{"id":4337,"date":"2023-05-24T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-05-24T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ci02bff8e380012448"},"modified":"2025-09-28T17:39:56","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T22:39:56","slug":"are-bitcoin-and-artificial-intelligence-compatible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/culture\/are-bitcoin-and-artificial-intelligence-compatible","title":{"rendered":"When Bitcoin Meets Artificial Intelligence: Woke Madness Or Awakened Sanity?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This is an opinion editorial by Aleksander Svetski, author of \u201cThe UnCommunist Manifesto,\u201d The Bitcoin Times and the \u201cRemnant Series,\u201d and head of growth and strategy at Lucent Labs.<\/em><\/p>\n

I know, I know. Your Twitter feed has probably been drowning in threads and tips from AI bros who have discovered 99 ways for you to save 99 hours every week using ChatGPT or some other list of 99 AI apps.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sick of it too. Trust me, especially considering that most of these AI \u201cexperts\u201d were Web3 \u201cexperts\u201d last year, NFT \u201cexperts\u201d the year before and DeFi or crypto \u201cexperts\u201d before that. Trend hopping at its finest.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not to say there\u2019s no value here to be found here. Somewhere beneath or behind the almost-deafening noise coming from these influencooors there is a possible paradigm shift, and a genuine set of use cases. We\u2019ve seen some already, of course. <\/p>\n

You can chat with these models to reason out a problem, you can summarize thoughts and ideas, find correlations between ideas, search for some<\/em> information better than you could with Google and, of course, build more linguistically-functional chatbots. Perhaps the best use case thus far are the dev-assistant tools<\/a>, but I get the sense that we\u2019ve not yet seen the \u201cUber moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is also \u2014 somewhere beneath and behind all of the scary talk of artificial general intelligence (AGI)<\/a> and the idiocy being proposed by bureaucrats and would-be regulators \u2014 a more human-centric, human-enhancing use for these tools.<\/p>\n

The idea of a language user interface as the next step from the thumb tapping we\u2019ve become used to over the past decade is fascinating, and what we should be thinking about is how to make these tools new \u201cbicycles for the mind<\/a>,\u201d as Steve Jobs said about computers. It\u2019s very important that we push back against doomer narratives that lean the world toward \u201capproved AI\u201d in order to avoid such tools becoming yet another appendage of the State.<\/p>\n

In this short article, I\u2019d like to explore the ideological AI battlefield and its relationship to Bitcoin. Some pretty important battle lines have been drawn, and we must all be aware of them.<\/p>\n

Bitcoin Remains The Most Important Thing In The World<\/h2>\n

Energy is still the currency of the universe. That\u2019s not changing, and will never change. At the risk of sounding like too much of a hippie: It\u2019s all energy.<\/p>\n

People often forget that, and this recent AI hype cycle is a clear example. Most people you talk with, even otherwise smart people, think that AI is the biggest thing happening in the world today, and that it\u2019s mankind\u2019s most important innovation.<\/p>\n

I think they\u2019re wrong, in a big way. They\u2019re missing something more foundational.<\/p>\n

AI is a tool. When applied well, it\u2019s a very effective tool. But however effective a tool it may be, it needs energy to run. Yes, it can and will enhance how we use and allocate energy, but ultimately, it is an amplifier. A tool. An \u201cengine,\u201d so to speak.<\/p>\n

What is Bitcoin?<\/p>\n

Well, Bitcoin is like<\/em> energy. Before the Saylor-haters out there screech about that not being literally accurate: I know! It\u2019s a metaphor, and in my opinion, a useful one<\/em>. It\u2019s useful because, in the same way we can essentially use energy to measure everything else, money is a measure that helps us (implicitly) account for energy, time and material resources. <\/p>\n

If we understand that Bitcoin, on a long enough time scale (generationally speaking, not civilizationally) becomes money<\/em>, then here\u2019s the truth that AI people are missing:<\/p>\n

Bitcoin benefits from all of it, because Bitcoin is the foundation. Everything that happens, every technology, every tool, every innovation, enlarges the total Bitcoin pie.<\/strong><\/p>\n

So, don\u2019t get it twisted: AI is big, but Bitcoin remains king.<\/em><\/p>\n

Of course, in terms of financial returns, VC money and the like, AI companies will probably outpace both bitcoin returns (in the short term) and also Bitcoin company returns, but that\u2019s to be expected in a fiat world where hype prevails over sanity, and we experience abnormal cyclicality.<\/p>\n

