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I remain unconvined about autonomous agents. The concept sounds cool, and I can understand arguments for them being a thing, but I also used to think that decentralized autonomous organizations were cool, and understood arguments for them being a thing. Just because something is interesting, and the arguments in favor of it being a thing are cogent, doesn't mean that there will be widespread adoption of that thing.

I agree that decentralization as conceived by the blockchain/crypto advocates isn't as useful as they claim it is, for a significant portion of the population.

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Yes! "I believe that the mass personalization that AI can bring is going to lay the real groundwork for the decentralized economy that the crypto industry is seeking." Good insight.

Memo to myself: https://share.glasp.co/kei/?p=S89lvHdNNj2QA4U96kfS

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I agree, best article ever. However, I believe decentralization is a fantasy, a dream but not a reality. Centralization has been born from the decentralized origins of humanity. Centralization is the enemy of a decentralized, autonomous society. The power resides in centralized knowledge and develops from organized planning and execution. The developments of the PC gave us decentralized computing until the cloud, Facebook, Microsoft, X, YouTube, pulled everything back together. There is an inexorable attraction to bring together everything and suck it into one black hole of civilization. Resistance is futile.

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Rob, i believe this has been your best essay to date. I agree with your contention that the crypto <> decentralization argument was a stretch. Decentralized AI, perhaps via agents, is likely to be to the next evolution in the ongoing AI revolution.

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