«Data shapes our economic, political, and social ecosystems. However, we have little control over data’s effect on those ecosystems, and its influence can distort, manipulate, and even undermine them, leading to undesirable consequences. Like rivers, data affects ecosystems through flows. Analyzing these dataflows reveals how data is used (and misused) and uncovers opportunities to harness its value. Dataflows may generate value, such as when hospitals share patient data to improve care. They can also cause harm, such as when individuals’ data is sold to self-serving data brokers. Non-existing dataflows are equally significant; the lack of sharing among competitive actors, such as banks and governments, leaves much potential value unrealized. Despite dataflows’ outsized impact on our lives, we have little insight into what drives them and lack integrated means to control them when they are harmful. Controls boil down to regulation (legal instruments), incentives (economic instruments), and privacy-enhancing technologies (technical instruments) that are today independently developed and whose effectiveness we do not truly understand. This talk will argue that understanding the value of data is necessary to govern AI’s effects on our ecosystem.»