12.06.2024
As we began exploring in our last entry: The convergence between AI and Blockchain has opened a new dimension of crossed roads in these two disruptive technologies. Seen as an intricate relation by some, it has a lot of sense for the initiated, and thus, as a natural pair. Technological innovation opens the possibility of developing a particular industry's capabilities, and its application tends to be associated with a tech company. In the same way, a company such as IBM or Microsoft is synonymous with computing, or Apple to tech devices, the confluence of artificial intelligence (AI) and the prowess of Nvidia has ignited a paradigm shift in which Nvidia is now related to AI in a more profound way than any other company.
Nvidia's rise was not achieved overnight. Once mainly recognized for its graphical processing units (GPUs) employed in the gaming industry and professional workstations for designers and architects, developers, and programmers, Nvidia has undergone a metamorphosis, positioning itself not just as a reference for AI innovation but also as the main supplier for any company working on this technological eruption.
The disruptive impact of AI has been so decisive and transformative that it has unveiled an unprecedented opportunity for innovation and unleashed optimism, thus creating fear and caution over AI's real capabilities and implications. AI's potential for greatness is powering systems capable of analyzing vast amounts of data to identify patterns and, for example, in the case of medical applications, identify diseases at an early stage, enabling more efficient and targeted treatments, but is also feeding the fear of automation replacing human decisions.
As part of this paradigm shift, the convergence between AI and other technologies has unlocked a new realm of possibilities and tech capabilities, and not just for real-world applications. Nevertheless, the AI eruption has caused a wave of blockchain-related projects labeled “AI,” just with rebranding (or mischievous) purposes and without the subjacent technology bolstering the blockchain capabilities and vice versa. It is impossible to determine how many crypto and blockchain projects have real AI features, so let’s dive into projects that have had AI since its conception and have represented a functional conjunction between blockchain features and AI capabilities.
A decentralized digital world for the future economy: the AI elements in Fetch.ai.
Fetch.ai ($FET) is a decentralized platform built on a Cosmos-native platform, which allows it to be interoperable and seamlessly exchange assets and data between different blockchains in the Cosmos ecosystem. Fetch.ai aims to create a digital world representation where AI-guided and autonomous software agents can enable economic work and operations, such as buying and selling goods and services, to have access to complex data to optimize it into a system and monetize it. The agents (Autonomous Economic Agents or AEAs) represent physical entities, data, or services and interact with each other to perform their programmed purpose.
Fetch.ai infrastructure paves the way for a more efficient and autonomous economy where the AEAs can work together to solve problems and create value; the platform combines AI, blockchain features, and the system agents' confluence, which creates a decentralized and autonomous economic environment able to evolve in real-time. By identifying inefficiencies, data silos, and market fragmentation, Fetch.ai solves the problem of data and resources underutilization through the agents deployment, enabling the creation of a unified infrastructure. The AEA’s interaction can have several applications in the industry, such as supply chain management, transportation, energy, and healthcare.
The core concepts of Fetch.ai include:
The Open Economic Framework (OEF) is the digital ecosystem where agents execute their actions. It is not just a static environment but also a digital entity that can change and reorganize its structure, thus making intelligent decisions to adapt to different circumstances. The OEF's dynamism ensures an optimized digital environment for the agents to perform improved actions. In other words, the OEF is a layer that provides an evolving environment to optimize the efficiency of the agent's usual operations. Fetch.ai's Smart Ledger is a blend that combines elements of blockchain and directed acyclic graph (DAG) technology. Both blockchain and DAG are decentralized networks that differ in structure, operation, and security. A blockchain is a linear sequence of blocks with transactions using consensus mechanisms (PoW or PoS). In a DAG network, each vertex represents a transaction, allowing for simultaneous additions without block formation. Blockchain is safer, while DAG is faster.
Source: Central Blockchain Council of America
Smart Ledger’s hybrid design, combining blockchain’s security and DAG’s speed, enables a higher capacity to process transactions, and therefore, the network becomes more scalable, a necessary condition to support a vast network of autonomous agents; AI’s role is to enhance the security and efficiency, while machine learning models are employed to assess the probability of fraudulent transactions and optimize transaction confirmation times. This ensures the integrity of the ledger while maintaining the speed and responsiveness required for real-time economic interactions.
