Crypto Stories: The Intersection of Blockchain and AI with Trent McConaghy

Trent McConaghy (@trentmc0) returns for another interview with Erik. He’s the founder of Ocean Protocol and BigchainDB. In this episode, he starts by explaining Ocean Protocol’s mission and gives us a history of how the overall philosophy of the web has changed over the years, going from what could be called Web 1 to Web 2.0 to the yet-to-be-written story of Web 3. He explains how the web started out as a tool for democratizing access and how Web 2.0 created some undesirable effects when it comes to the siloing of information, questions about privacy, and the prevalence of advertising. Trent is hopeful though that Web 3 will be a return to the roots of Web 1. He lays out a compelling case for why several of the web’s biggest names should be tokenized and how that will remedy the current case of misaligned incentives between company and users. Trent also helps us imagine a world where AI and blockchain are working to amplify each other and what kinds of changes for society that might portend. He explains a number of scenarios related to digitally autonomous organizations, self-driving cars, road infrastructure, medicine and art.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Shawn Xu is our researcher, Colin Campbell is our audio engineer, and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.