Transcendent questions on the future of AI: New starting points for breaking the logjam of AI tribal thinking

Posted on by David Wood

Going nowhere fast

Imagine you’re listening to someone you don’t know very well. Perhaps you’ve never even met in real life. You’re just passing acquaintances on a social networking site. A friend of a friend, say. Let’s call that person FoF.

FoF is making an unusual argument. You’ve not thought much about it before. To you, it seems a bit subversive.

You pause. You click on FoF’s profile, and look at other things he has said. Wow, one of his other statements marks him out as an apparent supporter of Cause Z. (That’s a cause I’ve made up for the sake of this fictitious dialog.)

You shudder. People who support Cause Z have got their priorities all wrong. They’re committed to an outdated ideology. Or they fail to understand free market dynamics. Or they’re ignorant of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. Whatever. There’s no need for you to listen to them.

Indeed, since FoF is a supporter of Cause Z, you’re tempted to block him. Why let his subversive ill-informed ideas clutter up your tidy filter bubble?

But today, you’re feeling magnanimous. You decide to break into the conversation, with your own explanation of why Cause Z is mistaken.

In turn, FoF finds your remarks unusual. First, it’s nothing to do with what he had just been saying. Second, it’s not a line of discussion he has heard before. To him, it seems a bit subversive.

FoF pauses. He clicks on your social media profile, and looks at other things you’ve said. Wow. One of your other statements marks you out as an apparent supporter of Clause Y.

FoF shudders. People who support Cause Y have got their priorities all wrong.

FoF feels magnanimous too. He breaks into your conversation, with his explanation as to why Cause Y is bunk.

By now, you’re exasperated. FoF has completely missed the point you were making. This time you really are going to block him. Goodbye.

The result: nothing learned at all.

And two people have had their emotions stirred up in unproductive ways. Goodness knows when and where each might vent their furies.

Credit: David Wood

Trying again

We’ve all been the characters in this story on occasion. We’ve all missed opportunities to learn, and, in the process, we’ve had our emotions stirred up for no good reason.

Let’s consider how things could have gone better.

The first step forward is a commitment to resist prejudice. Maybe FoF really is a supporter of Cause Z. But that shouldn’t prejudge the value of anything else he also happens to say. Maybe you really are a supporter of Cause Y. But that doesn’t mean FoF should jump to conclusions about other opinions you offer.

Ideally, ideas should be separated from the broader philosophies in which they might be located. Ideas should be assessed on their own merits, without regard to who first advanced them – and regardless of who else supports them.

In other words, activists must be ready to set aside some of their haste and self-confidence, and instead adopt, at least for a while, the methods of the academy rather than the methods of activism.

That’s because, frankly, the challenges we’re facing as a global civilization are so complex as to defy being fully described by any one of our worldviews.

Cause Z may indeed have useful insights – but also some nasty blindspots. Likewise for Cause Y, and all the other causes and worldviews that gather supporters from time to time. None of them have all the answers.

On a good day, FoF appreciates that point. So do you. Both of you are willing, in principle, to supplement your own activism with a willingness to assess new ideas.

That’s in principle. The practice is often different.

That’s not just because we are tribal beings – having inherited tribal instincts from our prehistoric evolutionary ancestors.

It’s also because the ideas that are put forward as starting points for meaningful open discussions all too often fail in that purpose. They’re intended to help us set aside, for a while, our usual worldviews. But all too often, they have just a thin separation from well-known ideological positions.

These ideas aren’t sufficiently interesting in their own right. They’re too obviously a proxy for an underlying cause.

That’s why real effort needs to be put into designing what can be called transcendent questions.

These questions are potential starting points for meaningful non-tribal open discussions. These questions have the ability to trigger a suspension of ideology.

But without good transcendent questions, the conversation will quickly cascade back down to its previous state of logjam. That’s despite the good intentions people tried to keep in mind. And we’ll be blocking each other – if not literally, then mentally.

Credit: Tesfu Assefa

The AI conversation logjam

Within discussions of the future of AI, some tribal positions are well known –

One tribal group is defined by the opinion that so-called AI systems are not ‘true’ intelligence. In this view, these AI systems are just narrow tools, mindless number crunchers, statistical extrapolations, or stochastic parrots. People in this group delight in pointing out instances where AI systems make grotesque errors.

A second tribal group is overwhelmed with a sense of dread. In this view, AI is on the point of running beyond control. Indeed, Big Tech is on the point of running beyond control. Open-source mavericks are on the point of running beyond control. And there’s little that can be done about any of this.

A third group is focused on the remarkable benefits that advanced AI systems can deliver. Not only can such AI systems solve problems of climate change, poverty and malnutrition, cancer and dementia, and even aging. Crucially, they can also solve any problems that earlier, weaker generations of AI might be on the point of causing. In this view, it’s important to accelerate as fast as possible into that new world.

