Okay, Google's investing in InterLink Labs. Big deal, right? Yet another Web2 behemoth testing the waters in the supposedly decentralized future of Web3. Everyone’s at CES congratulating themselves, high fiving each other, celebrating the validation, the top-of-the-hype-cycle capital, the future. But hold on a second. Are we really thinking this through?

Decentralization or Centralization 2.0?

Let's be honest: The prevailing Web3 narrative is often dangerously optimistic. We’re so anxious for blockchain to be successful that we gloss over the obvious risks. At first glance, Google’s $1 million investment in InterLink Labs seems awesome. It risks inadvertently creating the conditions for a whole new kind of centralized-outcome-in-centrally-controlled-disguise-as-decentralized paradox.

Think about it. InterLink Labs focuses on decentralized identity. Great. But what if I told you that Google’s reach was already beginning to dictate how that identity is created, controlled, and utilized? Will this new technology live up to that purported ability to empower users? Or will it simply become another means for Google to surveil, profile, and monetize our online activities? I’m not suggesting that it will, but we have to be willing to ask these hard questions.

This isn't just about Google. It's about the fundamental tension between the utopian vision of Web3 and the practical realities of large corporations. After all, these companies didn’t achieve the monopolistic dominance they hold today by playing soft and bending the knee. They got there by building empires. And empires need to be fed.

InterLink ID Core: A Trojan Horse?

Providing this seamless experience is InterLink Labs’ ID core technology, which serves as the backbone of identity. Their "scan-to-own, scan-to-verify, and scan-to-transact" capabilities, while innovative, could become dangerously intertwined with Google's existing ecosystem. Consider as another example a future where your decentralized identity is natively woven into your Google account, creating unrivaled convenience. Sounds great, right?

What about the data? Where does it reside? Who controls access? How easily can it be revoked? The devil, as always, is in the details.

What we need to know is the technical details of how Google’s participation will change the course of InterLink ID core. Will it stay as decentralized as it’s touted to be, or will it turn into a fancy API that sends information back to Google’s data centers? Will it be open-source and permissionless or will it be built on Google’s terms of service?

These are not hypothetical concerns. So this is the future of digital identity that we’re discussing. We can only hope to avoid a future in which our digital and physical lives become even more intertwined. A future where the balance between privacy and convenience is being eroded at a terrifying pace.

UBI & AI: False Sense of Security?

The case of InterLink Labs, which has developed an AI-powered UBI application. Without question, this is a space worth monitoring closely. The promise of using AI to verify real human participation and distribute UBI is alluring, especially in an age of rampant bots and fake accounts. It raises serious ethical questions.

Who decides what constitutes "real human participation"? What inequities are rooted in the data behind the AI algorithms? How do we instill fairness, equity, and transparency in the system? What about the data that must be collected to verify the process?

To believe that AI presents the answers to all our Web3 woes is an alluring, but dangerous, illusion. AI is a tool, and as any tool, it can be used for good or ill. So we need to be extremely cautious about placing our trust in algorithms to manage our online identities. They affect our economic prosperity, and we’re all flying blind on what they do.

The Web3 Community: Wake Up!

As a Web3 community, we have to hold ourselves accountable and begin to ask hard-hitting questions. For one thing, we can’t celebrate every corporate investment as a win. That’s why we should be positive, hopeful, and forward-looking, but critical, skeptical, and demanding transparency.

We should hold companies like Google to the letter and spirit of their commitments. We need to ensure that their entry into Web3 is user empowering. It’s important to continue to push for decentralization, maintaining privacy, and keeping users in control.

Interlink’s spectacular weekly 220 million TV impression reach with New to The Street’s “Opportunities To Consider” series featuring Interlink is victorious. This fantastic media coverage will certainly help raise Interlink’s profile, but it doesn’t guarantee favorable outcomes for real decentralization success.

  • Demand transparency: Ask InterLink Labs and Google to publicly disclose the terms of their partnership and the technical details of how their technologies will be integrated.
  • Support open-source alternatives: Invest in and promote truly decentralized identity solutions that are not beholden to corporate interests.
  • Educate yourselves: Learn about the technical and ethical implications of decentralized identity and AI-powered UBI.

The future of Web3 is not predetermined. It's up to us to shape it. Let’s not allow the seduction of corporate approval to shine a light on dangers that could await us. Let's ensure that the silent revolution InterLink Labs is igniting doesn't end up being a revolution that centralizes power in the hands of a few. Our digital freedom depends on it. If this is indeed the case, we must all be anxious and outraged.