A startup company called Ritual wants to democratize artificial intelligence.
Artificial intelligence is still in its early stages but already somebody is trying to disrupt it.
Ritual is setting out to create a decentralized AI platform after beginning unpublicized groundwork in May and having raised $25 million from venture capitalists led by New York-based Archetype Fund and including Accomplice and Robot Ventures.
Founders Niraj Pant and Akilesh Potti, who previously worked together at blockchain investor Polychain Capital, say they are seeking to prevent Big Tech from dominating artificial intelligence by hogging up computing power and limiting access to software. “AI is reaching an inflection point as its centralized, monopolized ecosystem threatens future growth,” Pant said in a Wednesday announcement revealing the project’s existence. “The consolidation of AI among a small group of powerful companies poses a significant threat to the future of technology.”
Ritual is taking a blockchain approach to its work although it will also offer access via the traditional internet. The plan is to pay owners of computing devices to support a network that provides access to AI programs, which are known as models. The company will make money by charging access fees to network users. It would not give specifics on prices or compensation to those offering processing capacity.
Along with increasing access with services that are targeted to business customers, Ritual will not censor prompts as Pant says some current AI offerings do. The company is also working on protection of data and user privacy as a separate component of its platform.
Proceeds from the initial fundraising will be used to build infrastructure, add to the 15-person team already working on the project, and attract AI programmers, computing providers and users to the network.
The company’s first product, expected within several months, is called Infernet. It will allow smart contracts on any blockchain to use AI models. The founders claim the network will be the first to permit such contracts to access AI in a way that preserves the blockchain properties of verification, decentralization and privacy.
Smart contracts are the building blocks of decentralized finance; they execute transactions when specified conditions are met. Despite the name, however, the current versions of the contracts are not all that intelligent: they are unequipped to handle nuance and unforeseen occurrences, making them subject to manipulation.
Ritual is not associated with a specific blockchain and is meant to be interoperable with any of those currently in existence. Pant says the “longer-term vision” is for the company to be a kind of “superchain” that functions as a co-processor to other blockchains.
