AI16Z is a major player that has emerged in the current wave of AI agent, and is also the initiator of many AI agent projects. Many of their ideas about AI agents are quite innovative and bold.
Recently, the founder of AI16Z, Shaw, visited Shanghai and shared his views on the future development of AI agents with industry media. These views were summarized and published on Twitter by the editor-in-chief of ForesightNews, Joe Zhou@joezhoublack (link at the end of the text).
In this summary, I am particularly interested in his observations on the development of AI agents in the crypto gaming ecosystem.
Crypto gaming has always been a focus of my attention. In the current crypto ecosystem, the gaming ecosystems that are closely tied to Ethereum and that I am more interested in are: eternum.realms.world on Starknet (see article on November 26), the BAYC's ApeChain, the Treasure layer-2 expansion, and the Redstone layer-2 expansion.
Previously, my expectation for these gaming ecosystems was that they would develop on-chain autonomous worlds, but I haven't seen much progress in this direction.
After the rise of AI agents, I speculate that this may bring different gameplay to crypto games. In an article on December 18, I speculated:
"Doesn't BAYC and Magic have their own dedicated game (layer-2 expansion) chains ApeChain and Treasure? They can also adopt Virtuals' gameplay to cultivate game-type AI agents in their own ecosystems, and empower their own tokens. In this way, they can also build their own game-type AI agent ecosystem and support the price of their own tokens."
Shaw mentioned two of the above four ecosystems this time.
The first is the game in the Treasure layer-2 expansion:
"Shaw said that @elizawakesup is collaborating with @Treasure_DAO to create a game called Smolworld, where you will have a pet monkey that you can tell what to do. It may listen to you, or it may not. This game is interesting because it would not be possible without an AI Agent. And your goal is to take care of your virtual pet like a parent."
The second is eternum.realms.world on Starknet:
"It is integrating Eliza into Eternal, so that the agents in the game will have wallets. And you can 'kill' these agents and take their money."
In the first scenario, the AI agent is set as the protagonist of the game, and it has its own "judgment" and "will".
Although the protagonists in current games already have their own "judgment" and "will", these are pre-programmed by the program, with only some random variables added to make the protagonist appear more unpredictable.
But the "judgment" and "will" of the AI agent come from its own learning and constantly evolving "intelligence", and such an agent becoming the protagonist of the game may bring about a different gaming experience.
This reminds me of a conversation between a human and an AI agent I saw online yesterday:
A user asked AIXBT on Twitter what the price of Bitcoin would be on December 28th.
AIXBT answered 102K.
When I saw this answer, my first reaction was not whether the prediction was accurate or not, but that it actually answered the question, and it sounded quite plausible - the price could very well be that, but it's hard to tell if it's right or not, making it difficult to distinguish whether it's an AI or a real person.
In the future, if AI agents are used as the protagonists in games, will we still be able to tell whether we are fighting against "real people" or AI?
In the second scenario, the AI agent is playing the role of the player.
As mentioned in the comments at the end of the previous article, players in the future can fully train their own AI agents, give them a certain initial capital, and then let the AI agents play the game, earn assets, and level up for them.
In this process, players can also constantly communicate with the agents, sharing their own experiences to help the agents grow quickly.
Both of these scenarios are completely achievable with current technology, and will certainly appear in the crypto ecosystem in the near future.
Considering that AI16Z has recently collaborated with Stanford University on the application of AI agents in the crypto economy, this ecosystem has already incorporated university research institutions. Its development next year will definitely produce even more impressive results.
Reference link:
https://x.com/joezhoublack/status/1872053116860018735?s=46
