Simon Kim of Hashed believes that the future of artificial intelligence depends on a radical change: opening the black box of centralized models like OpenAI and building a decentralized and transparent ecosystem powered by blockchain.
For Kim, CEO of South Korea’s leading cryptocurrency venture fund, the urgency is clear. Unchecked centralization of AI threatens to create a “god” we don’t understand, while blockchain provides the tools needed to reward creators, protect intellectual property, and provide transparency for generative AI – which has been widely criticized for its bias and selective reasoning.
“AI is being centralized. OpenAI is not open and is controlled by very few people, so it’s quite dangerous. Doing this type of [closed source] “The founding model is similar to creating a ‘god,’ but we don’t know how it works,” he said in an interview with CoinDesk.
Kim argues that open source AI models like Meta’s Llama are an example of how AI can be built with decentralization and transparency in mind.
But he says the lack of strong incentive mechanisms for data providers – that is, everyone who uses the Internet – remains a problem.
“AI models simply crawl original content on the web and provide answers without paying the creators,” Kim said.
Kim believes we can solve this problem by developing a “copyright layer” where rights holders can track how their content is used – and reused – by the AI while getting paid along the way.
Hashed believes it has found a solution to this problem with Story, an IP management protocol for which it led a Series B round last year.
The fund has not yet invested in decentralized AI projects, but believes it is increasing its exposure to the space through its investment in Story.
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“We definitely need a blockchain-based intellectual property system to encourage the original creator, both the creator and the remixers,” Kim continued.
Kim is far from the only voice calling for the development of open source AI. More and more voices, from Meta’s Mark Zuckererg to the editorial board of The Economist, all agree that the black box of closed-source AI – the deity whose decisions and operation remain a mystery – must disappear for the industry to mature.
But it’s up to Kim to convince them that the solution lies in blockchain and crypto.
