By Brihu Sundararaman, Co-Founder of Blockchain Search Engine, Lore

‘Crypto is Libertarian, AI is Communist’ are tech investor Peter Thiel’s famous words. While this statement speaks to the ideological differences between the two technologies, the former, deeply decentralized, and the latter, rigidly hierarchical, it also hints at their points of convergence in the coming years.

When comparing these two movements’ underpinnings, their function is somewhat unintuitively, strongly symbiotic. In tandem, they see each others’ blind spots and mutually temper their more radical ideologies, leading to a safer and more cohesive experience for the end user.

Both Crypto and AI are inarguably the most disruptive in their implications for humanity since our inception. Crypto endeavors to establish a new financial world order, in which anyone can take part, and one that is immune to centralized trust short-falls that lead to systematic contagion (see: 2008). AI, whether we like it or not, will invariably attempt to automate intelligence and labor, and will force a global spotlight on uncomfortable questions regarding consciousness, intellect, and control.

Given that both technologies are moving parabolically – Large Language Models (LLMs), like ChatGPT were considered science fiction just two years ago; and new networks leveraging zero-knowledge and optimistic proof systems have been moving at break-neck speed (crypto builders have been busy, even though it may seem from public sentiment that this is not the case) – it’s inevitable, that both of these entities will deeply intertwine with the roots of our everyday lives. Given that this is the case, exploring their flaws when treated independently, and their coverage as a union becomes essential to navigate towards a safe future.

Too Advanced For Its Own Good – Where Crypto Fails

On its bold claims to revolution, Web3 has fallen short. But it is not because of its mendacity that the revolution has not come. When one considers Ethereum and its surrounding Layer 2 (L2) ecosystem, it represents deployable financial rails for national currencies, esoteric assets and marketplaces, instant international settlement, incentive and reward propagation for globally distributed systems; all within a verifiable ledger of record for otherwise opaque inter-connected systems.

Its ability to do so much, ironically, holds it back. The technicality behind its tremendous scope strips the end user’s understanding of what it can do, so much so that they’re often left blind, as it is psychologically easier to dismiss it than to try to understand it. While decentralization enforces security and allows global participation, it lacks thematic consistency that comes with a strong centralizing force. This inevitably devolves into an abysmal user experience.

Web3 and Crypto currently exist in the same void of the pre-browser, pre-search internet era. Times when browsers like Safari, and Chrome didn’t enforce a consistent schema for usability, and search engines like Google weren’t there to fill in the missing links. A decentralized marketplace for trading shares of Italian wineries, accessible in Lagos, and operational in their own respective currencies, is useless if no one can get to the storefront. Even more so, if the few stragglers who make it can’t understand the language spoken.

This simple example articulates the state of web3. Decentralization is inherently free market, thus the best should theoretically always surface to the top. Unfortunately, decentralized systems are paces away from matching the efficiency of centralized ones, and the best, often may not surface in time. This gap is where AI and crypto converge. In the same way, browsers and search engines knit the internet together, AI will do so with web3.

Knitting Web3 Together with AI

LLMs, especially those released by large institutions like OpenAI, Google, Meta, and more, in some sense represent the centralization of human knowledge. Thus it’s only fitting, that LLMs are binding for humanity’s ledger of record which is Web3.

Crypto faces a different problem than the internet did in the early 1990s. Its necessary context is scattered between web2 and web3. The majority of its information is packed and condensed into hashes. There are multiple different networks, each with its own style of recording data.

LLMs have a unique ability to fill in missing gaps of context, drawn from aggregated centuries of knowledge. More so, they allow this connected context to be instantly searchable, open for complex analysis, and automatable. For us at Lore, we articulate this as building the AI-powered frontend for web3. We’re building towards a future, where anyone who wants to interact with web3 can find relevant on-chain data, understand it, and act on it.

The Other Side – Why AI Needs Crypto

To say the aggregation and execution of the human corpus is a sizable responsibility is the understatement of the century. Control over LLMs will likely represent the greatest concentration of power and control ever known to humankind; it is the ability to automate labor, control narratives, and capture mindshare at scale. Thus, allowing large corporations and nation-states sole proprietorship over the most powerful models bodes ill for the future. As this technology advances, it becomes increasingly important for open-source models and data, to become competitive with the performance of closed-source ones.

Web3 grants this vision form, supplying the building blocks for such a decentralized marketplace to exist, and the financial rails for incentives to align. A place where models and data can be verifiably stored, trained, and accessed globally and all market participants are fairly compensated. As the relationship between crypto and AI matures, one can expect a flippening, where open-source models perform tangibly better than closed-source ones. Consequently, control and autonomy will return to the end user and away from centralized corporations.

As AI and Crypto continue to permeate through society, their convergence lends to a bright future. Crypto enables AI to safely put humanity on autopilot. AI binds web3 into a beautiful ledger, adding in missing pages, and translating it into different languages.

Brihu Sundararaman, a Computer Science graduate from Yale University, is a cofounder of the visionary team at Lore — an AI-first, multi-chain explorer focused on enhancing transparency in blockchain data. Leading development, Brihu seamlessly integrates Language Models (LLMs) with web3 data for user-friendly experiences.

Collaborating with co-founders Ryan Myher and Armaan Kalsi, Brihu shapes Lore into a groundbreaking platform. This dynamic trio redefines explorers by combining a robust data suite with a transaction automation layer, simplifying blockchain complexities. Since its August launch, Lore has rapidly grown to over 100,000 users, backed by influencers like SALT.org, Ar.ca, Balaji, Floodgate, and others.

Passionate about AI, web3, longevity, and advances in psychedelic therapeutics, Brihu, envisions a user-friendly blockchain future. At Lore, he pioneers transparency and accessibility in blockchain exploration.

The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.

Original: Artificial Intelligence Feed: The Inevitable Convergence of Crypto and AI