Ram Kumar believes developers are attracted to on-chain artificial intelligence (AI) because of their fresh technological puzzles, sustainable business models and cultural significance. He advises builders who aim to approach AI as a research project aimed at solving open challenges.
Beyond the hype
Over the past few months, the AI sector has captivated the world of technology, attracting important mindshares, and in particular, draws a prominent shift for blockchain developers from decentralized finance (DEFI) to AI-centric projects. Beyond the initial hype and surge in AI token prices, this shift illustrates a deeper evolution within Web3 driven by fresh technical challenges and the undeniable cultural relevance of AI.
Ram Kumar, a core contributor and co-founder of OpenLedger, a protocol focused on the “payable AI” economy, offers a compelling account of the book of Exodus. “Developers are now heading towards AI on the chain as they offer fresher technical puzzles, more sustainable and healthy business models and more cultural relevance in the current age of AI,” Kumar said.
Defi remains a fundamental pillar of Web3, but the journey to widespread adoption faces hurdles. “DEFI has a continuous margin with additional technical and regulatory challenges in terms of continuous breakthrough,” Kumar said. This contrasts with the fast-growing opportunities for AI.
He says, “AI-centric topics like verifiable reasoning>
Actual cost of regulations
Despite the ruthless topics surrounding AI and Web3, their fusion remains primarily theoretical, and mainstream applications still lag behind expectations. The discussion highlights transformational possibilities, but there is little tangible implementation in the everyday consumer or enterprise ecosystem.
In his written response shared with Bitcoin.com News, Kumar identifies several important obstacles that hinder mainstream adoption of AI and Web3 direct implementation. The first is the exorbitant cost associated with running a large model on-chain, and “it costs 10-100 times more than chain reasoning.” The lack of high quality data on public blockchains is also a challenge. This is because most valuable data is currently chain off-chain.
According to Kumar, the current user experience is perceived as tedious and requires managing multiple elements such as Crypto wallets and, in some cases, GPU subscriptions. However, Openledger co-founders are optimistic that the groundbreaking solution is closer.
“The roll-up and zero-knowledge coprocessors are poised to quickly reduce costs significantly, with proven origins filtering out chain data feeds at risk risk, and wallet-native agents hide complexity, but these frictions continue to maintain their lab deployment for now,” Kumar said.
Many countries have enacted laws and imposed appropriate regulations as concerns have risen that if AI is not regulated, it could pose a risk to society. In 2024, around 31 US states enacted AI-related laws, covering deepfake, algorithm bias, and transparency. In Europe, the first AI law of this kind globally imposes strict rules on high-risk AI applications.
Many innovation advocates argue that such laws slow the development of useful technologies. However, Kumar goes further by following technology to ensure safety and equity, but often framing regulations as a reactive force that produces unintended consequences. He cites the European Union’s AI law. This, despite its goodwill, “may be priced for startups before they fit into the product market.”
When asked how many regulators would do differently than what they have done so far, Kumar said.
“We will adopt a feature-first taxonomy that distinguishes payments, governance, and data access tokens, and grant a safe harbor period of 18-4 months, where new networks can be decentralized during open telemetry publication.”
The Openledger co-founder told Bitcoin.com News that it would advocate lighter regulations to encourage critical AI models, which are open source safety that comes with the evaluation suite. This approach argues that all stakeholders can safely address concerns without fostering transparency and without compromising consumer protection.