Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, stirred up excitement during his visit to Taiwan. Over the past year, the explosion of AI hardware and software has turned the chip supply chain into a hotly pursued market worldwide. At the same time, key figures in the AI industry are speculating about the future.
Sam Altman's Prediction of New Currency
In March, during an appearance on the well-known American tech podcast hosted by Lex Friedman, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman made a significant prediction about the future role of computing power:
Computing power will become the new currency of the future.
Altman spent some time explaining that the computing power of chips, which drives contemporary technology, is an indispensable resource fiercely contested by humanity. He stated that organizations like enterprises and nations might compete for "computing power currency." In the future, computing power will be the most valuable wealth, equivalent to currency, and the development of AI has become a result of power struggles.
Continuing his description, Altman envisioned the future of AI as a "social structure where humans support and connect with each other." While promoting societal progress, there are concerns about safety. Altman pointed out that current AI development experts overlook some crucial issues, and the arms race in AI could be a double-edged sword.
Computing Power as Money, WLD as an Example
Extending the discussion on the dangers AI might bring, Altman mentioned in another podcast interview that AI could cause widespread unemployment, potentially leading to human extinction in severe cases. To address global employment issues, Altman again proposed the theory of "universal basic income (UBI)." He suggested treating computing power as an asset (new currency) distributed freely to global citizens, allowing all humanity to use it freely, including trading, renting, and donating it.
In Altman's view, universal basic income equates to "universal basic compute." In a future where all services are tied to AI, human life will require consuming computing power. Owning computing power from large models may be more valuable than holding fiat currency.
This concept is familiar to the crypto community. Altman's creation, Worldcoin, is based on the theory of universal basic income. After registering with an iris scan, each WLD user can receive tokens for free at regular intervals. Currently, these WLDs have fiat value, and in a future deeply integrated with AI, WLD may be valued in units of computing power.
Mediatek's Liang Borsung: Society Entering the Token Era
Speaking of crypto tokens, it's necessary to mention AI's token architecture. Liang Borsung, a significant chip researcher in Taiwan, recently posted on Facebook about Jensen Huang's frequent public emphasis on tokens as the gold mine of the future world.
He pointed out that human technology has progressed from bits to tokens. The AI era will produce a massive number of tokens, not just text, but also images, videos, actions, driving environments, and any data. These can all be tokenized, processed by AI, and then de-tokenized to translate back into secondary results needed by humans.
GPU, NPU, ASIC... have become the "golden shovels" in the AI industry, and the massive production of tokens is the real "gold mine." Tech giants like NVIDIA, AMD, Google, Microsoft, and Apple have made huge investments targeting this new economic value of tokens.
Computing power will become the new currency, and tokens will be the new format known to humanity. Do you agree with this trend?
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