In Episode 5 of Azadeh and Guy on AI, Guy and Azadeh dig into one of the most pressing, and underexplored, questions of the AI era: who actually owns our data? Guy draws on two compelling examples that reframed his thinking: Finnish researchers who gave elementary school students real control over their digital traces, and indigenous First Nations communities wrestling with whether to share their cultural knowledge with AI platforms at all. Both stories surface the same core tension, between the power that comes from participating in the AI ecosystem and the loss of control that participation demands.
The conversation takes a sharper turn when they tackle the role of regulation. Guy admits feeling genuinely conflicted: yes, we need laws that protect people’s data sovereignty, but the recent examples of what governments actually do with AI authority, from authoritarian censorship to pressuring companies like Anthropic over military use, are sobering. His conclusion: regulation that enfranchises people, yes. Regulation that restricts democratic freedoms, absolutely not. It’s a hard line to walk, but as both hosts agree, we have to do something.
