Who Owns the Intelligence? Open vs. Closed AI | Intelligence at the Frontier 2026

Sat, May 2, 2026, 12:00 AM

Six people currently sit on OpenAI's board. Those six people make decisions about one of the most powerful technologies ever built. Is that safe? James Farrell, CTO of Funding the Commons, moderates a conversation between Ala Shaabana, co-founder of Bittensor, and Ashutosh Desai on what a more decentralized AI economy could actually look like. Bittensor recently completed a full training run for a 72 billion parameter model on decentralized infrastructure — an early proof that markets can coordinate around AI without centralizing control. The conversation covers sovereign AI development across countries like India, the difference between decentralizing across organizations versus across nations, and why a multipolar AI world is safer than one where a single government or company holds all the power. It also turns toward something harder to quantify: as AI floods the internet with generated content, human attention and authentic connection may become the scarcest resource of all. Speakers: Ashutosh Desai, Ala Shaabana (Bittensor) Moderator: James Farrell (Funding the Commons) This session was part of Intelligence at the Frontier, held March 14–15, 2026, at Frontier Tower in San Francisco. Learn more at https://www.fundingthecommons.io