In the context of AI in everything, a new trend full of possibilities has emerged: what happens when cryptocurrencies are combined with AI?
So far, the trend seems to be positive, basically something like "AI + crypto = infinite possibilities". But what exactly are these possibilities? Is some sort of financial superintelligence even possible? And perhaps even most importantly, are these two things really compatible on any meaningful level?

The 30,000-foot way of thinking about it is that AI represents digital abundance, while cryptocurrencies represent digital scarcity. From another perspective, AI represents highly centralized systems (where information is passed through language models). In some ways, this is like merging.

Crypto, on the other hand, represents the ideal of complete digital decentralization or the development of distributed networks based on a foundation of permissionless access and invariance, all controlled by private keys held by individual users. This is more like fragmentation.
Venture capitalist Peter Thiel writes in the introduction to the revised edition of his book, The Sovereign Individual.

In fact, the great conflict over the future of our larger politics has only just begun. In the technological dimension, the conflict has two extremes: Al and crypto. artificial intelligence promises to be the ultimate solution to what economists call the "computational problem": in theory, it could centralize control of the entire economy. It is no coincidence that AI is the CCP's favorite technology. On the other hand, powerful cryptography holds the promise of a decentralized and personalized world. If Al is a communist, then cryptocurrencies are libertarians.

The future may lie somewhere between these two extremes. But we know that the actions we take today will determine the overall outcome

The basic premise of the sovereign individual is that the massive shift in technology in our lifetimes will lead to more personal freedom - especially for those learning how to utilize the tools of the information age.

At the same time, the shift to more individual freedom will come at the cost of major social upheaval as geographic boundaries begin to matter less and global technology platforms begin to supplant the needs and utility of more localized governments and civil society groups.
Against this shrinking backdrop, we see the emergence of cryptocurrencies built around the idea of personal control and regulation and artificial intelligence that exports tasks and production to large-scale models.

So what happens when these two ideals or visions of the future of the internet intersect? Where will it lead us and how will it affect us?

From early views on the internet, there seems to be a collective feeling that the combination of AI and cryptocurrencies will be infinitely more powerful, and that by reducing the friction that comes with human-centered technology, everything will be taken to the next level.

In many ways, it's the human-centered design aspects of crypto that make it so challenging, such as user experience, ease of interoperability, and understanding the computer science problems that crypto solves in the first place.

So there may be some synergies from that perspective.
But this feels like a larger question looms: how will these two major technological and philosophical movements mesh with each other? Or do they actually represent competing ideas and visions?

Or, in other words, what happens when we provide robots with bank accounts that don't have an off switch? Is blind greed a component of generalized AI, or is there something innate to the human psyche that allows us to corner the market, want more, and do whatever we need to do to get it?
Artificial Intelligence and Cryptocurrency Potential Use Cases

One of the biggest hopes for artificial intelligence is that it will help free humans from digital drudgery by automating a variety of everyday tasks.

Finding problems or bugs in software, which in the past required hours of code investigation by people with very specialized knowledge or skills, is one example.

Errors in smart contracts and other crypto-related systems can wreak havoc and create all sorts of security problems. This is a real problem at DeFi and elsewhere when relying heavily on smart contracts.

If a hacker has access to the contract's funds, a small vulnerability written into the code could be exploited and cause millions (or billions) of dollars in damage.

So what if there was some sort of AI bug bounty bot that constantly tested and double-checked smart contract code and other systems used to transfer and store digital assets?
It can act like an automated security force that can work at scale and easily work across jurisdictions and projects by leveraging the openness of decentralized systems.

Another example of incorporating AI into cryptocurrencies and DeFi is that language models and interfaces using AI may help remove some of the complexity of cryptocurrencies and make them more user-friendly and intuitive.

What if people looking for financial alternatives could browse DeFi products via chat, rather than having to navigate the complexities of different kinds of products or find one that meets a user's exact specifications?

Or that there was an easy way to compare and contrast all the emerging DeFi offerings to understand their unique value propositions?

By removing friction, things would move faster and make seamless automation possible. After all, automation is great - when it works.

The combination of cryptocurrencies and AI gets a bit more complicated when it comes to the DeFi protocol and governance of decentralized systems.

In some cases, making decisions about how to manage the protocol - everything from the underlying token economics and software upgrades to new types of products and services - is a challenge because it requires almost constant human attention.

According to Coin's paper on AI and cryptocurrencies, there is a phenomenon known as "governance fatigue" in decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs).

AI can help solve this emerging governance problem by making decisions by proxy that fit within individual user preferences.

On the one hand, this is a bit like having a self-driving car for governance. In many ways, it can be safer and more convenient. But delegating to AI agents to start making decisions that have real impact on DAOs can also have unintended consequences.

This leads to a more complex area: how do we manage autonomous AI?

Privacy in the age of digital abundance

Practicalities and philosophical conundrums aside, combining cryptography with artificial intelligence should raise privacy concerns.

The dynamics of DeFi - a combination of openness and transparency enabled by a distributed digital ledger, combined with enough detailed information at the level of an individual's address to provide a digital fingerprint (the resolution may be low, but it's enough to establish behavioral patterns for individual wallet-holders) - require better ways to protect the new technology stack for financial transactions conducted by People.

In the broader digital asset community, we're seeing the privacy protection conversation unfold on a number of fronts, such as in the custodial/non-custodial wallet wars, the likelihood of government surveillance or intervention if/when central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) occur, and the use/need/legality of tools such as third-party mixers.

Meanwhile, there are almost constant calls (especially in the US) to figure out how to independently regulate these new technologies.

In the case of cryptocurrencies, the job of developing a regulatory framework falls to the agencies that typically create and enforce financial rules and regulations. In the case of artificial intelligence, it is less clear who will be responsible for regulating a new type of intelligence.

Regardless of which entity is ultimately tasked with regulating crypto and AI or a combination of crypto and AI, protecting individual user privacy should be a unifying focus for everyone using these cutting-edge technologies.