Imagine a future where AI and Web3 technologies seamlessly integrate to create innovative solutions. A new bootcamp brought together developers from diverse backgrounds to learn how to harness these technologies, with promising results.
The Intersection of Two Technologies
Imagine trying to describe someone to an alien who has never encountered a human before. You need to touch on each sense – sight, sound, smell, touch, taste – to create a clear picture. This is exactly what happens when we try to describe the intersection of AI and Web3 technologies.
Meet Matheus Pagani, founder and CEO of Venture Miner. He’s a male with light caramel skin and dark brown hair that’s curly, even though it’s cut close. His thick dark brown beard connects to a mustache, giving him an air of assurance without being arrogant. His eyes are dark brown behind thin wire glasses. If you picture him yet, how confident are you?
Pagani is Brazilian, which might make you think he wears bright colors and a feathered headdress. But that’s not the case. The generative AI used during the AI2Web3 Bootcamp in NYC showed examples of Brazilians having fun, but Pagani’s actual appearance is quite different.
A New Era for Developers
The bootcamp, run by Pagani and Build City, brought together 59 participants across all skill levels to learn how to combine these two technologies. The goal was to create useful products and services that blend the strengths of AI and blockchain technology.
Pagani used a middle-school writing exercise to explain how AI made significant leaps in recent years. Before there was only text data being used to train AIs, but mixing it with visual data created a fuller picture. Understanding this concept is crucial for getting hands-on experience with both AI and blockchain technology.
The bootcamp’s focus on joining brilliant minds from all backgrounds to work together on projects that blend Web3 and AI can uncover new use cases that wouldn’t have been possible with specialized knowledge alone. Pagani emphasized the importance of bringing passionate people interested in solving problems together with proper education.
Mind-Boggling Building
What makes the intersection of these two technologies so exciting is how much you can build in a short amount of time without prior technical experience. AI sources whole codebases with the right prompt, while the crypto industry builds tools to make developing at the intersection more intuitive and accessible.
Coinbase launched AgentKit in November, which allows developers to build AI agents with their own crypto wallets. These agents can interact autonomously with blockchain networks, enabling projects like monitoring markets and executing trades automatically based on predefined rules and guardrails.
Lincoln Murr, associate product manager at Coinbase, said, “One day, we’ll have AI agents own their own cars and operate their own taxi service that gets paid by customers in crypto and then uses that crypto to purchase repairs.” The company has a grants program ongoing for building with AgentKit, encouraging developers to create cool projects.
Ora Network also offers an interesting model for developers. It allows them to utilize current large language models like Meta’s Llama3 and Stable Diffusion while enabling the development of their own models through crowdfunding.
Can Devs Do Something?
During the final day of the bootcamp, nine teams presented working prototypes for projects that blended Web3 and AI. These projects ranged from AI assistants meant to help with everyday tasks to applications that pump out memecoins with big virality potential.
Participants like Jackie Joya, who flew in from San Francisco, were inspired by the bootcamp to continue building. Even though she has a background in animal science, she was amazed at how much a novice could accomplish with the tools available.
Other participants, across all skill levels, shared similar sentiments. Choudhury Imtiaz, a market researcher from Bangladesh, who is waiting for his placement, pitched a team project on the last day and learned skills for building with both technologies.
Isayah Culbertson, an engineer who worked on both crypto and AI projects separately, believes that this combination has the potential to change the world for the better. He sees it accelerating research and development in many fields while allowing for a more equitable distribution of wealth generated from R&D.
- coindesk.com | Its Easier Than You Think to Build With AI and Web3
- yahoo.com | Its Easier Than You Think to Build With AI and Web3