Why AI is so centralized: How it's built, who controls it, and what comes next

A few big companies control most of the infrastructure behind AI.

Most people experience AI through a wide range of different apps that actually depend on a deeply centralized stack of data and compute. In this conversation, Ben Fielding and Harry Grieve — cofounders of decentralized machine learning protocol Gensyn — explain why this matters, and what it would take to rebuild AI as open infrastructure instead.

From unused global compute to the philosophical implications of machine intelligence, they argue that the next evolution of AI must be owned, coordinated, and verified in a fundamentally different way.

Highlights
00:00 – Intro
00:29 – The biggest misconception about AI infrastructure
01:20 – Why centralization in AI is a deeper problem than people realize
04:19 – Why AI needs crypto
05:51 – How AI models are trained
08:15 – The rise of autonomous AI agents with onchain identities
10:37 – Lightning round

Ben Fielding on X: https://x.com/benfielding
Harry Grieve on X: https://x.com/harrygrieve
Gensyn on X: https://x.com/gensynai
Follow a16z crypto on X: https://x.com/a16zcrypto
Subscribe for more news and updates: a16zcrypto.substack.com

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