Artificial intelligence and cryptography are fundamentally two technologies at opposite ends. Although both have been on everyone’s lips lately, their interaction is more akin to that of two conflicting forces than that of two units living in symbiosis.
AI churns through massive amounts of data and creates content abundantly at zero cost. The originality of the work is condensed in the prompts we feed to the models, but the final output still gets lost in a sea of similar and mediocre content.
On the other hand, cryptography ensures the authenticity of content. Through complex algorithms, information is secured, limiting access and modification. A transaction on a blockchain is immutable, ensuring its uniqueness.
Currently, these two technologies hardly blend and seem almost at opposite extremes. An example of this statement can be found in the world of art. AI has already created an abundance of mediocre content, albeit difficult to distinguish from those created by humans. The internet is now filled with artificially generated images and articles that at first glance seem original but are actually the result of regurgitation by some Large Language Model (LLM) 1.
At the same rate at which the number of these “machine-made” contents grows, so does the hunger for genuine and authentic “human-made” content.
Content created by humans without the use of AI will always hold allure in our eyes. Even if in the future AI creates the majority of content (artistic and otherwise), those with the most impact will be those created by flesh-and-blood individuals. A hand-painted painting by an artist will be more valued than yet another image created through AI, no matter how beautiful and realistic it may be.
And this is where the world of cryptocurrencies comes into play. Any artist, whether an author or a musician, will need to ensure that their work is “human-made” and actually comes from them. It is not difficult to imagine the use of cryptography to guarantee all these characteristics. A musician could then publish their piece online and, through asymmetric cryptography algorithms (like PGP) 2 and DAOs, ensure its authenticity and direct distribution to their fans. The presence of countless AI-generated songs similar to theirs will be irrelevant; users will be guided towards their creation, unique and original.
It is evident that the artist who possesses the most original and unconventional vision will benefit most from this future scenario. We must consider two important aspects regarding artificial intelligence. First, future LLMs will be trained using content that will increasingly be generated by AI, creating an obvious negative loop that will strangle the creativity of these models 3. Second, if everyone has access to the same LLMs, there is no competitive advantage in using them in the production of original content.
Therefore, it is clear that the creation of a “digital stamp” that guarantees “human-made” content is fundamental, which must necessarily be created using the cryptographic principles of cryptocurrencies. This crypto-stamp will act as a compass, directing people towards human content in a sea of artificial intelligence. Only time will tell if this approach works and how it can actually be implemented.
1 https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modello_linguistico_di_grandi_dimensioni
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