Compiled by: Kyle
This episode (Hack and Tell) of the podcast is hosted by Sam Williams, inviting Teng Yan as a guest, where both delve into the future of Crypto, AI, and decentralized computing (AO).
Background introduction
Sam Williams (@samecwilliams): Founder and inventor of Arweave and AO, currently serving as CEO of Forward Research.
Teng Yan (@0xPrismatic): Former researcher at Delphi Digital with over 10 years of experience in the tech industry. He is now the head of the independent research company Chain of Thought, focusing on the intersection of crypto and artificial intelligence.
Essence of key viewpoints
1. The synergy between Crypto and AI
Both Teng Yan and Sam believe that although there is a lot of hype in the field of crypto and AI integration, this fusion brings real disruptive potential, especially in building trustless autonomous systems and intelligent financial agents.
Teng Yan pointed out that the current hype and experiments indicate that the industry is developing rapidly, while Sam emphasized that intelligent financial agents, as a trusted protocol, can operate without the need for trusted intermediaries, which is crucial.
2. The origins of AO
Sam mentioned that AO was initially designed to address the content trading needs of decentralized social media networks (Odysee, which has about 7-8 million monthly active users and is now acquired by Forward Research). Because there was a need to build a system that supports content ownership trading and efficient markets, the team ultimately developed a new blockchain that supports scalable smart contracts based on this requirement, resulting in an innovative outcome unexpectedly triggered by solving their own problems.
3. The transformation of agent finance
Sam describes agent finance as the most intuitive combination of decentralized AI and crypto technology. He points out that decentralized financial agents can eliminate the reliance on traditional intermediaries (like funds and banks) and allow ordinary developers to participate in creating financial strategies. This reduction in trust and lowering of entry barriers will unleash a lot of untapped innovative potential.
Teng Yan believes that most current transactions on the blockchain are related to finance, thus agent finance is the best entry point for AI agents to enter the blockchain.
4. Progress of AI technology on AO
On a technical level, Sam shared how AO supports the operation of LLMs (like Llama.cpp) in smart contracts, emphasizing that this is an important milestone in bringing AI into the blockchain. He acknowledged that current performance is still insufficient (processing 0.7 tokens per second), but this capability provides a solid foundation for future development of complex AI intelligence.
Teng Yan stated that although the current technology is not mature enough, these experiments have paved the way for the development of AI-driven practical applications.
5. Practical applications of AI in AO
Sam detailed the case of Llama Land in the AO ecosystem, an experimental platform that allows users to experience decentralized governance and monetary policy through an AI-managed autonomous system. The core of LlamaLand is an AI (Llama 3) capable of autonomously deciding on currency issuance, where users can submit applications, and the AI automatically decides whether to grant rewards based on requests. This is not only an interesting play, but also demonstrates the potential of autonomous AI in the on-chain economy.
6. Philosophical discussion about AI
Both expressed similar sentiments—the rise of decentralized AI is not only a technological innovation but also a philosophical debate between open-source and centralized models.
Teng Yan believes that decentralized AI's open system allows global developers and users to participate, breaking the monopoly of large tech companies and making AI development more democratic.
Sam emphasizes that the neutrality and reliability of execution in decentralized AI is the essential difference from traditional centralized AI. This open system acts like a protocol, capable of executing in a neutral manner, free from control or manipulation by any single entity.
7. AI infrastructure construction
Sam noted that the current focus is on building infrastructure capable of attracting developers, including tools and frameworks, to quickly build and deploy AI applications. By lowering the barriers to innovation, developers can more easily realize the cycle from learning to development to production.
Teng Yan further adds that AI agents on the blockchain represent an ecosystem that develops gradually from underlying infrastructure to applications, requiring good development tools and foundational platforms to support it.
8. About market behavior and growth
Teng Yan mentions that the volatility of sentiment in the crypto market is often unrelated to technological progress, but many people view price as an indicator of technological maturity, which is a misunderstanding.
Sam added that real technological development is gradual, and it is a common phenomenon for the market to overestimate short-term potential while underestimating long-term impact. He also observed that despite the fluctuating market sentiment, technological capabilities are steadily improving.
9. Future vision for AI
Teng Yan and Sam both agree that AI-driven blockchain applications will bring exponential growth.
Teng Yan is more optimistic, believing that this growth will become apparent in the coming months.
Sam believes that we will continue to feel the profound impact of this change in the next 10 to 20 years. From financial agents to AI autonomous governance, these technologies will gradually permeate more industries and applications.
10. Looking forward to 2025 and beyond
Teng Yan predicts that 2025 may become a key node in the AI field, as the technological infrastructure will gradually improve in the coming months, and large-scale developer participation will trigger rapid expansion of applications.
Sam pointed out from a long-term perspective that the combination of AI and blockchain is a long and profound process, whose impact may last for decades, but the emergence of the first users and use cases will significantly accelerate this process.
