Decentralizing Machine Intelligence with Ben Fielding

It all began with a cluttered desk in a lab at Northumbria University in northern England, where a young AI researcher, Ben Fielding, started his PhD journey in 2015. Fielding had constructed a large machine equipped with early GPUs to develop AI, but it was so loud that it disturbed his lab-mates. He managed to squeeze the machine under his desk, but it was so big that he had to sit with his legs to the side. Fielding explored unconventional ideas, including the concept of 'swarms' of AI, where clusters of different models could interact and learn from each other, potentially improving the collective outcome. However, he faced a significant challenge: the limitations of his noisy machine and the fact that tech giants like Google had far more resources at their disposal. Fielding realized that computational constraints would always be an issue, not just in academia but also when AI became mainstream. The solution, he believed, lay in decentralized AI. In 2020, Fielding co-founded Gensyn, a project that aimed to build a decentralized network for machine intelligence. The company recently released its 'RL Swarms' protocol, a descendant of Fielding's PhD work, and launched its Testnet, which incorporates blockchain technology. In this conversation, Fielding explains the concept of AI Swarms, how blockchain fits into the puzzle, and why he believes all innovators should have the right to build machine learning technologies. Fielding's vision for Gensyn is to create a network that allows anyone to access and contribute to machine learning resources, breaking down the barriers that currently exist. With the launch of its Testnet, Gensyn is taking a significant step towards realizing this vision, and Fielding is excited about the potential for decentralized AI to democratize access to machine learning technologies.