Users can run ChatGPT-like AI with data 'pods', says Tim Berners-Lee

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the world wide web, thinks the internet is working the wrong way after power has been concentrated in a few large companies instead of individuals. Along with John Bruce, he has set up a new company called Inrupt that aims to change how the internet works, CNBC reported.

Inrupt intends to bring into effect Berners-Lee's original vision for the internet where anybody who was geeky enough could get a computer, put a web server on it, and connect to the internet. Instead, users are going to the likes of Facebook, which collects data and controls what people can see about them. Inrupt has a nifty solution to change this.

How will Inrupt work?

Berners-Lee's initial vision was in 1989, when the world was very different. In 2023, the company does not expect users to start setting up their websites repeatedly. Instead, it wants to put user data into 'pods', much like online data storage containers.

Contained within would be all the information about the individual. Today, when users visit a website, it starts collecting data about them. Instead, when users have data pods, the website calls the customer and asks for access to data. Depending on the user's wishes, a website could get access to the data pod or just a silo of data. The entire system would be built using an open protocol called Solid, Berners-Lee told CNBC in a podcast interview.

Berners-Lee was also candid in his opinion that it wasn't blockchain that would be the future of the internet. According to him, the technology was neither fast nor offered privacy to users to take on the role, and digital currencies like Bitcoin were only speculative.

Bringing about such a radical change will take time. However, Berners-Lee pointed out multiple advantages of such a system. By putting information inside a pod, a user could also deploy artificial intelligence (AI) to work on it. It could serve as a personal assistant and answer queries, much like ChatGPT does today. Since the pod will contain all the information about the user, AI bots could be more personal in their responses, making them more effective.

OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, also said recently that it was working to allow more customization of its chatbot to bring in more diverse views, Reuters reported.