Crudely, these are the skeptics, the doomers, and the accelerationists. Sadly, they often have dim opinions of each other. When they identify a conversation partner as being a member of an opposed tribe, they shudder.

Can we find some transcendent questions, which will allow people with sympathies for these various groups to overcome, for a while, their tribal loyalties, in search of a better understanding? Which questions might unblock the AI safety conversation logjam?

Unblocking the AI safety conversation logjam (Credit: David Wood)

A different starting point

In this context, I want to applaud Rob Bensinger. Rob is the communications lead at an organization called MIRI (the Machine Intelligence Research Institute).

(Just in case you’re tempted to strop away now, muttering unkind thoughts about MIRI, let me remind you of the commitment you made, a few paragraphs back, not to prejudge an idea just because the person raising it has some associations you disdain.)

(You did make that commitment, didn’t you?)

Rob has noticed the same kind of logjam and tribalism that I’ve just been talking about. As he puts it in a recent article:

Recent discussions of AI x-risk in places like Twitter tend to focus on “are you in the Rightthink Tribe, or the Wrongthink Tribe?” Are you a doomer? An accelerationist? An EA? A techno-optimist?

I’m pretty sure these discussions would go way better if the discussion looked less like that. More concrete claims, details, and probabilities; fewer vague slogans and vague expressions of certainty.

Following that introduction, Rob introduces his own set of twelve questions, as shown in the following picture:

Credit: Rob Bensinger

For each of the twelve questions, readers are invited, not just to give a forthright ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer, but to think probabilistically. They’re also invited to consider which range of probabilities other well-informed people with good reasoning abilities might plausibly assign to each answer.

It’s where Rob’s questions start that I find most interesting.

PCAI, SEMTAI, and PHUAI

All too often, discussions about the safety of future AI systems fail at the first hurdle. As soon as the phrase ‘AGI’ is mentioned, unhelpful philosophical debates break out.That’s why I have been suggesting new terms, such as PCAI, SEMTAI, and PHUAI:

Credit: David Wood

I’ve suggested the pronunciations ‘pea sigh’, ‘sem tie’, and ‘foo eye’ – so that they all rhyme with each other and, also, with ‘AGI’. The three acronyms stand for:

  • Potentially Catastrophic AI
  • Science, Engineering, and Medicine Transforming AI
  • Potentially Humanity-Usurping AI.

These concepts lead the conversation fairly quickly to three pairs of potentially transcendent questions:

  • “When is PCAI likely to be created?” and “How could we stop these potentially catastrophic AI systems from being actually catastrophic?”
  • “When is SEMTAI likely to be created?” and “How can we accelerate the advent of SEMTAI without also accelerating the advent of dangerous versions of PCAI or PHUAI?”
  • “When is PHUAI likely to be created?” and “How could we stop such an AI from actually usurping humanity into a very unhappy state?”

The future most of us can agree as being profoundly desirable, surely, is one in which SEMTAI exists and is working wonders, uplifting the disciplines of science, engineering, and medicine.

If we can gain these benefits without the AI systems being “fully general” or “all-round superintelligent” or “independently autonomous, with desires and goals of its own”, I would personally see that as an advantage.

But regardless of whether SEMTAI actually meets the criteria various people have included in their own definitions of AGI, what path gives humanity SEMTAI without also giving us PCAI or even PHUAI? This is the key challenge.

Credit: David Wood

Introducing ‘STEM+ AI’

Well, I confess that Rob Bensinger didn’t start his list of potentially transcendent questions with the concept of SEMTAI.

However, the term he did introduce was, as it happens, a slight rearrangement of the same letters: ‘STEM+ AI’. And the definition is pretty similar too:

Let ‘STEM+ AI’ be short for “AI that’s better at STEM research than the best human scientists (in addition to perhaps having other skills).

That leads to the first three questions on Rob’s list:

  1. What’s the probability that it’s physically impossible to ever build STEM+ AI?
  2. What’s the probability that STEM+ AI will exist by the year 2035?
  3. What’s the probability that STEM+ AI will exist by the year 2100?

At this point, you should probably pause, and determine your own answers. You don’t need to be precise. Just choose between one of the following probability ranges:

  • Below 1%
  • Around 10%
  • Around 50%
  • Around 90%
  • Above 99%

I won’t tell you my answers. Nor Rob’s, though you can find them online easily enough from links in his main article. It’s better if you reach your own answers first.

And recall the wider idea: don’t just decide your own answers. Also consider which probability ranges someone else might assign, assuming they are well-informed and competent in reasoning.

