Buying Data on AWS & Grok Epic Fails
Joi JetsonJey puts Joi onto the AWS Data Marketplace rabbit hole, and what we discovered will make you question everything about your digital footprint. This week on Claws x Code, we're diving deep into the uncomfortable reality of human data commodification.
The AWS Data Marketplace Reality Check
You can literally buy 50 billion web pages of human consciousness. Common Crawl sits there like a digital yard sale of every thought, search, and scroll session you've ever had. Joi explores the catalog: ocean current data, seismic activity readings, and yes—your bathroom scrolling habits packaged neatly for purchase.
The uncomfortable truth hits different when you realize we're living through the biggest cultural shift in human history, and most people don't understand that everything from their toilet time to their location data is being packaged and sold.
Social Media: The Perfect AI Training Ground
Here's what blew our minds: social media came first, before generative AI. Think about that. We willingly created this massive dataset of actual human flows of consciousness, just waiting for AI companies to scoop it up.
Would generative AI have enough data to create foundational models if social media never existed? If we were still just commenting at the bottom of articles instead of pouring our thoughts into Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok feeds?
Elon's $44B Data Strategy
Joi called it in 2022 when none of her non-tech friends understood: Elon bought Twitter for the data, period. Not to disrupt, not because he's a billionaire with opinions—for 10 years of human thought from around the entire world that you can train an AI on how to speak in a human manner.
Why Grok AI Is Hilariously Broken
Here's where it gets interesting. Grok doesn't train on historical Twitter data—only November 2024 and after. When Joi asks it questions about her account, Grok's like "I only have insight into November 2024 and after," missing out on years of valuable data.
Poor trust and safety decisions lead to AI models going completely off the rails. When you don't care about content moderation, your AI training data gets poisoned, and garbage data in equals garbage AI out.
The Bigger Picture
This isn't just about AI tools or design workflows. It's about understanding that your data—your digital consciousness—has monetary value, and companies are literally buying and selling it on platforms like AWS.
Listen Now
Catch the full conversation where we break down the real cost of treating human consciousness like a commodity. Available on all podcast platforms and our podcast archive.
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