Sensay uses AI to create digital replicas on blockchain

0:01I'm Arjan Addison from the Crypto Coin Show. Today on Blockchain Interviews with Dan Thompson, CEO of Sensei. Dan, welcome to the show and thanks for taking the time. Yeah, great to be here. Thanks. Excited to dive into artificial intelligence, where it's going, what are the capabilities of integrating it with blockchain, digital replicas, intellectual property.

0:24I feel like we're merging ever closer to the metaverse each day and I know Sensei is playing a role in that in certain ways as well. Would love to start off our conversation by just hearing a little bit about what you and your team have built at Sensei, how it fits into the AI and blockchain narrative and then we can dive into all the details. Yeah, absolutely. So,

0:50Yes, Sensei is a new platform for creating digital lifelike digital replicas of people. We build essentially these on-chain digital twins of individuals using their data about them, contextual information of where they're you know, where they're from, certain information that kind of plugs into who you are as an individual. We add voice, so that it sounds like them as well and

1:15can talk back to them in a in the same way as we might talk to each other. And these essentially the idea behind Sensei is to create these autonomous digital replicas that not only preserve someone's like essence and memories and stories and personality, but also go beyond that, transcending generations to interact with future generations as

1:40well as enabling us to interact with past generations like never before. Use and also be used as contemporary assistants to be used as your own personal replica to be used for whether or not that's introductory phone calls, whether or not it was a you know, any kind of I guess video conversation for whatever purpose. Could be like this. Could be a knowledge

2:04sharing. Could be anything from job hunting, matchmaking to you know, licensing out your likeness to be used as a interactive NPC. So, one day when there's Laura Ash and bot running around the next iteration of Destiny or Halo, it will be able to reply as you and talk to talk to talk to people as you as as a character which is super exciting.

2:27And then the nice part about having this all on chain means any monetization that's gained from that, any any value that's accrued in that knowledge data share or transfer can actually be accrued into the into the individuals' wallet and account. Hm. Wow. That is very cool and I feel like there are a lot of different applications for this. I could

2:51definitely see building my own replica to become my own virtual assistant. Hopefully the AI can act on my behalf and whether it's, you know, respond to emails in the way that I would or even take a call. I feel like as well, building digital replicas, as you mentioned, for generations, I feel like my grandma probably knows very little about AI and she might

3:15not be here for that long. Maybe integrating her in so that I could save those memories for the future would be an interesting use case or even potentially great grandmas that have already passed or even political people, famous people. What are the limitations or have you tried out all of these different use cases? Yeah, so legacy technology is definitely

3:39one of the core use cases for this technology and one of the easiest ones to understand. And I think it's the one that's kind of immortalized in like sci-fi and fiction quite a lot. Hm. So, you know, we are very lucky and this is actually where this all stemmed from. I wrote two books based on mind uploading and digital immortality a few years back and the

3:59You know, we're very lucky to live in this first generation where we have so much data about us. And so we have the ability to share ourselves through generations because generations to come will be able to, you know, interact with these AI replicas. They'll be able to get to know us as we are as as we were. Get to know our stories and then find out all about

4:20us. Whether you know, that's directly passed down through family or whether it's, you know, we've already got a an enterprise client who wants to use the technology to create these QR codes where they can be put on tombstones so that someone can literally scan them and see photos and videos of someone's life and interact with their replica to get to

4:40know them. Cuz you know, in historically in the last few centuries we're you know, we've lost the ability to like record big stories. You know, we don't have big stories about past generations and typically you know, people are forgotten after two, maybe three generations. And that's quite sad really, you know, unless someone was particularly successful, famous,

5:02Or you know, what super well documented, the vast majority of people you know, fade into you know, into into history after those three generations. So, to be able to actually preserve a version of you that can interact with generations to come is amazing and it's not just about legacy. It's not just about having that AI version of you persevere.

5:25You know, I'm we're talking about the ability for these replicas to actually do things for you, not just in the present but in the future, you know? Say you've got if you've got kids and maybe you don't want maybe you don't like your kids, maybe you just don't trust them enough to you know, leave your assets to them. Maybe you can actually have your AI

5:40replica manage your assets and perform daily tasks for you on your behalf after you pass. And so there's there's I mean, there's a world of opportunity just for these in the present for the future. But yeah, the legacy aspect is definitely something that's most interesting. It's the reason I started thinking about this in the first place. The ability to essentially create a

6:02version of digital immortality for us to exist in a way that has only been possible for our generation. And it's it's really super exciting. Yeah, it's very fascinating and I wish that our elders were able to have this technology and, you know, I would be able to learn so much more about my family history, but, you know, even your great grandma or any you barely know

6:30anything about just a few generations back because this technology never existed. And it's very very new. Of course, I feel like AI is going to grow in a hockey stick, you know, exponentially over just the next coming years, never mind the next many many decades that hopefully both of us will still be alive. Who knows what the technology will be like in 50 years.

6:54Since it is fairly new, I'm curious if there's a lot of groundwork laid out for the intellectual capital or the intellectual property side of it. If I put myself into an AI replica, do I own that outright? And then if I pass, does the AI have a sentient enough being that it owns its own intellectual property? How how would that work?