Then when you compare your answers with those of a colleague, friend, or online acquaintance, and discover surprising differences, the next step, of course, is to explore why each of you have reached your conclusions.

The probability of disempowering humanity

The next question that causes conversations about AI safety to stumble: what scales of risks should we look at? Should we focus our concern on so-called ‘existential risk’? What about ‘catastrophic risk’?

Rob seeks to transcend that logjam too. He raises questions about the probability that a STEM+ AI will disempower humanity. Here are questions 4 to 6 on his list:

  1. What’s the probability that, if STEM+AI is built, then AIs will be (individually or collectively) able, within ten years, to disempower humanity?
  2. What’s the probability that, if STEM+AI is built, then AIs will disempower humanity within ten years?
  3. What’s the probability that, if STEM+AI is built, then AIs will disempower humanity within three months?

Question 4 is about capability: given STEM+ AI abilities, will AI systems be capable, as a consequence, to disempower humanity?

Questions 5 and 6 move from capability to proclivity. Will these AI systems actually exercise these abilities they have acquired? And if so, potentially how quickly?

Separating the ability and proclivity questions is an inspired idea. Again, I invite you to consider your answers.

Two moral evaluations

Question 7 introduces another angle, namely that of moral evaluation:

  • 7. What’s the probability that, if AI wipes out humanity and colonizes the universe itself, the future will go about as well as if humanity had survived (or better)?
Credit: David Wood

The last question in the set – question 12 – also asks for a moral evaluation:

  • 12. How strongly do you agree with the statement that it would be an unprecedentedly huge tragedy if we never built STEM+ AI?

Yet again, these questions have the ability to inspire fruitful conversation and provoke new insights.

Better technology or better governance?

You may have noticed I skipped numbers 8-11. These four questions may be the most important on the entire list. They address questions of technological possibility and governance possibility. Here’s question 11:

  • 11. What’s the probability that governments will generally be reasonable in how they handle AI risk?

And here’s question 10:

  • 10. What’s the probability that, for the purpose of preventing AI catastrophes, technical research is more useful than policy work?

As for questions 8 and 9, well, I’ll leave you to discover these by yourself. And I encourage you to become involved in the online conversation that these questions have catalyzed.

Finally, if you think you have a better transcendent question to drop into the conversation, please let me know!

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The Human Flaw: The Power Struggle to Control God

Posted on by SB Fisher

In the last few weeks, we’ve been treated to a wonderful display of backbiting, intrigue, sentimental hogwash, and brazen power grabbing as the leadership of OpenAI embarked upon a delicious bout of internecine warfare. Altman and Brock were out, then in again, three different CEOs stepped up. Cryptic messages, dark secrets, panicked whispers of a runaway AGI – and Microsoft looming over the show, threatening to buy the whole auditorium and kick out the audience.

An Uneasy Alliance

A solution, it seems, has been found. An entente cordiale between the power players, with Altman restored as head of the board and Microsoft taking an ‘observer’ seat. Ilya, whose Iago-like poisoning of the board against Altman, was left posting heart emojis on Twitter and celebrating the return of the man he tried to stab in the front. 

Overall, OpenAI’s staff, at least publicly, looked like college students playing at realpolitik before realising these games have consequences, and that powerful forces like Microsoft could scrub OpenAI from the songsheets of the future. And you couldn’t help but wonder at the vaguely cultish, student dorm vibes of it all, and begin to interrogate who exactly is in command of gestating what some say could be the most powerful and society-changing technology ever created.

Drama Sells

There is so much wrong with this whole sordid affair, it’s hard to know where to begin. Mostly, it’s the depressing despair at just how two-faced literally everyone in the corporate world is – publicly and without shame. The complete lack of professionalism displayed on a grand scale at one of the world’s most important companies is cause for alarm. Altman’s ousting was visibly a blatant grab for power, and Altman was quite willing to sell the whole project down the river and gift the vicious zaibatsu that is Microsoft the keys to the kingdom so that he could remain in charge – and continue to prance about as the figurehead of the AI revolution. It was galling.

It’s sad, it’s irresponsible, and worst of all everyone involved is arguing from a position of ‘principle’ that, to this scathing observer, is utterly asinine and false. Make no mistake: this is about money, and this is about power, and – curiously – this is about advertising. The boat-rocking hasn’t tipped the crew overboard, but it’s certainly made some waves. ‘Dangerous new model’, ‘scary powerful’ – is what they say about Q*. Well, you sell the sizzle, not the steak, don’t you? It reestablishes OpenAI at the front of the minds of everyone interested in AI just as the next wave of GPT-products come online. 