AI is also undergoing a sort of renaissance, so there is lots of buzz. This will, in time, stabilize and as bitcoin becomes the unit of account, lo and behold, all of the real<\/em> value generated from AI will ultimately accrue to bitcoin and bitcoin holders.<\/p>\n

So, don\u2019t stress if you\u2019re feeling FOMO on AI. Don\u2019t worry about changing your entire life around because some ex-crypto-turned-AI-expert guy wrote a viral tweet telling you about some new, generative AI tool that will obsolete some and make others mega rich.<\/p>\n

Slow and steady continues to win the race. Bitcoin continues to be king.<\/p>\n

AI Is An Amplifier<\/h2>\n

The second thing we need to realize is this: AI is like the computer or any other technology, for that matter.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an engine. It\u2019s an amplifier.<\/em><\/p>\n

It will amplify madness, stupidity and lies, or it will amplify soundness, sanity and truth.<\/p>\n

It can be used as a tool of control and stupidification, or it can be used as a tool for liberating oneself from minutia and for enhancing one\u2019s intelligence.<\/p>\n

The direction we wind up ultimately depends on you.<\/p>\n

Which tools are you using? Which do you demand? Which are you building? Which are you supporting?<\/p>\n

Companies like Snapchat are building AI tools<\/a> to infect your mind with nonsense:<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n

OpenAI is busy guard-railing ChatGPT to such a degree that it spends more time apologizing and moralizing<\/a> than it does answering actual questions.<\/p>\n

Bard is, likewise, regurgitating the same kind of garbage<\/a>, likely because it\u2019s been neutered by \u201cbias-removal\u201d tools and toxicity filters.<\/p>\n

These stupidities only serve to constrain people\u2019s accepted thinking and speech, which results in a homogenization of thought. This can have two effects. In the worst case, so-called \u201csafety concerns\u201d lead to \u201capproved AI\u201d which ultimately leads to an internet that is accessed through chat filters with approved speech conditions. The alternative is if we push back and build alternatives. Their ignorance becomes our opportunity. While they focus on wokeness, we can build utility and authenticity. <\/p>\n

Which brings me to my final point:<\/p>\n

We\u2019re In A Global AI Arms Race<\/h2>\n

The race is between two versions of the world:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. On the one hand, we have woke, generalist AIs that everyone is forced to use because newly-formed regulatory bodies deem them \u201csafe\u201d (see the ridiculously-moronic work being done by Gary Marcus<\/a> to set up such a global committee).<\/li>\n
  2. On the other, we have a future of distributed, more sovereign tools that people can choose from, that the user evaluates on merits they deem important.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I know which future I want to see, and instead of sitting on the sidelines complaining, I\u2019m working toward building alternative or parallel solutions.<\/p>\n

    In a future article, I\u2019ll lay out what myself and a few really talented individuals have been working on. A beautiful marriage of Bitcoin as the focal point and Ai as the engine. <\/p>\n

    In the meantime, know this: The battle lines have been drawn.<\/strong><\/p>\n

    It\u2019s iris-scanning, central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) like World Coin<\/a> on one end, conveniently run by the same leadership as OpenAI, versus Bitcoin and smaller, more accurate, specialized and open-source language models on the other.<\/p>\n

    <\/figure>\n

    We all have to make a choice about the kind of world we want to live in. Woke madness, or awakened sanity? Mainstream and generalized, or local and specialized?<\/p>\n

    In my next piece, I will present a potential solution, or at least a way forward. Until then, think deeply about what I have said. Don\u2019t get flustered by all the hype. Remain steady in your conviction, remain vigilant with the narratives being pushed and be ready for the next battle \u2014 because it\u2019s coming.<\/p>\n

    This is a guest post by <\/em>Aleksandar Svetski<\/em><\/a>, founder of <\/em>The Bitcoin Times<\/em><\/a> and <\/em>The Amber App,<\/em><\/a> author of \u201c<\/em>The UnCommunist Manifesto<\/em><\/a>,\u201d \u201c<\/em>Authentic Intelligence<\/em><\/a>\u201d and the up-coming \u201cBushido Of Bitcoin.\u201d Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or <\/em>Bitcoin Magazine.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Ideological battle lines are being drawn around artificial intelligence, and Bitcoiners need to enter the fray.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2612,"featured_media":3082,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[715,59,219],"class_list":{"0":"post-4337","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture","8":"tag-artificial-intelligence","9":"tag-opinion","10":"tag-regulation"},"author_data":{"id":2612,"name":"Aleksandar Svetski","nicename":"aleksandarsvetski","avatar_url":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/cropped-aleksandar-svetski-96x96.jpg"},"featured_image_url":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/network-nodes.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2612"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}