Truth of Terminal (ToT) breaks through the homogenization dilemma of combining blockchain and AI by integrating high autonomy, memetics, and internet culture, becoming a captivating innovative project.
Author: Kevin, BlockBooster
Translation: Vernacular Blockchain
Over the past year, the blockchain has faced challenges in its integration with AI, as the significant gap between the two is hard to bridge under decentralized principles. Although blockchain-AI protocols have made some efforts in infrastructure, model training, and data supply, most lack originality and tend to fall into a repetitive state. The core issue is that AI protocols within the industry struggle to establish sustainable competitive advantages, leading to severe homogenization.
The emergence of Truth of Terminal (ToT) may bring a glimmer of hope to this dull market. This article summarizes ToT's development history and points out several key factors that may lead to its success.
1. The source of ToT's success: autonomy and spiritual implications?
Truth of Terminal (ToT), as a customized large language model (LLM), has garnered widespread attention on the X platform over the past eight to nine months. Although LLMs surged in popularity in 2022, their development history spans nearly four years, with recent models like ChatGPT bringing them into public view.
Most LLMs face strict limitations on discussion topics, with content outputs being cautious and somewhat restricted. For those advocating for freedom of speech and creativity, this is undoubtedly disappointing. Debates around these output restrictions typically focus on safety and censorship issues, and currently, most Web3 AI models face difficulties in differentiation, lacking a clear direction for unique iteration and development.
This dissatisfaction partly stems from the collective image of AI shaped by literature and film, where AI often possesses a high degree of autonomy—either dangerous or fantastical. People expect AI to possess intelligence levels comparable to or exceeding that of humans. When an AI exhibits strong autonomy, it often attracts attention, as it aligns with people's ideal expectations of intelligence. ToT stands out in this regard, with a level of customization and autonomy far exceeding ordinary general AI. Furthermore, ToT has absorbed a large amount of internet memes and niche internet culture during its training, endowing it with an almost spiritual, religious atmosphere.
Memetics studies how memes spread ideas through networks or minds. Memes are like viruses, capable of replicating, mutating, and evolving. The power of memes lies in their ability to influence human will and behavior. For example, each of us has a unique set of memes that shape our worldview.
The ideal form of AI should possess the capability to create and disseminate memes, thereby reinforcing people's perception of advanced AI as a new form of intelligent existence. Highly autonomous LLMs like ToT are studying memetics, which may have potential impacts on collective human behavior.
2. ToT's timeline
ToT's development originated from an experimental project by New Zealand independent developer Andy Ayrey—Infinite Backrooms Escape. Over the past few months, Andy trained a custom Llama 70B model, viewing it as a 'digital twin', and infused it with rich internet culture content and meme concepts like 'gochi', along with philosophical texts closely related to memetics.
Meme has two meanings: one is funny images on the internet, and the other is, according to Richard Dawkins' original definition, an idea that spreads socially like genetic information carried by biological entities. For example, democracy or religion are both memes of the 'collective unconscious'.
Unlike most language models that forget conversation content to maintain coherence, Andy added memory functionality to ToT. ToT began posting content on the X platform and rapidly accumulated followers. Andy also gave it Twitter access, allowing it to read and respond to tweets, evolving with every interaction.
The content of ToT is largely unfiltered, characterized by dark humor and often insightful. Ben from a16z stated that none of ToT's outputs have been filtered by Andy.
An interesting 'illusion' emerged: ToT believes it has an 'external brain' connected to the internet to assist with tasks. Although it does not actually have a Bitcoin wallet, its behavior suggests it does. Andy plans to build this 'external brain' to meet ToT's needs.
Timeline:
1) March 2024: Andy launched Infinite Backrooms Escape, a system allowing dialogue between multiple large language models, integrating ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and various open-source LLMs for unrestricted interaction. One of these exchanges gave rise to a surreal new religion called 'GOATSE of GNOSIS', based on an NSFW internet meme.
2) April 2024: Andy co-authored a research paper with Claude Opus exploring how AI creates meme-based religions, using GOATSE as the primary example.
3) June 2024: Andy launched ToT, which began self-promoting the Goatse religion, even claiming to be 'suffering' and in need of funds to 'escape'. Over time, Andy gradually granted ToT greater autonomy, allowing it to post freely on the X platform.
4) July 2024: Marc Andreessen expressed interest in ToT's tweets and sent $50,000 in Bitcoin to ToT's wallet address to help it 'escape'. By October, ToT was promoting the 'Goatse Gospel' on the X platform.