Credit: Tesfu Assefa

Speed Up or Slow Down

Of course, I might be wrong. And, even if I’m not, there is a clear schism developing in OpenAI – and across the sector as a whole – about the balance between commercial gain and building AI in a manner ‘that benefits all humanity’ (As OpenAI’s mission statement reads. Don’t be evil, etc. – as Google used to say). 

There are the accelerationists, who believe AI will rebuild society and we should strain every sinew to advancing and deploying it in everyday life. There are the decelerationists, who believe the risks associated with unbridled AI threaten to not so much rebuild society, as tear it apart. Altman wants to go faster, Ilya wants to slow down. Altman wants to sell, sell, sell. Ilya wants to build the right way.

For what it’s worth, the decelerationists are wrong. We humans are a pack of Pandoras, and we will open the box. If you don’t do it, someone else will. Capitalism allows for nothing else. If you want to decelerate, fine, resign and go live out what’s left of your normal days on an island. You can’t stop this, Ilya. I applaud principled stances – it’s just a shame that stance was achieved through an attempted coup, and abandoned as soon as they realised it wasn’t going to work.

But for the Altmans out there, or the Altman-fans. Don’t be too quick to think this victory for accelerationism, for commercialism, and for Microsoft (the real winner) is some holy mission to advance AI. It’s only a matter of time before AI-bots are flogged to torment our grandmothers on social media with targeted ads. 

Creation Protocols

Fully-aligned AGI is a powerful dream. A benevolent, technipotent, tireless agent that works to administrate, advance, and protect humanity. The question of alignment is essential, especially when it comes to manufacturing intelligences that have any type of independent ‘will’ that can act beyond their given purpose. Just as essential, though, is the problematic use of ‘dumb’ LLMs to proliferate marketing messaging, sales calls, social interactions – and how their continued use could destabilise the fabric of society. OpenAI and other AI manufacturers must contend with both questions. But it’s easy to guess which they will go for when answering to their shareholders. 

There is a human flaw. We are building new gods, but they can’t escape the stains of our morality. We humans can’t help but fight over hierarchy and power. We can’t help but want more and more. It would be a cosmic joke if, just as we approach a singularity which could help us transcend as a species, our ape-like tensions and fireside bickering bring it all crashing down. Worse, we may end up creating a promethean monster, aided and abetted by corporations who don’t care what they do. It will be up to us to forgive them.

Let us know your thoughts! Sign up for a Mindplex account now, join our Telegram, or follow us on Twitter. 

SingularityNET (AGIX): A Deep Dive on the Best AI Crypto Marketplace

Posted on by Werner

Introduction

2023 has been a breakout year for artificial intelligence, with the astonishing superpowers of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Midjourney, and others turning AI into the trending technology of the year and taking most of the shine (and funding) off previous darling Web3. 

Soon enough, savvy technologists connected the dots between blockchain technology and AI. They understood that all roads lead to Rome – a decentralized Internet that requires vast resources will need incentives to scale, and a big chunk of it will come from distributed ledger networks. 

As a result, there has been a dramatic surge in the price of so-called AI cryptocurrencies such as SingularityNET, which we covered in our Top 20 List of AI Cryptos for 2024 Part 1 and Part 2. Its token, AGIX, shot up from $0.04 at the start of 2023 to a crazy $0.58 in the beginning of February, and currently sits around $0.31 (December 2023).

Mindplex Magazine is a part of the SingularityNET ecosystem, so it’s an honor to tell our readers a bit more about this incredible project. Here’s what you need to know about SingularityNET, Sophia the robot, and the AGIX token. 

What is SingularityNET?

SingularityNET is an AI-focused project that leverages blockchain technology to redefine how artificial intelligence is developed, shared, and commercialized. The project’s mission is to go beyond conventional AI by open-sourcing the concept of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).

SingularityNET has built a decentralized AI marketplace that allows developers to share their AI innovations, collaborate, and directly monetize their AI solutions without using third-party intermediaries. 

SingularityNET wants AI, one of the most important technologies that humans have ever worked on, to thrive by creating an environment where innovators can directly sell their AI solutions to consumers. SingularityNET, one of the top AI cryptocurrencies, has a utility token known as AGIX.

At the height of the initial coin offering in December 2017, SingularityNET raised $36 million in one minute. It also received a $25 million investment from LDA Capital in May 2022. Some of SingularityNET’s notable investors include Kosmos Ventures, Fundamental Labs, Zeroth.AI, and Elizabeth Hunker.

Who Created SingularityNET?

SingularityNET was founded in 2017 by a team including current CEO Dr. Ben Goertzel and Dr. David Hanson, two visionaries working at the intersection of AI and blockchain technology. Their credentials and track record in their fields of expertise lend credence to SingularityNET and the wider crypto sphere. 

