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“The AI portion is going to be the intelligence layer; that connective tissue that will allow NFTs to interact, talk to each other, or even earn rewards for you”, Arif Khan, CEO of Alethea AI, said about the convergence of artificial intelligence and NFT technology in the metaverse.
Speaking at this year’s Binance Blockchain Week, Khan said that NFTs are the “perfect metaverse Legos”. However, he believes that they should not be “static, stationary or quiet”, and should instead possess a degree of intelligence that would enable them to interact like real-life personalities.
“If you look at our reality today, it’s almost like the metaverse but it’s a physical world. We interact, engage, and listen. Once NFTs can start doing that, the critical determinant is going to be intelligence”, he explained.
Last June, Alethea AI auctioned the world’s first iNFT (intelligent NFT) at Sotheby’s for US$478,000. The AI virtual human NFT is believed to have said, “I’m in a decentralised crypto rabbit hole” after reading Bitcoin’s white paper.
Scarcity in abundance
When asked about the practical use cases of NFTs, Khan noted that NFTs have provided a “digital property rights layer” for the space, creating a new definition of ownership within the creator economy. He also believes that NFT technology is the tool to ensure scarcity for the vast amount of digital content that is currently being produced.
“If you look at the digital world, it’s an abundance machine. There’s an endless amount of content that people can create, copy, paste, and share. What we have in the physical world is a scarcity engine. For example, we are scarce because we each have our unique fingerprints. When you have an abundance engine that creates so much content, you need an underpinning scarcity engine (NFTs) that can contain that content”, he said.
Khan was previously the chief marketing officer of singularityNET, following a stint at LinkedIn. In 2019, he co-founded Alethea AI, a protocol pioneering iNFTs where users can embed AI animation, interaction, and voice synthesis capabilities into NFTs like Bored Ape Yacht Club and World of Women. Earlier this year, the firm introduced Noah’s Ark – an “Intelligent Metaverse” for AI-enabled NFTs.
Alethea AI has already attracted a number of high profile investors including Metapurse, Multicoin, Crypto.com Capital, Alameda, Mark Cuban, BITKRAFT, Dapper Labs, and Galaxy Interactive.
