Is Blockchain Useful in the Age of AI?

A few weeks ago, while I worked on putting together this website for my new Topkenomics as a Service business, I wanted to include some non-stock visuals and pictures. "Wait a minute," I thought, "we have the generative AI now! I'm sure it will create some cool visuals for the website!"

So I went to Bing, which now uses Dall-e Open AI, and started my AI-generated adventure with the "virtual chief token economist" querry. I got pictures of young white dudes in suits pointing at a Bitcoin. That was a bit boring and uninspiring, not really what I wanted...

I decided to make it a bit more fun. "virtual chief token economist in the style of an 80s action movie" generated excellent pictures! If you are old enough to remember Blade Runner or Escape from NY, you'll appreciate what a great job AI did there! Just take a look:

I got really excited now, and tried "a diverse group of virtual chief token economists in the style of an 80s action movie". I think these pictures are absolutely hilarious and my absolute favorites!

And, yes, I think we need diversity in 2023. 80s action movies didn't feature a lot of diverse characters, so I tried "... in the style of Ted Lasso",

"...black and white indie movie",

"... friends tv show",

and finally "Marvel movies", the last one just out of curiosity.

In the end, I didn't see any pictures I want to use for the website, but I had great fun!

Now, about the blockchain and AI part

It's absolutely mind-blowing where generative AI is heading. All the pictures I got look obviously fake and creepy, but we've just started developing this technology. We're in the very early prototype stage now. It's not "if" but "when" the AI-generated content will be indistinguishable from reality. And this means we need cryptographic proof of what's real and what is AI-generated. Something like a verifiable credential (VC) that a piece of content was created by a human or that is a real photo. So, we'll have content with VCs proving the content has been generated by humans. Then, content with VCs proving it has been generated by AI. Finally, there will be a gray area in between, where the credentials don't give a clear answer. And for the stuff in the gray area, it will be up to the consumer of the content to decide if they care or not. This will also work for real vs fake news.

@realMichalBacia on Telegram and Twitter

LinkedIn