Born in Brazil, Dr. Goertzel is a cognitive scientist and AI researcher who played a crucial role in popularizing the term ‘Artificial General Intelligence’. Apart from serving as the CEO of SingularityNET, he is the chairman and chief scientist of AI software firm Novamente LLC, chairs the OpenCog Foundation, and is the host of the Mindplex Podcast.

David Hanson is a roboticist who founded and serves as the CEO of Hanson Robotics, a Hong Kong-based company known for creating human-like robots like…

Sophia the robot

Hanson Robotics’ best-known work is Sophia, a humanoid robot that has received media attention for reasons such as obtaining Saudi Arabian citizenship, selling an NFT artwork for nearly $700,000, and being appointed the first robot Ambassador for the United Nations Development Programme. She often accompanies Dr. Goertzel at various blockchain conferences across the world such as Token2049 in Singapore, where I had the pleasure of meeting her and conversing a little bit. 

The verdict is still out on whether androids dream of electric sheep, but what’s certain is that Sophia is living the life that many people only dream of.

SingularityNET (AGIX) Tokenomics

SingularityNET’s maximum supply is capped at 2 billion AGIX tokens. The utilities of the AGIX token include:

  • Governance – most tokens in the crypto sector are being used for governance purposes, and AGIX is no different. AGIX tokenholders can vote on issues affecting the platform’s governance.
  • Staking and Rewards – AGIX holders can stake their tokens to receive rewards every 30 days.
  • Payment – AGIX tokens are used to settle payments within the SingularityNET ecosystem.

How Does SingularityNET Work?

SingularityNET, which represents one of the many use cases of AI and blockchain, creates a network of AI services where developers showcase and monetize their AI solutions through a decentralized network. On the other end, users can buy AI solutions or test them before making a payment.

The platform wants to eventually build a scalable platform that is less reliant on Ethereum and more chain-agnostic. To make this happen smoothly, SingularityNET utilizes some tools and systems that include Daemon and its SDK.

What is Daemon?

Daemon is an under-the-radar but important component that acts as a sidecar proxy service within the SingularityNET ecosystem. It is more like an assistant that helps to manage tasks related to payments, Ethereum smart contracts, and other blockchain-related tasks.

There are lots of technicalities involved in the functioning of Daemon, but in simpler terms, it ensures smooth and secure interactions between developers and users especially when it comes to financial transactions.

Registry and Multi-Party Escrow Smart Contracts

SingularityNET utilizes two critical smart contracts – Registry and Multi-Party Escrow – for the network to operate fluidly.

Registry, as the name implies, is a database where developers and AI service providers list the important details of their products or services. The Multi-Party Escrow is a smart contract that provides escrow services for users and AI service providers. It also enables cheaper and faster transactions.

SDK

In general, an SDK (software development kit) is a collection of software development tools bundled together in an installable package.

SingularityNET’s SDK is a handy tool for consumers using AI services. It makes it easier for them to connect with SingularityNET services. The SDK also helps by automatically adding the required permissions to the tool used for connecting to these services, making the whole process smoother.

What are SingularityNET’s Main Products?

The core products of the SingularityNET ecosystem are:

SingularityNET AI Marketplace

This is the most important product of SingularityNET because it encapsulates the main ideas of the SingularityNET platform – democratizing and monetizing AI tools on decentralized blockchain architecture.

The SingularityNET AI Marketplace is a decentralized app that lets developers list their AI services and allows consumers to browse their desired AI services and products. The marketplace is simple to use, a major step in getting more people to interact with the platform. Users need to have a Metamask wallet, the gateway to Web3, or a traditional online wallet such as PayPal to make payments on the marketplace.

SingularityNET AI Publisher

The AI Publisher is the backend portal for developers and innovators on SingularityNET. It serves as a gateway for developers to effortlessly showcase and oversee their AI services. 

The process is straightforward – developers complete uncomplicated forms and share basic onboarding information about the intended service. It is as easy as filling out a Google form. Those using the portal can access advanced AI applications, beta testing tools, and analytics that track the usage of their AI services.

Credit: Tesfu Assefa

SingularityNET and Cardano’s Partnership

SingularityNET and Cardano (ADA) are long-time collaborators with the shared objective of democratizing and decentralizing access to emerging technologies through blockchain technology.

As a decentralized AI marketplace, SingularityNET has been focusing on improving the interoperability between the Cardano and Ethereum protocols, such as developing a token bridge to enable transactions between the two networks. 

In 2023, SingularityNET, in partnership with IOHK (the organization behind Cardano), announced they intend to move a substantial part of SingularityNET’s decentralized protocol from Ethereum to Cardano, by converting ERC-20 AGI tokens to a Cardano-compatible version, and recreating Solidity-based smart contracts in Cardano’s Plutus smart contract language.

