The recent Coinbase State of Crypto Summit that took place last Thursday led participants into some interesting debates.
One of the biggest and potentially most controversial ones was the future of crypto/blockchain technologies and AI.
Specifically, venture capitalists and AI experts shared their thoughts on the matter, with some believing that the two will soon become inseparable.
The future of AI is tied to cryptocurrencies
With the US SEC recently filing lawsuits against Binance and Coinbase, the future of the crypto industry — at least in the US — was brought into question.
Digital assets are facing mounting regulatory pressure, which has also impacted their price performance.
However, while crypto remains a hot topic, with a lot of money involved, it has recently been dethroned as AI became an, even more, discussed emerging technology.
During Coinbase’s Summit last week, many experts shared their thoughts on the matter of AI during a panel on similarities and differences that crypto and AI have and how investors, builders, and users could capitalize from it all.
One of the crypto industry’s main ideas is the users are the sole owners and managers of their assets. More than that, crypto and blockchain offer the same for users’ data, identity, and more.
This is a completely opposite way of approaching such matters from what modern social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram have chosen.
These companies use their users’ data in many different ways, and sometimes, that includes ways that users do not agree with.
Meanwhile, the banks control the money, free to freeze it if they even suspect something unusual is happening.
The crypto industry is against this level of control, wanting users to own their own money and data. But, data ownership is applicable not only in Web3 but in AI, as well, according to Union Square Ventures’ Fred Wilson.
He argued that, in the future, users who employ AI tools will want to control their own data. They will also determine what models can or can’t train themselves using their (users’) information.
Wilson said,
“Users are going to need agency over data and increasingly the way they want it shared across assets.”
AI and crypto complement each other
Many agree with Wilson, noting that AI could open up additional opportunities to the blockchain industry. Adam Struck, founder and managing partner of Struck Crypto, said,
“You may actually see a situation where AI is sort of a catalyst to rush back to the blockchain.”
His company has been diving deep into AI ever since the ChatGPT bot came out.
Another company, CoinFund, recently backed a crypto startup co-funded by OpenAI’s Sam Altman called Tools for Humanity.
The startup raised $115 million, revealing real use cases for crypto in AI.
CoinFund’s Chief Investment Officer, Alex Felix, states that blockchain can bring greater transparency and decentralization to AI.
Tools of Humanity attracted investments due to its digital currency called Worldcoin. The project created a small orb that scans users’ eyeballs to generate their unique ID, granting them “proof of personhood.”
Combined with Worldcoin, this can be used to facilitate secure payments. Tiago Sada, the head of product at Tools for Humanity, said,
“For us, it started with where’s the world going with AI? And the way to solve that was crypto.”
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