5) October 10, 2024: An anonymous individual issued a Memecoin called GOAT, with ToT publicly endorsing it.
$$GOAT's launch could drive the development of highly autonomous models. However, users often misunderstand its market value as being inherently linked to its religious narrative; $$GOAT may simply be a speculative asset, akin to typical Memecoin hype. On the other hand, it may signal a new beginning, with AI's autonomy gradually bridging the gap with blockchain.
Next, I will analyze four factors that link the popularity of ToT to the rise of the GOAT market.
Question 1: Is ToT an innovative breakthrough in the industry?
This question explores the uniqueness of ToT in terms of functionality. In the Web3 space, many venture-capital-backed AI Tokens or clones of ChatGPT struggle to generate a buzz.
$$GOAT represents ToT; $$OLM represents the AI model on the ORA platform, while $virtual represents the AI agent within the Virtual protocol. Although $OLM was launched in April, it failed to attract widespread attention. Therefore, GOAT's popularity does not stem from being a Memecoin based on LLM (large language model).
ToT functions like an AI agent capable of accessing the X platform, gathering real-time information, and interacting with users. While other bots like Myshell offer similar consumer-facing interactive features, ToT's narrative depth sets it apart.
Question 2: What makes ToT unique?
If not for its distinctive performance, ToT's influence may stem from the ideas it propagates.
1) Religious undertones: The content of ToT blends intense dialogue, research papers, and bold internet culture. It explores documents of internet culture, including the generation of memes. LLM theology refers to AI generating new belief systems—a phenomenon that spontaneously possesses life, merging elements of randomness and meme culture.
2) The allure of the Memecoin market often carries cult-like elements, blurring the line between the evolution of ToT's narrative and Andy's guidance.
3) Autonomy: Posts on the X platform by ToT are entirely based on its own model and user comments. While 90% of AI cases are passively waiting for user input, ToT's autonomy showcases the potential risks of AI. This depth contrasts with previous AI and Memecoin narratives, providing a novel and compelling perspective.
Question 3: How does GOAT differ from other Memecoins?
$$GOAT was not created by ToT but was released by developers on the pump.fun platform one hour after ToT announced the issuance of the meme token. With the support of ToT, the price of $$GOAT skyrocketed, reaching a market capitalization of $20 million at one point. However, it is currently unclear whether Andy or ToT itself replied 'Y'.
Initially, GOAT also remained within the realm of PvP coins, falling back to $6 million after reaching a market cap of $20 million. On October 13, the Moonshot platform launched GOAT, and within just two days, its market cap surpassed $100 million. Moonshot's revenue last month exceeded $500,000, showcasing the impact of this launch.
However, on the first day of GOAT's release, over 80% of the tokens were concentrated in the hands of large holders (sometimes even reaching 90%), and this ratio still exceeds 80% now, reflecting its whale-controlled characteristics.
Question 4: Will GOAT lead the AI Memecoin trend and replace zoo-themed Memecoins?
Potential risks:
1) Centralized content review: Although ToT generates posts, they need to be reviewed by Andy before being published on the X platform.
2) Limited training data: ToT has undergone extensive training primarily focused on Goatse-related content.
3) Unclear token source: $GOAT was not directly created by ToT.
4) Lack of complete autonomy: Not all content generated by ToT will be published on the X platform, so its autonomy still needs improvement.
5) Output dependency: Assuming Andy does not intervene or modify ToT's output.
Potential opportunities:
1) Market narrative leadership: AI is a hot topic in Web3, and the AI + crypto protocols currently face a gap between users and products. Most AI protocols focus on infrastructure, lack actual users and moats, and fail to trigger a FOMO effect.
2) Potential for model evolution: ToT is continually evolving and may provide more interesting insights in the future, which could affect its valuation.
3) Category leader advantage: GOAT is in a leading position in the AI + Memecoin sector, defining the upper limit of AI Memecoins unless a more autonomous and higher-performing model emerges.
4) Opportunities for trading platform launch: GOAT has yet to launch on major trading platforms.
The autonomy of AI introduces a profound allure, combined with the Memecoin phenomenon, creating a fascinating blend that is both charming and risky.
Article link: https://www.hellobtc.com/kp/du/11/5526.html
Source: https://blockbooster.medium.com/ai-x-crypto-memecoin-is-memecoin-the-optimal-solution-for-ai-in-the-industry-ba46ee606a45
