AI Should Be Decentralized, But How?

The intersection of Web3 and artificial intelligence (AI), specifically in the form of generative AI, has become one of the hottest topics of debate within the crypto community. After all, generative AI is revolutionizing all areas of traditional software stacks, and Web3 is no exception. Given that decentralization is the core value proposition of Web3, many of the emergent Web3-generative-AI projects and scenarios project some form of decentralized generative AI value proposition.

Jesus Rodriguez is the CEO of IntoTheBlock.

In Web3, we have a long history of looking at every domain through a decentralization lens, but the reality is that not all domains can benefit from decentralization, and for every domain, there is a spectrum of decentralization scenarios. Breaking down that idea from a first principles standpoint leads us to two key questions:

1. Does generative AI deserve to be decentralized?
2. Why hasn’t decentralized AI worked at scale before, and what’s different with generative AI?
3. What are the different dimensions of decentralization in generative AI?

These questions are far from trivial, and each one can spark passionate debates. However, I believe that thinking through these questions is essential to develop a comprehensive thesis about the opportunities and challenges at the intersection of Web3 and generative AI.

Does AI Deserve to be Decentralized?

The philosophical case for decentralizing AI is simple. AI is digital knowledge, and knowledge might be the number one construct of the digital world that deserves to be decentralized. Throughout the history of Web3, we have made many attempts to decentralize things that work extremely well in a centralized architecture, and where decentralization didn’t provide obvious benefits. Knowledge is not one of the natural candidates for decentralization from both the technical and economic standpoint.

The level of control being accumulated by the big AI providers is creating a massive gap with the rest of the competition to the point that it is becoming scary. AI does not evolve linearly or even exponentially; it follows a multi-exponential curve.

Read more: Jesus Rodriguez – How DeFi Protocols Are Building More Granular and Extensible Capabilities

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