Fanbase Teams Up With Pocstock To Allow Users To Earn Money While Training AI On Their Content – AfroTech

Fanbase continues to find new ways for its users to profit from their content.

The Atlanta, GA-based company was founded by Isaac Hayes III in 2018. Through its social media platform, users are paid from day one for their content, including videos, photos, audio, and stories, as AFROTECH™ previously told you.

Fanbase is now teaming up with pocstock, a global diversity content company that offers royalty-free diversity stock photos, videos, and illustrations of Black, Hispanic, Asian, and Indigenous people, as well as people with disabilities. According to separate coverage from AFROTECH™, pocstock secured $500,000 in seed funding in a 2023 round led by 9.58 Venture Partners, with a portion of the funding used to integrate AI to improve the customer experience and ensure photographers have access to “cutting-edge, diversity-imaging solutions.”

“As with any frontier, especially technology, there will be a rush to get products out to the market,” pocstock CEO Steve Jones said in a newsletter shared on LinkedIn at the time.

“Tech is all about breaking it, fixing it, and figuring it out as the market’s needs shape the product, but AI cannot be one of them. We cannot let poorly trained AI models loose on the world and then recall it, like other products. AI is not born intelligent. It learns to mimic human intelligence by being trained using massive amounts of data. It can learn to be racist from the data it receives, and pocstock has the type of data it needs,” he continued.

Now working alongside Fanbase, the pair are filling a gap to create a more equitable field in AI. According to a press release, AI will be trained on the content shared on Fanbase, and users who opt in to participate will be compensated.

“I am really excited about this partnership because this is exactly what Fanbase stands for. We value the cultural and creative contributions that our users make every day. This collaboration with pocstock allows us to honor that value by making sure users are compensated for the content that helps build the future of AI and the entire social media ecosystem,” Hayes said in a press release.

Jones added:

“This partnership is about opening the door for creators to the rapidly growing world of AI. AI is changing how our ideas are made and shared, and we want to make sure our community has a real place in the AI economy. Not just as consumers, but as producers. We’re excited to join forces with Fanbase and give more creators access.”