not having enough discussions around what to do when harm occurs with these technologies. For instance:

• How do we practice repair when AI discriminates against a job applicant?
• What does justice look like for data workers?
• How can we cultivate accountability in the open source community?

We need reparative justice practitioners and harm reductionists to lead alongside technologists, artists and creators. Technology will continue to perpetuate our systems of harm until we redesign those systems (h/t to kon syrokostas who discussed this so beautifully in his post.)

Nature

I feel as if every discussion around technology leaves out a core truth: humans are nature. We are a part of nature. Nature is a part of us. The natural world is our home, no matter how many layers of tech infrastructure we pile on top of it. Nature is also our greatest teacher. Nature was only briefly touched upon when Dr. Nisha Money shared her study of ancient healing modalities for the US military. There was a brief dialogue about the environmental impacts of these technologies, but I would have really appreciated a more holistic approach to innovation and our relationship to the natural world. Personally, I think these technologies will enable us to return to nature, without the scarcity paradigm.

Quantum

Dr. Nisha Money was also the only speaker to discuss quantum. I believe that quantum is still a little too mystified for most people to pay attention to it, but quantum is one of my favorite areas of emerging technology. It’s a beautiful convergence of physics and philosophy, something that makes me feel infinite. I could continue waxing poetically about it, but I’ll save that for another time. For more on quantum tech start here.

We must continue the conversations…

Ultimately, this event was a great amuse bouche to emerging technologies and the future. I can’t confidently say it was the pinnacle definition of “sovereign tech” but it was a good start. More importantly, I was happy that there was a convening for people to gather and discuss. As moderator Jennifer DeSofi pointed out, “AI brought us all here” into the gathering space at ExpertDojo. These conversations are not going to stop, and in fact we need to be radically inclusive, extending these spaces of curiosity and play to those who may want nothing to do with tech. It’s easy to embrace pessimism in the face of uncertainty. We must be rebellious, practicing optimism and actively rejecting dystopia if we want a future we all will love.

I am grateful for the hosts, speakers and community members that came together for this event. Check out the event page here.

Ari Mostov is passionate about transforming imagination into reality. A narrative strategist, she works with innovators to build an irresistible future. For more visit www.wellplay.world