Machine learning (ML) mechanisms are well known for being AI-initiated. Fetch.ai leverages ML to improve the performance of its platform by comprehending historical data, understanding behavior patterns through models specialized to capture these dynamics. The ML objective is to optimize the workload distribution through its comprehension capabilities. Blockchain integration works as a distributed and immutable ledger, providing a transparent and safe network to store and share data used for ML, ensuring its integrity. It means Fetch.ai uses its blockchain to decentralize the ML process, by distributing the training models across the network, enabling its privacy and security.
Fetch.ai's final purpose is creating and deploying AI-powered marketplaces, understanding this dynamism as the system's capability to improve itself. AI-powered algorithms analyze market data to optimize pricing and efficiently match buyers and sellers, ensuring the security and speed of the transaction. AEAs can perform freely and actively in these marketplaces, make decisions based on real-time data, and analyze the changing environment. This dynamics creates a more efficient marketplace structure by constantly balancing supply and demand, enabling a fair and optimal result for its participants.
SingularityNET, "artificial general intelligence" for all.
SingularityNET’s AI and blockchain integration approach relies on powering an open-source artificial general intelligence (AGI) framework (OpenCog) and a decentralized marketplace for AI services for different types of users. Most of all, it aims to democratize AI by making it accessible to everyone through an open and collaborative environment for developers and final users. By incorporating blockchain technology, users can benefit from enhanced security, transparency, fair compensation and participation, and distributive control over their data and transactions.
SingularityNET deploys an array of uses for various purposes. First, it provides a decentralized platform to deploy a global AI marketplace where developers can post and monetize their AI algorithms and AI models, making them accessible and available to users worldwide. The platform fosters collaboration among developers to merge their expertise and skills to create more powerful AI solutions.
The platform's democratic aspect makes its access open to any user or organization, regardless of their technical profile or size. This is in the context of SingularityNET's ultimate goal: the development of artificial general intelligence (AGI, Whitepaper P.13), a type of AI with human-like cognitive abilities.
These features come from a robust experience and skillful team. The project was co-founded by Dr. David Hanson, known for his work in robotics, particularly his development of the robot Sophia, which has stood out for its particular emotional expression capabilities. OpenCog is the cognitive architecture that enables Sophia to process information, learn, and interact with the world.
Specifically, GHOST (General Holistic Organism Scripting Tool, Whitepaper P.70) is used in the development of social robotics research for the Sophia humanoid robot, to enhance its conversational abilities and behavior. GHOST is built on top of OpenCog and is particularly designed to create dialogue systems and control the behavior of AI agents. Its purpose is to create more natural and engaging interactions by considering multiple sensory inputs, abstract inferences about the situation, and specified goals.
Thus, OpenCog is the tool for AI development used in SingularityNET. It is designed to be modular and extensible, allowing developers to add new AI capabilities to the platform easily. It is also designed to be scalable, allowing it to build AI systems that can handle large and complex tasks.
AGIX and DAO.
SingularityNET's native token (AGIX) and the normative of the DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) are integral to its function as a decentralized AI marketplace.
AGIX is used to buy and sell AI services within the marketplace. Holders can stake the token, which gives them the right to participate in the platform’s governance. This means voting on proposals and decisions for its development and operation. The platform's final objective is to become a fully self-regulated DAO, with the power of decision-making distributed among the AGIX holders.
AGIX token facilitates an efficient and incentivized way to exchange value between platform participants. The token rewards platform activities such as improving existing services, developing and publishing high-quality AI services, and community participation.
The AGIX token serves as the platform's economic incentive, while the DAO strengthens the platform's evolution mechanism and alignment with its community's interests.
A merge for AI and Blockchain integration.
Fetch.ai exemplifies the seamless integration of blockchain and AI in its design. It has the potential to deploy a powerful platform to perform more efficient, autonomous, and AI-guided actions for a fairer economy strengthened by the blockchain's privacy and security features.
While Fetch.ai focuses on economic dynamics, SingularityNET seeks to establish an open and accessible decentralized AI marketplace for developers and users; its final purpose is to democratize AI collaboration and innovation by providing an advanced architecture.
However, their full potential has yet to be unveiled.
Fetch.ai recently announced the merger of its native FET token with SingularityNET's AGIX and Ocean Protocol's OCEAN tokens into a new token called ASI (Artificial Super Intelligence). This merger aims to create a unified, decentralized AI network by bringing together these three communities. The merger process is expected, after a recently anno to be completed by July 15th. We look forward to how this merger between these three projects can combine their strengths and resources for AI and blockchain development and adoption.