The co-founder of the venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) says AI is making it harder than ever to verify identity, proving that blockchain infrastructure is no longer optional.
In a new interview with Alex Rampell, Ben Horowitz says AI is creating an identity crisis that will touch every corner of digital life, from social media and dating apps to video calls and government payments.
According to Horowitz, crypto is in a unique position to solve the problems created by AI.
“So I do think it starts with the problems that AI causes…
First is just, are you a human or are you a bot? I think everybody is going to really, really wanna know that, be it social media, a dating app, a Zoom call… Am I talking to an actual human…? How do I know it’s true…?
And I think at some point… AI will not be able to tell what’s an AI. So the only way is you’re going to have to have some cryptographically strong indication assigned to a piece of content that says, ‘OK, yeah, I made this. Or this is really a video of me.'”
The venture capital exec also says that people are unlikely to trust the government or the tech titans for identity verification.
“Who are you going to trust for the truth? Are you going to trust Google? Are you going to trust Meta? Are you going to trust the US government? I think you want to trust the kind of mathematical game-theoretic properties of the blockchain. So I think that’s going to be just a very, very important part of the infrastructure.”
Horowitz also recalls a recent US stimulus program where the government lost hundreds of billions of dollars to fraudsters during the pandemic. According to Horowitz, it is the clearest real-world example of what happens when the public sector tries to move money without a reliable identity infrastructure.
“Everybody’s talking about, ‘Well, let’s do UBI. Well, great.’ But when we did the stimulus program, we found out that the government is very bad at getting money to people. Depending on the numbers you read, it’s somewhere around $450 billion that got stolen. So what you really need is an address where you can send them money. And so I think that’s a crypto problem.”
Photo by Patrick Hendry on Unsplash
Disclaimer: Opinions expressed at CapitalAI Daily are not investment advice. Investors should do their own due diligence before making any decisions involving securities, cryptocurrencies, or digital assets. Your transfers and trades are at your own risk, and any losses you may incur are your responsibility. CapitalAI Daily does not recommend the buying or selling of any assets, nor is CapitalAI Daily an investment advisor. See our Editorial Standards and Terms of Use.