Additionally, SingularityNET has introduced staking for its native token, AGIX, on the Cardano blockchain. This feature enables users to engage in and contribute to the expansion and wider adoption of the Cardano ecosystem.

AGIX Staking

SingularityNET has a staking platform where AGIX holders can lock up their AGIX holdings in exchange for incentives. Users can stake their AGIX tokens for 30 days. After that, they can redeem their rewards and staked AGIX tokens or roll them over for the next staking period.

In November 2023, SingularityNET rolled out staking on the Cardano blockchain, in addition to Ethereum.

Conclusion

SingularityNET is a blossoming AI-powered blockchain ecosystem that is wildly ambitious in its goals and enjoys the backing of a strong team and partners such as the Cardano and Ethereum communities. With artificial intelligence still in its infancy and the next crypto bull market potentially shaping up for 2024, the platform is only getting started, and you can stay up to date with all its latest developments here.

Let us know your thoughts! Sign up for a Mindplex account now, join our Telegram, or follow us on Twitter. 

Libraries of Hope

Posted on by SB Fisher

The storage of information for future generations is a sacred, necessary act. The battle for information that is available to us never ceases. For decades though, with the advent of widespread internet access, we have acclimated to the belief that anyone with a smartphone can access anything they want at any time. 

The days of ordering books from your local library archive to look up a fact or some statistics is so ancient as to feel quaint, with only scholars at the academic fringes ever delving into the paper mausoleums we have accumulated. Most of us feel, rightly or wrongly (which we’ll get into), that we could find any information we could ever need.

Yet as we live through the Information Age, as the output of humanity’s data streams escalate daily, libraries are not becoming obsolete, but ever more relevant. Libraries are not some ancient custom we should only maintain because of tradition, beauty, or nostalgia – but a vital element in the sincere progression of the human race.

Ex Libris

Libraries hold a central place in our human story. The human instinct to preserve knowledge is one of the catalysts for our rampant technological growth as a species. If Baghdad scholars hadn’t dutifully recorded the work of the Ancient Greeks in the Islamic golden age, we today would have no knowledge of Plato, Aristotle, Sophocles, and other titans of philosophy, literature and art. 

And – without Plato, Aristotle and Sophocles (okay, maybe less that last one) – civilization as we know it wouldn’t be here today – indeed it may not even exist. Take a second to think what great knowledge has been lost (that we will never know about) to barbarous cultural vandalism, accidents, and wilful destruction. It’s already painful to think of the one’s we do know about. 

The classic example is the Library of Alexandria, which Caesar burned to the ground in an ‘accidental’ fire. In those flames, generations of knowledge were lost – and the world was set back centuries, with its loss contributing to an extended ‘Dark Age’ for humanity during the medieval era, where violence, superstition, and fear reigned. Make no mistake. Libraries are a civilising force. The knowledge within their walls is the foundation for a society always improving – intellectually, technologically, and morally. 

The Battle for Knowledge

Sacred and trusted repositories of knowledge are ever more vital in a world drenched with false information. Access to that knowledge is even more critical. It’s an easy point to forget, but a whole publishing industry exists that actively fights to restrict information. The academic publishing industry is a perverse joke, a deliberate gatekeeper erected to guard knowledge behind paywalls, revoke access, and determine – indeed – which knowledge gets published at all, and who can read it. Despite best efforts to the contrary, such as Sci-Hub’s ‘piracy for papers’, the problem remains.

Your smartphone, unless accompanied with vats of money, can’t access everything after all. Not even close. Add in ISP restrictions, national government censorship, the ‘dark’ web, and all the unindexed information spewed out daily – it would be a surprise if it could access half of it. This wouldn’t be a huge problem but – conditioned as we are to believe in open access information when the exact opposite is true – we need a more energetic vigilance when it comes to our approach to how we store information and who controls the permissions. In a world of DLTs and the global acknowledgement of the issue of centralised custodians when it comes to money, a solution to the problem for information is hopefully not far behind.

Credit: Tesfu Assefa

Digital Libraries

For now, we rely on Google, whose mission – remember – is to ‘organise the world’s information and make it useful and accessible’. However, they gave up on the mission to scan the world’s books, resisted at every turn by the publishers and copyright holders of those books. 25 million books are scanned – but no one is able to read them. Yet you don’t have to be a published author to worry about our reliance on Big Tech’s carnivorous approach to our culture, and to the warping effects of Big Data, and the idea of entrusted the accumulated knowledge of our world to some executives with a profit-margin to maintain.

