Sentient: A Vocal Advocate of Decentralised AI

In the advert of AI programs, open-source AI has become the new buzzword with the launch of models like ChatGPT, Copilot, Claude, Gemeni and more. But it seems that the concentration of power is focused on these few companies, who have the data, resources and market influence to set the trend of what the future of AI should look like. These issues around the future of AI have thus inspired Sandeep Nailwal, the founder of Polygon Labs, to start a new project called Santient, whose vision was aimed at advancing decentralised AI in a way that benefits of AI are shared equally and the development of AI is aligned with the interests of humanity as a whole.

The dominance of closed-source AI

To understand the mission behind sentient, you have to first understand what is wrong with the current AI landscape. As of now, there is a dominance of closed-source AI which has monopolised the industry in the hands of a few companies such as Google and Facebook. This has created an uneven fighting field for budding developers who want to innovate and create new works. Furthermore, these individual open-source AI often would find themselves at the mercy of these conglomerate companies to give them the resources needed for them to even have the chance to compete with these big companies.

Providing data and power for new developers

Sentient thus hopes to be the cheatcode that could allow these individual hacks through the flawed system and create models that can compete with those from the top echalons. Sentient thus provides a platform where AI models and datasets could be bought and sold. This enables researchers and developers to access a wider array of resources without having to collaborate with these big companies.

Furthermore, Sentient also aimed to facilitate interoperability between different AI systems and applications, promoting a more collaborative and integrated approach to AI development.

Founders Fund co-lead $85 million seed round for AI platform Sentient

One of the most prominent investors behind sentient would be the major venture capital firm founders fundings. This company has funded many other big companies as well, such as SpaceX, Facebook, Stripe and Airbnb. This time, Founders Fund has invested a whopping $85 million into this project, which would be used to build out its platform, hire AI research, and establish partnerships with leading academic institutions and industry players.

Advantages of a more decentralised AI landscape

Prior to Sentient,Sandeep Nailwail was the co-founder and CEO of his own crypto company Polygon. But just like how he saw how crypto was setting the trend of decentralisation, the AI world was also bugged by the same problem as well

While this might be great news for AI developers, it might also bring a few incentives to us users as well. With AI more decentralised, it would mean that we, as consumers, would have greater autonomy over our own personal data,reducing the risk of data breaches and misuse.

Furthermore, it would also give us consumers more transparency over how our data is used. If I were to tell you that Facebook has full access to your search history and is actively using it to sell to advertisers, wouldn't you want to support Sentient even more?

Lastly, with a more decentralised AI landscape, it would facilitate greater competition and innovation. This might produce something that is 10 times or even 100 times better than ChatGPT.

Thus, I would say that I am a strong proponent of a more decentralised AI world, what about you?