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The word ‘awe’ perfectly describes the current public perception of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, ‘awe’ is defined as “an emotion variously combining dread, veneration, and wonder.”
While the world is in wonder about AI’s game-changing capabilities to add value to the global economy through labor productivity improvements and product innovation, humankind is also wary of the risk of a dystopian future where machine intelligence surpasses human intelligence and becomes hostile.
In order to advance AI technology in a responsible manner, three prominent AI crypto projects – Fetch.ai, SingularityNET, and Ocean Protocol – have joined forces to create the largest decentralized AI protocol in the world, Superintelligence Alliance.
Key Takeaways
Fear of AI Leads Elon Musk to Sue OpenAI
On February 29, 2024, Tesla co-founder Elon Musk filed a lawsuit against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman for abandoning the company’s original mission of running a non-profit AI lab and developing AI for the benefit of humanity.
Court documents showed Musk was deeply concerned about “the greatest existential threat we face today” posed by artificial general intelligence (AGI), which is a machine that has intelligence for a wide variety of tasks like a human.
The document highlighted a chess-playing algorithm called ‘AlphaZero,’ developed by Google-acquired AI company DeepMind, to showcase the power of AI. AlphaZero became the strongest chess-playing system in the world and “convincingly defeated a world-champion program” within 24 hours, having started with zero knowledge except for game rules.
While the development of AI cannot be stopped, Musk believed that AGI development at the hands of a closed and for-profit company poses a threat to humanity.
To counter this threat, Musk created OpenAI together with Altman and Gregory Brockman in 2015. According to the court documents, OpenAI’s initial research was performed “in the open, providing free and public access to designs, models, and code.” Still, a 2020 deal with Microsoft to exclusively license the GPT-3 language model and a $10 billion investment deal in January 2024 would change their priority.
The court document explained:
“To this day, OpenAI, Inc.’s website continues to profess that its charter is to ensure that AGI ‘benefits all of humanity.’ In reality, however, OpenAI, Inc. has been transformed into a closed-source de facto subsidiary of the largest technology company in the world: Microsoft. Under its new Board, it is not just developing but is actually refining an AGI to maximize profits for Microsoft, rather than for the benefit of humanity. Its technology, including GPT-4, is closed-source primarily to serve the proprietary commercial interests of Microsoft.”
Superintelligence Alliance (ASI) to Promote Open and Decentralized AI Development
Open-Sourcing May Not Be Enough for Responsible AI Development
The AI industry has seen the entry of startups like French AI company Mistral and San Francisco-based Databricks that develop their AI tech in the open, unlike OpenAI and Google that choose to keep their codes secret. While open-source models are seen as the first step towards responsible and transparent AI development, they may not be enough to keep Big Tech at bay.
According to a non-profit organization Future of Life Institute, only a handful of the most well-resourced corporations can build general purpose AI (GPAI) models in-house. GPAI models need to undergo extensive training, which requires expert personnel, access to expensive semiconductor chips, cloud computing capacity and high-quality data.
The capital-intensive requirements of developing GPAI models from scratch have resulted in the AI development race being led by companies with deep pockets, like Microsoft-backed OpenAI. Even those developing open-source models are backed by Big Tech, as seen in Microsoft’s $16 million investment in Mistral.
The Future of Life Institute wrote in its Competition in Generative AI report on March 10, 2024:
“Microsoft is hedging its bets in case Mistral’s models should come to outperform those of their other investment, OpenAI, in case open source AI becomes the dominant business model or ecosystem that generates the greatest economic value. While open source holds promise for greater transparency and accessibility, this development underscores that it is incredibly difficult for open source AI models to get off the ground without the financial backing of Big Tech.”
In contrast, decentralized crypto-powered AI projects crowdfund their operations and raise funds via token sales.
1/1 🔒
Power to the People: Your voice will shape the future of #decentralizedAI and #ASI with governance proposals opening on 2nd April 🗓️
Those in the https://t.co/kJ9URVpOul community who are staking $FET on the native Fetch Network will be eligible to vote on our prop! 🗳️ pic.twitter.com/ASvsnIrzSi
— Fetch.ai (@Fetch_ai) March 29, 2024
Top Crypto AI Projects Merge to Take on Big Tech
On March 27, 2024, Fetch.ai, SingularityNET, and Ocean Protocol announced that the three organizations will merge to form the Superintelligence Alliance. The merger will combine the resources of the three companies to compete with Big Tech and to ensure that the future of AI development is more open and decentralized than it is today. According to the companies’ statement:
“The Superintelligence Alliance is a united stand against the big tech’s control over technology. We’re joining forces to change the game on how AI is created, shared, and used by everyone leaning into the principles of decentralization to accomplish an open and equitable form of AI.”
The formation of Superintelligence Alliance will see three tokens – FET, AGIX and OCEAN – merge into a single Artificial Superintelligence token (ASI). The combined value of the Alliance at signing is expected to be $7.5 billion at a starting price of $2.82 per token.
Superintelligence Alliance will bring together the expertise of the three companies. Fetch.ai provides an open platform for developers to create autonomous programs called agents that can execute tasks and interact with other agents. SingularityNET provides a decentralized marketplace where AI developers can publish their services. Ocean Protocol provides decentralized data management solutions required to train AI models.
Bruce Pon and Trent McConaghy of Ocean Protocol said in a blog post:
“Not just ‘don’t be centralized’ but can’t be centralized. Artificial superintelligence must be decentralized across the whole technology stack: from the network infrastructure, to AI infrastructure software (agents, data), to AI models & prediction.”
We are excited to announce a multi-billion token merger with @Fetch_ai and @oceanprotocol to create the Artificial Superintelligence Alliance, the largest open-sourced, decentralized network, and accelerate the race to AGI. Learn more: https://t.co/zT8Q1HbkEv pic.twitter.com/2U3VbeFfW5
— SingularityNET (@SingularityNET) March 27, 2024
Key Facts About Superintelligence Alliance
Here are some important details about the Superintelligence Alliance:
The Bottom Line
The proposal to form the Superintelligence Alliance marks an important step towards responsible AI development.
With time, improvements in token-based governance systems will allow greater degree of decentralization and, hopefully, foster a culture where open-sourcing and decentralized models are the norm and not a rarity in the industry.
