Reid Hoffman says NFTs may make a comeback as AI agents strain online identity
NFTs are due for a “rebirth” as AI brokers drive the web to resolve new id and belief issues, Reid Hoffman advised CoinDesk’s Consensus Miami convention on Wednesday.
The Greylock companion and LinkedIn co-founder stated brokers transacting with different brokers would require reliable digital id programs that resemble what NFTs initially tried to resolve. Hoffman stated he started revisiting NFTs as he thought of a future during which AI brokers outnumber people on-line.”Once you start to assume we’ll have extra brokers than folks, what does the id layer appear to be? What’s the notion of, hey, when your agent’s speaking to my agent, and we guide this speak right here, is it a trustable transaction?” Hoffman stated. “And that bought me again into fascinated with NFTs.”
Hoffman stated id programs will exist inside corporations, however the more durable downside can be id for brokers working throughout the open web.
“It’s going to be form of free vary on the web, and the way does that work? And crypto is the plain reply,” he stated.
This argument carries a throughline from Hoffman’s earlier work at LinkedIn, the place real-world skilled id was central to the community’s design. Hoffman stated precise id can create “extra duty, extra reliability,” whereas additionally acknowledging that pseudonyms have respectable makes use of in some contexts.
Hoffman, who stated he purchased his first Bitcoin over a decade in the past and has by no means bought any, framed crypto because the pure reply to the deepfake-era belief downside. He cited his personal AI clone, Reid AI, which he has despatched to talk at conferences, for instance of why provenance will matter extra as generative media improves.
“After I purchased my first Bitcoin in 2014, it was like, really, actually, that is a part of a design function, that that is how DNS ought to work. That is how id ought to be working, usually if you get to the web,” he stated.
That id downside, Hoffman defined, extends past agent-to-agent commerce. He pointed to AI-generated content material, bot farms, manipulated polls and paid political affect campaigns as examples of why proof-of-humanity is turning into more durable to disregard on-line.
In a politically calibrated stretch, Hoffman urged the crypto business to not overcommit to Republicans on coverage.
“If the business goes, oh, we’re overly reacting towards Gensler, et cetera, after which being form of, because it have been, anti-Democratic Occasion on this, the issue is that the pendulum swings,” he stated. “It is good to be bipartisan from a viewpoint of what we care about is the ecosystem. We care about the way it performs an excellent function in society.”
Hoffman additionally disputed the prevailing narrative that AI is driving Massive Tech layoffs.
“What I’ve seen up to now in each firm that claims, ‘I am doing layoffs due to AI,’ possibly aside from Meta, just isn’t out of productiveness, however is simply out of reshifting,” he stated. “We have overhired due to the pandemic. We have to change. We will name it AI for a place of power.”
As an investor, Hoffman stated he’s on the lookout for crypto concepts which will have been tried too early throughout prior market cycles however may return as AI adjustments the web. NFTs are one such space, he stated, whereas “DAOs and different areas” may additionally see renewed relevance.
Requested on the shut what his Bitcoin exit worth was, Hoffman did not identify a quantity. “Is there such a factor as an exit worth?” he requested.
