From: jimruttshow8596
Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) expert Ben Goertzel leads SingularityNET, a distributed network that enables individuals to create, share, and monetize AI services at scale [00:00:49]. This project embodies Goertzel’s long-standing vision for distributed, autonomous AI agents cooperating to achieve emergent intelligence [00:49:26].
Vision and Structure
SingularityNET functions as a “society of minds” or an “economy of mind” [00:50:01]. In this system, AI agents can pay each other for services, or be paid by external entities for their work [00:50:21]. This economic aspect is crucial for credit assignment and value assessment within the network, and it serves as another approach to achieving emergent AI where loosely coupled agents can still manifest cognitive dynamics [00:50:30].
The platform utilizes blockchain technology as its underlying “plumbing” to facilitate interactions among AI agents without a central controller [00:51:53]. This fosters a heterogeneously controlled and participatory democratic environment [00:52:04].
Importance of Decentralization
A key aspect of SingularityNET is its role as an ecosystem not controlled by dominant corporations, acting as a counter-trend to the increasing concentration of AI progress in fewer hands [00:53:06]. The importance of a decentralized network and open approach to AI is multi-faceted [00:53:36]:
- It can enable AI to contribute more positively to the world, contrasting with the “selling, spying, killing, and gambling” focus often seen in centralized AI [00:53:45].
- If current narrow AIs evolve into AGI, it’s preferable for them to be engaged in compassionate and creative endeavors like education, disease research, science, elder care, and art [00:54:51].
The current hegemonic situation in AI is largely due to self-organizing socio-economic dynamics and powerful network effects [00:55:34]. Companies that succeed first with narrow AIs for rapid deployment accumulate significant financial resources, data for training, and processing power [00:57:17]. SingularityNET aims to leverage these same network effects as a double-sided platform [00:58:09].
Just as Linux didn’t completely obsolete Apple or Microsoft but became dominant in mobile operating systems and servers, a decentralized AI network could have a tremendous impact without necessarily displacing the big tech companies [00:59:11].
Go-to-Market Strategy
To achieve critical mass and initiate the two-sided market cycle, SingularityNET is focusing on building the demand side of the market first, while initially training the supply internally with its own AI developers [01:00:30].
Key strategies include:
- AI Developer Workshops and Requests: Conducting workshops and placing requests for AI on the platform, incentivizing new AI contributions with tokens [01:01:17].
- Singularity Studio: A for-profit company spun off to build commercial products, starting with FinTech, on top of the SingularityNET platform [01:01:38]. Licensing fees from these products will be converted into AGI tokens, driving the token-based market [01:02:30].
- SingularityNET X-Lab Accelerator: This accelerator recruits community projects to build software products using AI from SingularityNET [01:03:07]. These projects are supported with tokens, publicity, and AI expertise [01:03:38].
The goal is to achieve significant utilization of the AGI token, attracting both the blockchain and AI communities [01:04:32]. This will incentivize more developers to contribute their AI to the platform, offering a market of paying customers in addition to the project’s inherent democratic and decentralized appeal [01:05:06].