"...overregulation risks driving innovation underground, while underregulation leaves users vulnerable. It’s a tightrope walk..." I couldn't help but smile when I read that phrase: "a tightrope walk", despite the doom and gloom nature of this article titled "Why Trust Matters in Crypto: Lessons from a Legal Battle" I smiled because one of the projects I'm working on (and have been working on for the past 20 years), a rock musical called "Void", has a pivotal scene where the protagonist literally battles with Despair atop a highwire, a tightrope.
In a 2023 newspaper interview, I acknowledged the drawbacks of AI but maintained that AI tools allow creators such as myself to bring to life different projects that would otherwise not see the light of day. Towards the end of his intriguing article, David Riudor, CEO and Founding Member of GenLayer Foundation ("Trust Infrastructure for the AI Age") concludes by writing that: "The early visionaries and cypherpunks dreamed of an internet that would unlock human freedom." He then mentions Bitcoin as a step towards that vision, followed by Ethereum, which allows "censorship-resistant platforms where we can express ourselves freely." With GenLayer, he believes that "we may finally reach that precious form of freedom by creating a mechanism where trust is embedded by design, not governed by corrupted institutions controlled by connections, power, and money, and that exist only to serve those who already hold them."
Void touches on all these: connections, power, money, freedom.
Riudor informs us that GenLayer "acts as a fast, cost efficient, and trustworthy digital arbiter." The essence of drama is conflict and Void - like any other story - wouldn't work well without a healthy amount of conflict. However, from my peace-loving perspective, I wonder, would a tool like GenLayer get rid of all the unnecessary conflict in this story (and in real life), conflict that largely arises from human beings just being, well, human? As Riudor points out in the first part of his article: "Humans have cognitive biases, emotions, and ego".
(Cue song from Void: "Emotional Overload", sung by the character "Dread".)
I will end with Riudor's powerful closing remarks and how they relate to some 20-year old lyrics from Void:
"Everyone is equal before the system. There is no longer inequality in front of the entities that decide who is right and who is wrong."
This is not about you/This is not about who/is wrong or right or indifferent - Protagonist to the Powers that Be.
"GenLayer carries the mission of creating a completely new standard, a place that converges toward truth. Because if someone with their own agenda can decide for us,"
Why are you mad at me/ Why can't you let me be/the person I know I must become - Protagonist to the Powers that Be.
"Because if someone with their own agenda can decide for us, we will never be free."
What would you say, if I said I want to march to my own drum now, want to be free - Protagonist, in the first song from Void, titled "Free"
Check out the Void Fashion videogame overview, with images created and animated using AI. The prompt I used: "The aesthetic is Afrogoth, goth with African fabric elements. Create a "Void Fashion Video Game" slide deck. This particular slide deck is to showcase a fashion video game based on the rock musical Void".
