David Irvine to Finally Launch his Decentralized Internet

'Autonomi' is a network run by millions of everyday devices, to host quantum secure, encrypted data permanently, protecting privacy and user control.

GLASGOW, SCOTLAND, UNITED KINGDOM, January 6, 2025 /EINPresswire.com/ -- David Irvine’s long awaited Network is set to launch.

Back in 2006 Scottish software engineer, David Irvine founded ‘MaidSafe’ - a company that promised to create a decentralized internet layer that, through encryption, would protect people's universal rights to privacy, security and self-sovereignty. The Network was to be known as SAFE (‘Secure Access for Everyone’) - it would be controlled by no one, and owned by everyone.

During the 18 years it has now been in development, the internet, its websites, applications and gatekeepers have also continued to evolve, creating wealth, efficiencies and integrations. David is quick to acknowledge that these technological advancements "have gone beyond enhancing the everyday internet user’s digital life, to profoundly impacting their real ones too".

The internet, with it's scroll, click or voice command functionality has collected a vast amount of information, with user's giving access to device data, sensory data, interaction data, personal data, online activity data, communication data, network and device data, behavioural data … and transactional data, to further improve their experience. Mr Irvine argues that while the increasing amount of connectivity, accessibility and data history is beneficial, that there is also a downside to the intuitive, convenient and information rich world that we live in. And, that as AI becomes more integrated into everyone's daily lives, there is an increasing risk of harm. MaidSafe's deployment of the SAFE Network, now known as 'Autonomi', seeks to address that.

As MaidSafe CEO, Sarah Buxton, puts it:

"Losing our personal and private data to AI, may also lead to the reduction and removal of our freedoms. Not just through (even ‘well meaning’) regulations and censorship, but through a genuinely dystopian ability for a select few, to manipulate, coerce and create a reality that's derived from application owners and AI design."

The Autonomi Network, as the website notes, is designed with AI and Robotics in mind. A decentralized and highly distributed infrastructure that removes hosting and subscription costs for application developers - and enables users to benefit from a level of privacy, previously associated with hosting files locally on a PC at home - although David is quick to add, that all data stored on the Autonomi Network is end-to-end quantum secure encrypted, as standard.

“With controlled AI, it's no longer shopping that is the worry, it's potentially civilisation wide control, and we won't even know it's happening. It's no longer a trivial thing we can sell for convenience, this is a threat to a species like none seen before.” David Irvine.

18 years of development has now culminated in the Network being publicly released later this month (January 2025), with developer programs and hosting incentives, for those running nodes, also going live.

When asked how a network like Autonomi compares with edge computing, Sarah Buxton, said:

"While ‘edge computing’ plays a role in trying to distribute computational resources, to improve latency and bandwidth, it doesn’t inherently solve our data privacy issues. If data needs to move between nodes or to the cloud for further utility then it still risks the potential of exposure and interception. Edge compute also, while being closer to the data source, doesn’t guarantee where or how data is ultimately stored - that's especially worrisome if third parties are involved".

The release of Autonomi will bring with it access to a decentralized internet layer, an infrastructure that can be run by millions of commodity devices. The Network will not impose any licenses, subscriptions or ongoing hosting fees, the only cost associated with storing data on Autonomi, will be a one-time payment, received by those hosting data through the running of a node. Once live David Irvine's MaidSafe will no longer have ownership or control over the Network, any IP as well as the custodial duty of network maintenance and improvements, will be transferred to the non-profit Swiss entity, known as 'The Autonomi Foundation'.

You can find out more about Autonomi by reading the Network’s White Paper.

You can also follow the launch of the network on ‘X’ @withautonomi, or join the community discussion via the Autonomi discord.

Gill McLaughlin
MaidSafe
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