A VRM Day at Harvard Law School in 2008

We’ve been in an uphill fight to empower people—customers—in online markets where the prevailing belief is that captive customers are more valuable than free ones. (The value of free customers is well-understood, though not always respected, in offline markets.) And we’ve been in this fight for more than seventeen years.

But now AI is all the craze.

Question: Can AI help VRM? And vice versa?

Think about what would happen if people had their own AI systems, working for them and not for companies whose business is selling you something (e.g. Amazon), pushing advertising at you (e.g. Google), or trapping you in their walled garden (e.g. Apple)? Why not have our own AI, to help us make better sense of our contacts, our calendars, our health, financial, property, travel, and other kinds of data? And then, when the need arises, have our personal AI help us make well-informed decisions about what to buy, how, and where, without being biased by marketers and their bots on the other side?

Those are just a few questions we’ll be visiting two Mondays from now, October 9, at VRM Day in the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. The time frame will be 9am to 4pm. There is also plenty of parking (the Museum is otherwise closed on Mondays).

We’ll visit other questions that come up, of course. And participants with something to show off are free to do that as well. And some will, especially with IIW happening the following three days, also at the Computer History Museum.

Registering here isn’t necessary, but it helps to have a head count.

See you there!