Technology mogul Jack Dorsey has long championed decentralized technologies such as Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC), suggesting their application in areas like artificial intelligence and social media.
People Working For Free For Social Media, AI Companies, Says Dorsey
Speaking at the Africa Bitcoin Conference in December 2024, Dorsey expressed concerns about the growing power and influence of social media platforms, stating that users are unknowingly working for these companies "for free" every time they interact with posts.
"Every time you hit the heart, every time you like a post, every time you retweet something, that's a signal to an algorithm which then takes that in a bunch of other variables and uses that as a way to push into someone else's feed," Dorsey, the co-founder of Twitter, now X, said. "That company has successfully made you an employee without paying you a thing."
Dorsey said the same was happening in the field of artificial intelligence, where the collective intelligence of the people is locked up within five big companies, which then decide how one interacts with systems.
See Also: Bitcoin (BTC) Price Predictions: 2025, 2026, 2030
"We need to own that protocol layer," Dorsey, the CEO of Bitcoin-focused company Block Inc. (NYSE:XYZ), said. "I should not have to ask Google whether to build a feature, nor should I be Reliant upon Google's algorithm to tell me what I should pay attention to."
Bitcoin-Like Decentralization Needed
He warned that people act as the "product" for these centralized models and "will be replaced" and rendered irrelevant whenever the companies desire.
In the same breath, Dorsey hailed Bitcoin's rise as a permissionless technology, predicting that it would grow even stronger in the future.
Is Bitcoin Moving Toward Centralization?
Bitcoin's origins may have been rooted in decentralization, but its rapid adoption by Wall Street in the form of exchange-traded funds and cryptocurrency treasury companies, such as Strategy Inc. (NASDAQ:MSTR), could be steering it toward heavier influence from major institutions.
Price Action: At the time of writing, BTC was exchanging hands at $2.97, up 3.85% in the last 24 hours, according to data from Benzinga Pro.
Block shares were down 0.14% in after-hours trading after closing 4.65% higher at $76.81 during Thursday's regular trading session.
The stock exhibited a very high growth score -- a measure of the stock's combined historical expansion in earnings and revenue across multiple periods. How does it compare with Strategy and other cryptocurrency-linked stocks? Visit Benzinga Edge Stock Rankings to find out.
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Bitcoin To Reach $750,000 In The Next 5 Years, Pantera Capital's Dan Morehead Says $BTCBitcoin - United States dollar$122874.390.34%Overview$XRPRipple - United States dollar$3.001.11%MSTRStrategy Inc$349.68-0.75%VVPRVivopower International PLC$5.46-2.85%XYZBlock Inc$76.850.05%Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs