a16z crypto show Why AI is so centralized: How it's built, who controls it, and what comes next
27 snips
Apr 22, 2026 
Harry Grieve, cofounder of Gensyn and machine learning + crypto builder, and Ben Fielding, Gensyn cofounder and former ML practitioner, explore AI’s centralized infrastructure. They discuss why centralization matters, how crypto can provide programmatic trust, rebuilding AI as open infrastructure, and the rise of autonomous onchain AI agents.
AI Snips
Chapters
Books
Transcript
Episode notes
AI Is Foundational Human Infrastructure
- AI is foundational infrastructure like social media, not merely an application.
- Building AI as open infrastructure prevents power from concentrating in a single company and enables better downstream products.
Crypto Supplies Programmatic Trust For Machines
- Crypto provides programmatic trust needed when machines interact without humans.
- Harry Grieve explains courts and contracts don't scale to machine-to-machine interactions, so crypto enables automated trust and coordination.
Build Protocols For Machine Trust
- Use a decentralized state machine to establish machine-level trust rather than legal contracts.
- Harry Grieve recommends building protocols (they chose crypto) to make machine interactions verifiable and enforceable.
