The historical intersection of AI and crypto

Source: Empower Labs

On Christmas Eve 1940, MIT mathematics professor Norbert Wiener received a $2,325 defense grant to build a system for predicting the location of enemy aircraft. The amount of funding was indeed a bit shabby, but Weiner was able to participate in the action against the Axis powers, and Weiner did it very vigorously.

As early as World War I, people realized that as flight speeds increased, operators of ground-based air defense systems would gradually become incompetent, and people became the weakest link in the operation chain. Human manual, must exit from the entire operation sequence.

But this is a bit difficult. Wiener spent a lot of time studying the psychology of pilots and other factors, trying to predict the future behavior of an organism by studying its structure >, he believed that this would be the mechanized method closest to the physiological behavior of the pilot. However, faced with the lagging progress and the full page of formulas submitted by Wiener, the officials of the National Defense Commission became overly optimistic and finally stopped the project.

There are many funded projects, among which the VT fuze was born, which allows the artillery shell to independently determine the timing of explosion based on the received signal during flight. Towards the end of World War II, Germany developed the V1 missile, which was capable of long-range attack and had a simple autopilot system. This triggered widespread fear at the time, and the V1 was called an "autonomous bomb." However, the anti-aircraft artillery equipped with VT fuzes was very successful and shot down about 79% of the V1 missiles. This duel also became the first battle in human history in which a machine made autonomous decisions about life and death.

Automation and AI

Although attempts during World War II did not was successful, but the experience had a profound impact on Weiner. In 1948, Wiener published "Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine", this is the epoch-making "Cybernetics". Cybernetics proposes that both animals (including humans) and machines rely on the transmission and processing of information to maintain and regulate their functions. This theory breaks through the boundaries of traditional disciplines and proposes a new way of understanding complex systems. This theory is not only applicable to mechanical and electronic systems, but also to biological organisms and social organizations.

Under the influence of cybernetics, many automation projects were born, including the United States' aviation automation management system, semi-automatic ground defense system, and Apollo spacecraft navigation system. Among them, Chile’s Cybersyn project is particularly eye-catching. This system combines the ideas ofbig data, machine learning and DAO, and attempts to realize the automated management of the national economythrough amachine-led approach. However, this ambitious project ultimately failed due to technical and political constraints.

Cyberneticsbreaks the boundaries between physics and spirit, nature and artificiality, life and non-life. As the scientific community gradually accepted the idea that humans and machines are essentially similar, they began to delve into building machines with human-like intelligence. In 1950, Turing published a groundbreaking paper in the field of artificial intelligence, "Computing Machines and Intelligence," which was heavily influenced by cybernetic ideas. Pitts, one of the founders of neural networks, was once Wiener's assistant. His research on neural networks was deeply influenced by and inspired by Wiener.

Although the origin of artificial intelligence cannot be directly attributed to cybernetics, the two have common interests and theoretical foundations in exploring machines to imitate or replicate human intelligence and behavior, and have also been doing so for a long time in history. intertwined and influenced.

The craze caused by cybernetics in the 20th century had a profound impact on culture, especially in the counterculture movement. This influence is manifested in a strong belief in innovation and change through technology, which has become one of the core features of Silicon Valley culture.

From Cyberpunk to Cypherpunk

The word cybernetics is actually translated very strangely. The word "Cybernetics" is derived from the Greek word "κυβερνήτης" (kybernētēs), meaning "helmsman." The word was originally used to refer to the management and control of ships or governments. In the early days of cybernetics, it was once translated as "On the Mechanical Brain," but eventually everyone accepted the name cybernetics.

Because of this translation, it is difficult to associate the relationship between the word Cyber ​​and cybernetics in the Chinese context. The word Cyber ​​was born from cybernetics. After decades of evolution, it has become closely related to concepts such as network culture, virtual reality and digital identity. Cyber ​​Space represents a virtual world built by digital technology.

Geeks regarded cyberspace as a new, free, and ideal realm, but soon the U.S. government began to intervene and try to control it. This behavior was intolerable to the geeks, so everyone launched a resistance. This was the crypto war that lasted throughout the 1990s.

The cypherpunks were also born during this period, a group of activists and technology experts who advocated the use of cryptography technology to promote personal privacy and freedom. The community force represented by cypherpunks finally won. Advanced encryption technology that was once classified as arms control was finally open to the world, and everyone gained the right to use encryption technology.

In the course of their fight, the U.S. courts determined open source code to be part of free speech, which provided solid legal protection for contributors to the global open source community and promoted a vibrant open source ecosystem. development of. These achievements ultimately gave birth to the rapid development of information technology and brought a prosperous Internet era to the world. And more importantly, geeks who are good at encryption technology can have their own little piece of utopia in cyberspace.

The crypto community not only pursues the privacy of communications, but also hopes to create a payment system based on encryption technology that fully protects privacy and is not subject to authoritative control. In the context of the "Crypto Wars", these technology geeks have made many innovative attempts. David Chaum developed Digicash, an early digital currency, and was even close to reaching a deal with Microsoft; Nick Szabo designed Bitgold and proposed the concept of smart contracts for the first time; Dai Wei proposed the B-Money concept, which was adopted more than 20 years later Ethereum is commemorated by the smallest unit "wei". Although none of these early projects were sustainable, they laid an important foundation for the development of the crypto ecosystem.

Ten years after the end of the crypto war, a mysterious figure made his own innovation based on these predecessors. His true identity is still unknown, but the world is already very familiar with his pseudonym - Satoshi Nakamoto.

AI+Encryption

Although encryption technology and artificial intelligence have their own characteristics in terms of technical architecture and concepts, theyshare the same have closely related historical origins and pursue similar goals in many aspects, especially the pursuit of "autonomy".

The AI ​​future we imagine is autonomous. Various agents work autonomously, using technology to break through human limitations in processing complex and repetitive tasks to improve efficiency and innovation. The cryptographic world we imagine is also autonomous. Networks, protocols and organizations all run autonomously through consensus codes, achieving fairer, transparent and secure system management through decentralization, thereby preventing improper use of resources and abuse of power. Although their focus is different, they are all committed to optimizing social functions and rationalizing the power structure through technological innovation.

After decades of isolated development, AI and encryption technology are now gradually converging into a more powerful force, leading a technological revolution in a new era.

By contributing resources, individuals can build a more powerful decentralized computing network and benefit from it. Models can continuously improve their capabilities by connecting to encrypted networks and using more data. AI creators use encrypted networks to protect their creations and distribute rights among relevant parties in a transparent and fair manner. And more AI agents will soon be integrated into this encrypted network, and even create an encrypted network belonging to AI to obtain a more friendly environment and interactive capabilities. They will interact with humans and other AIs, bringing a large number of scenarios and funds.

With vastly improved productivity, people will have more time to do the things they truly love. People will join various culture-driven DAOs where they pursue deeper meaning and value. And this collective effort and collaborative spirit has the potential to usher in a new renaissance, creating unprecedented artistic, cultural and technological achievements.

These various scenes with infinite possibilities come together to form a grand stage for future technological development. We are witnessing not only a technological revolution, but also a reshaping of the entire social structure and lifestyle.

This article is a historical review and an introduction. I will start a series in the next few months to discuss how AI and encryption technology will be closely intertwined and develop together in the future.