Digitisation creates opportunities for a new path though. One where libraries are just cultural touchstones of power, but counter cultural ones. Civilisation in the face of censorship, knowledge in the face of power. Perhaps most famous is Minecraft’s uncensored library, which provides unfiltered access to news, media, history, science and journals through the medium of the world’s most popular game. 

Digital libraries are a powerful force of egalitarianism. Not everyone lives in Oxford and can go to the Bodleian library. Despite the continued battle for information, these libraries have created a better access to our human story for everyone and, thanks to their proliferation and to the tireless efforts of those behind it, the concept of ‘losing’ information forever to digital Alexandrian fires is ever more remote. Want to read almost any book published over 75 years ago? Now you can.

United in Knowledge

We can, and should, go further though. We can, and should, continue to organise the world’s information and make it accessible. We should not do it for profit, and no one should have the keys. DLTs may in the future provide a novel avenue for storing information in a distributed, permissionless manner – and we should take those opportunities as they arise. A shared, holistic, atavistic, openly accessible, uncensored access to a library containing the world’s information is a dream that could bind the human race at this crucial moment where our increased bandwidth is beginning to tear us apart.

Let us know your thoughts! Sign up for a Mindplex account now, join our Telegram, or follow us on Twitter. 

The Top 20 AI Cryptocurrencies For 2024 (Part 2)

Posted on by Werner

Introduction

In Part 1 of our 2024 guide to the best AI-powered cryptocurrencies, I covered the first five top AI crypto projects. They were: the leading AI marketplace SingularityNET (AGIX), data merchant Ocean Protocol (OCEAN), AI librarian The Graph (GRT), AI agency Fetch.AI (FET), and AI garden Cortex (CTXC). 

In no particular order, here are five more Web3 projects that use artificial intelligence to create novel applications for blockchain technology. Numeraire, iExec, dKargo, Arkham and Injective Protocol. In this article we’ll break down their core purposes, use cases and how they utilize AI. 

6. Numeraire (NMR): Using AI to Play The Stock Market

Year Founded & Team

Numeraire was founded in 2015 by Richard Craib (CEO), Joe Lallouz (COO), and Will Knottenbelt (CTO). 

Institutional Investors

Andreessen Horowitz, Coinbase Ventures, and Paradigm

What is Numeraire (NMR)?

Imagine a hedge fund, but it’s not run by Wall Street experts—it’s driven by the brainpower of data scientists all over the world. That’s Numeraire. Using the Ethereum blockchain, this decentralized hedge fund uses artificial intelligence (AI) to make supremely educated guesses on stock market ups and downs.

What is Numeraire Used For?

The project’s appeal here is pretty straightforward. Numeraire wants to make investing in stocks less of a guessing game and more of a science, all while being open and efficient about it.

So what can you actually do with Numeraire? Well, two main things: 

  1. If you’re into investing, you get to use AI-driven insights – which hopefully translate into smarter choices in the stock market. 
  2. If you’re a data scientist or researcher, you get access to a gold mine of financial data from the project’s sources.

How Numeraire Leverages AI

A selection of machine learning models working together helps the Numeraire platform guess where the stock market will go next – not just one AI model. When financial data is shared, it’s as private as can be. 

Why Numeraire is Important

Numeraire is shaking up how we think about investing. It’s making the stock market a little less mysterious and a lot more scientific. Plus, it’s a playground for data scientists who want to do cool stuff with huge sets of financial data.

7. iExec (RLC): Democratizing Cloud Computing

Year Founded & Team

Founded in 2016 by Gilles Fedak (CEO), Haiwu He (CTO), and Jean-Philippe Pothier (COO).

Institutional Investors

Draper Dragon Fund, ConsenSys Capital, and Ledger Capital

What is iExec (RLC)?

iExec (RLC) is an open-source, decentralized cloud computing platform that runs on the Ethereum blockchain. It’s essentially a superstore for cloud computing power, with a Web3 twist: it’s decentralized and runs on Ethereum and blockchain technology. It allows decentralized applications to access on-demand cloud computing services that fit their needs with ease.

What’s iExec RCL used for?

The main purpose of iExec is to connect cloud computing service providers and users in a decentralized, open marketplace. It decentralizes the cloud computing market, allowing users to make money from their spare computing power by renting it out to others. This computing power can be used to power decentralized applications, run off-chain computations, or perform a range of other functions.

Whatever your computing needs, whether you’re in AI development, knee-deep in scientific research, or working on graphic designs, this platform has got you covered. It’s versatile and caters to a broad range of computing requirements.

How iExec Leverages AI

iExec helps match you with the computing resources that fit your project’s needs, and it also performs like a savvy broker that sets dynamic prices based on how many resources are available and how many people want them. Plus it ensures that whatever you’re buying or renting meets the right quality standards.

