By Susie Violet Ward · Forbes · 8 December 2023
The article looks at how bitcoin’s Lightning Network could support artificial intelligence through fast, low-cost micropayments. With the cost of training models such as GPT-4 exceeding $100 million, it suggests Lightning could help organisations share training costs, pay people worldwide per task for fine-tuning models and support pay-per-use access to AI, as well as payments between AI agents that need near-instant transactions.
It also notes that bitcoin miners, with existing cooling, security and access to cheap energy, were moving into AI: Applied Digital and Iris Energy into AI cloud and high-performance computing, and Hut 8 into data centres with Nvidia GPUs. One researcher cited in the article argued that AI agents unable to open bank accounts could use bitcoin for payments, while Cathie Wood of ARK Invest highlighted the convergence of the two technologies.