
Can AI become a responsible technology, Amit Pradhan?
"Who owns you?" is the provocative question Amit Pradhan likes to ask audiences. The answer, he says, is about seven companies. And the current acceleration of AI isn't changing that, it's deepening it: training relative cognitive representations of who we are into systems we as users cannot control. Tech wasn't always built this way. When Charly moved to the Silicon Valley in the 80s, the engineers were chasing a challenge, not control. They were after building cool products no one else could. And wealth was a side effect, not the point. Somewhere between then and now, something shifted. Amit gives us a glimpse into what moves builders today - the metrics that dominate the room: how much you've raised, how fast you can cut your unit costs, how high your valuation climbs. Questions about who it actually serves, or what it costs humanity to get there, rarely make the agenda. So is a shift towards responsible AI even possible inside the current system? Or does answering that question require rebuilding the system underneath it - who owns the data, who profits from it and who gets a say? Amit Pradhan has spent the past several years trying to build that alternative with Rainfall, a self-sovereign AI platform built on the idea that your data - and the AI trained on it - should stay under your control. Amit is an entrepreneur and investor who's been part of the Valley for over two decades, co-founded the Silicon Valley Blockchain Society and has been an early mover in decentralized technology. He has served on multiple Boards, including the Norwegian Refugee Council (nrc.no), on the BMW Mobility Council and acts as a mentor to startup founders around the world. Resources mentioned: Burnout From Humans: A little book about AI that is not really about AI Rainfall: https://rainfall.one/ Episode Credits: Hosts: Charly Kleissner, Andrea Wyss Producer: Felix Zeltner Editing: Rabea Debus Photo: Monika Grassl