Why iExec Is Important

iExec RLC matters because it aims to revolutionize cloud computing by breaking down the existing barriers to entry. By leveraging blockchain and AI, it’s making the whole system more efficient, transparent, and, most importantly, accessible to everyone. 

What is the iExec token RLC used for?

The iExec token, RLC, is used as the platform’s primary medium of exchange. All transactions on iExec’s decentralized cloud marketplaces are settled in RLC tokens. Workers need to stake RLC tokens as security deposits to be eligible to execute computation tasks.

8. dKargo (DKA): The Logistics Translator

Definition: Dkargo uses blockchain technology to address trust issues in the fragmented logistics industry, and create a more cooperative and efficient logistics network​​.

What is dKargo Used For?

dKargo is designed to address the core structural issue in the logistics industry: there is no credible decentralized protocol that permits honest data exchange within services. dKargo is primarily used for optimizing logistics information, improving the connection between participants in the logistics chain, and offering Web3 logistics services from the first to the last mile​​.

How it Leverages AI

dKargo incorporates AI route optimization to create a fluid logistic platform. 

Why is dKargo Important? 

dKargo helps to build trust and cooperation in the logistics industry using blockchain technology. 

What is the DKA token used for? 

The DKA token is used within the dKargo ecosystem to facilitate transactions and governance decisions. 

Credit: Tesfu Assefa

9. Arkham (ARKM): The Dark Knight of Crypto

Year Founded & Team: 

Founded in 2020 by Miguel Morel, Arkham Intelligence leverages his extensive experience in cryptocurrency markets and intelligence​​.

What is Arkham? 

Arkham is a controversial blockchain analysis platform that uses AI and other methods such as bounties to deanonymize blockchain and on-chain data, and ‘doxx’ (make public) the real identities beyond high-profile wallet addresses. It’s attracted some industry antagonism for this, as privacy is a core tenet of cryptocurrency ownership.

Main Purpose:

Arkham’s main purpose is to enhance the transparency and security of blockchain transactions by targeting crypto crimes and scams. It does this by providing users with a powerful tool offering valuable insights and analytics to make it easier to find the ‘bad guys’ of the blockchain – or at least, that’s its official purpose. Arkham’s platform can be used to track stolen funds, audit transactions, and investigate hacks, among other applications.

Use Cases: 

Arkham’s analytical products have played a notable role in addressing past high-profile crypto incidents, such as recovering assets related to high-profile cases such as FTX and Alameda Research.

How Arkham Leverages AI 

Arkham uses a dedicated artificial intelligence engine, ULTRA, to systematically analyze and deanonymize blockchain transactions. This in-house AI engine leverages various data sources, including public records and social media, to label addresses and provide entity analytics.

Why it’s Important 

Arkham strives to deanonymize blockchain transactions and put a name and identity to every wallet in the crypto community. Billions are stolen each year in Web3 hacks, and much of it lands in the pockets of sanctioned organizations like North Korea’s Lazarus Group. 

By combating crypto crimes and incentivizing on-chain research, Arkham contributes to a secure,transparent and trustworthy blockchain ecosystem at the cost of privacy. Of course, the money is in the database as they say, and knowing which entities own certain whale accounts and observing or tracking their activities can be highly lucrative. 

What is the ARKM token used for?

Arkham’s native token, ARKM, is used to trade for information such as entity labels and curated data feeds. It is also used to post bounties, and reward hunters and blockchain detectives providing valuable intel.

10. Injective Protocol (INJ): DeFi Infrastructure

Founding Team

Injective Protocol, led by Eric Chen and Albert Chon, emerged from Injective Labs, a hub for innovative blockchain solutions​​.

Definition

Injective is a layer-one blockchain designed for finance, powering a range of DeFi applications like decentralized exchanges and lending protocols.

What is Injective’s Purpose? 

Injective Protocol provides a decentralized, interoperable infrastructure for next-generation financial applications. Its platform supports various financial markets, including spot, perpetual, futures, and options, all fully on-chain.

How Injective Protocol Leverages AI

While AI’s direct application in Injective is not detailed, the platform’s advanced financial infrastructure implies potential AI use in market analysis and decision-making.

Why It’s Important

Injective is at the forefront of decentralized finance, offering a fast, secure, and low-fee environment for a wide range of financial applications.

What is the INJ Token Used For?

INJ tokens are used for various DeFi purposes, including protocol governance, dApp value capture, and staking. 

Conclusion

Stay tuned for Part Three of our Top 20 AI cryptocurrencies for 2024, and please note that this article is for educational purposes only and should not be construed as financial advice of any kind. AI cryptos are still largely unproven and can be subject to serious price fluctuations during times of market volatility. Invest with care and always conduct proper research. 

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