We have reached an impasse: AIs have already read almost the entire public internet. What now? How to continue evolving without violating copyright or privacy? The answer lies in Synthetic Data.
What is Synthetic Data?
It is data artificially generated by algorithms, mimicking the statistical properties of real data, but without containing information about real people.
Imagine training an AI to detect cancer. Instead of using 1 million X-rays of real patients (which invades privacy), we use an AI to generate 1 million realistic, but fictional, X-rays.
Why Is It the Future?
- Guaranteed Privacy: Since the data belongs to no one, there is no risk of leaking personal information (GDPR).
- Reduced Bias: We can program data generation to be perfectly balanced (e.g., 50% men, 50% women), eliminating historical biases.
- Infinite Cost: Generating data is much cheaper than collecting, cleaning, and labeling real-world data.
The AI Paradox
We are entering an era where AIs train AIs. The challenge now is to ensure that this “simulated reality” does not disconnect from the real world.
