A few big companies control most of the infrastructure behind AI. Most people experience AI through a wide range of different apps that actually depend on a deeply centralized stack of data and compute. In this conversation, Ben Fielding and Harry Grieve — cofounders of decentralized machine learning protocol Gensyn — explain why this matters, and what it would take to rebuild AI as open infrastructure instead. From unused global compute to the philosophical implications of machine intelligence, they argue that the next evolution of AI must be owned, coordinated, and verified in a fundamentally different way. Highlights 00:00 – Intro 00:29 – The biggest misconception about AI infrastructure 01:20 – Why centralization in AI is a deeper problem than people realize 04:19 – Why AI needs crypto 05:51 – How AI models are trained 08:15 – The rise of autonomous AI agents with onchain identities 10:37 – Lightning round Ben Fielding on X: https://x.com/benfielding Harry Grieve on X: https://x.com/harrygrieve Gensyn on X: https://x.com/gensynai Follow a16z crypto on X: https://x.com/a16zcrypto Subscribe for more news and updates: a16zcrypto.substack.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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