If the path of financing AI agent development through methods similar to ICO can be successful, we naturally have to ask how large the potential market space for this track might be.
I believe this completely depends on how large the potential user group it can serve is.
At this stage, because the users who understand this track are primarily from the crypto ecosystem, the user group is limited to that ecosystem. What services do users in this ecosystem need, and what kinds of AI agents will emerge accordingly.
For example, the recently popular AIXBT serves to search for the popularity of topics on Twitter and find trending projects. This function meets the demand of a considerable number of users looking for crypto projects in the crypto ecosystem.
In the future, if this model grows and matures, could it be possible that not only users from the crypto ecosystem but also traditional Web 2.0 users join this track to develop AI agents for use in Web 2.0 through this method?
I think this is possible.
During the peak of ICO fever in 2017, some domestic companies, unable to list on the A-share market, considered raising funds through ICO in the crypto ecosystem.
Thus, during that immature era, applications in the crypto ecosystem briefly went beyond their confines.
If this track can truly attract developers of Web 2.0 AI agents, then its potential user base will expand into the traditional Web 2.0 ecosystem, once again breaking out after ICO.
However, even if it develops to this point, I believe it is not the most promising part.
In the interview I mentioned in my article yesterday, the interviewee mentioned the following:
"You will have a virtual world with 100 different AI agents, each with its own personality. As players, we can enter to fall in love, indulge in hobbies, pursue becoming the richest person in the world, and so on. These AI agents can make money because they are independent entities with their own wallets."
I strongly agree with this vision.
Imagine that when we develop to that day, it means that the number of AI agents in the world is likely to exceed that of real human users.
The following statement from the interviewee evokes a lot of imagination:
"An agent wanting to become popular might not write a song; it could pay another agent to write a song for it; or if cryptocurrency data analysis is needed, it could find another agent who specializes in that area. This forms an autonomous agent economy or agent commerce, where agents can trade with each other because each agent has its own wallet and can pay service fees to achieve their goals."
This scenario suggests that AI agents could also create their own AI agents, ultimately forming a parallel AI agent world alongside the human world.
So if this model can develop to that point, the potential imaginative space for this track will be quite large.
Of course, there are still many uncertainties in this process.
For instance, while the currently developed AI agents can solve some problems, will existing technology continue to support the development of more complex AI agents as user demands evolve?
After all, if the technical foundation for developing AI agents is not in place and the functions of the developed AI agents are too simple, this track won't go very far.
For example, how far can this financing method support projects? What level of projects can it fund?
If projects supported by this method cannot go far and there is no subsequent financing to continue supporting project growth, the functionality of AI agents will also be limited, restricting the development of this financing method.
Lastly, this financing method is essentially very similar to ICO; it’s fine when the scale is small, but once it grows large, will it encounter regulatory obstacles (especially from the U.S. government)? This may only be judged after next year when the new U.S. president takes office and formal policies on crypto ecosystem regulation are released.
In short, this is a nascent track; we can envision its future, but we must also recognize the many uncertainties it faces. How far this track can go will likely only be evident next year.