7:22Haha. So that was actually one of the one of the more interesting part of the one of the books I wrote about if they become good enough replicas and representative of you, and the AI is strong enough, then they could essentially start learning in their own right. They could actually learn from their surroundings, learn from the people, and actually have

7:38parallel but separate lives, so a bit like identical twins, right? And do they would they then have their own legal rights? Would they have then have their own you know, essentially be set up in the same way as a as a company set up as a separate legal entity and would that be possible? I think this is actually a lot where blockchain comes in as a as a really

8:01nice solution to the to the problem. So, originally even six years ago when I wrote the first book I wrote about the idea of using blockchain to verify the identity of a of a replica as your official replica because as soon as you create one you can technically create thousands of replicas or millions of them to you know, act as you whether for good or bad reasons. So, by

8:22having some kind of blockchain ID not only to verify that the replica you created is a lifelike version of you. So, this could be done in the situation with like Worldcoin or some other kind of proof of humanity. But also to actually authorize them to and keep them accountable for their actions on chain and then tie that back to you as an individual or tie the

8:44actions back to the replica as a separate legal entity. It does appear super interesting obviously nothing like the sort is even being thought about in terms of regulation but I really love I love the idea that one day you know, you'll have a digital version of yourself that's active you know, is not necessarily sentient may maybe may well may well be in the future

9:08but even without sentience like is convincing me enough like you and can action things on your behalf in a way that's similar to a pattern recognition so that it's good enough to do things and do things well but that would that would require some kind of like legislation or regulation. And that's super fascinating and it is you know, where I'd love to get to but

9:35that's that's one of the things that's a bit further away. Definitely. I'd love to go back to square one. I'm curious about the Sensei platform itself and getting started in creating the replica. Say I wanted to start building a replica, I would go to the platform and what do you do? You do a 21 questions, you tell it as much as you can about your life,

9:57speak to it. What are sort of the basic parts of information that it first start starts asking you? So yeah, the first use case we've developed out is for dementia patients and then and health tech essentially replicating dementia patients and loved ones to act as a kind of a therapeutic system for the patients preserving their memories enabling carers to you know

10:23have a dashboard to track their cognitive decline. As part of the training for the replicas we are working through the iterations and then improving the entire time. So right now it is a it is more complicated than we want it to be and it will get better. So right now it is essentially about 21 questions go through and answer with as much information as possible and then beyond

10:46that we then have an AI a rep a training bot called Athena who will then essentially talk to you like a friend. We'll get to know you, will ask you questions and keep asking you questions about various topics in different ways to get contextual information as well so that it gets enough information to be able to create a good enough replica both in terms of

11:08mannerisms, in terms of contextual speaking and also just just stories. We then capture your your voice and then so actually as soon as our monkey brains as soon as you hear someone's voice it makes it feel like it's more them as well. So then you got quite a lot of information about someone and their voice coming and their voice telling you with their story so it

11:30does end up feeling more more genuine. So that's a long way to our training at the moment. In the not too distant future, we will actually have the ability to upload files. So things like you know, WhatsApp conversations, Twitter feeds, file uploads, any additional information that's you could upload as well as photos and videos. So all of that will go into

11:56the training data because we'll have video and image recognition in there as well and all of that will feed into what your replica gets trained on. It's very cool and I feel like as AI gets better, even you know, one WhatsApp voice clip or a photo one photo at one age, you know, the AI can sort of build backwards and forwards. It I think it's going to be crazy

12:22and people aren't aren't going to believe how good it's going to be in the coming years. And I like that approach that your team has as a first use case with the dementia patients. Sort of reminds me of Neuralink with Elon Musk. You know, he's building this chip that it almost has infinite power. But starting out to help quadriplegics. I saw the video recently

12:46where the quadriplegic was playing chess with his mind, which is pretty crazy. I feel like once it that gets tested and becomes a little bit more normalized and people understand the value with Sensei as well. Hey, you know, my personally, my grandparents also had dementia. This would have been an amazing technology. But at the same time, also can be used to work on this

13:09busy you know, blockchain schedule that never sleeps. I feel like that technology will evolve to all these other use cases as well. I'm curious on where you think AI is at right now in its readiness combining AI and blockchain to integrate the technology for business needs for you know, all of the super users in the world that are looking to make their work more efficient with AI.

13:37Yeah, I'm a big I'm a big believer in AI, obviously. Been implementing these both systems both for personal and professional for the last couple of years. Where alliance with Web3 and crypto as a whole, I think is probably not as strong a link as most people would imagine it is. I think that obviously there are, you know, very obvious implementations, everything

14:04from data analysis to you know, prediction markets and improving efficiencies across the board. And I think likewise, I think that blockchain serves as a really nice solution for the transactions in the in the age of AI AI. So, fast, easy transactions globally, instantly is definitely going to become a huge part for AIs to transact

14:33with each other and globally without any having to deal with any centralized systems in between. So, I think that there is there is alignment. I don't think the direct I don't think one needs the other or in particular, but I think there is alignment and I think that the benefits of both do do do push both further and faster. But likewise, blockchain also

14:55improves improves lots of other systems and AI improves lots of other systems as well. Yeah, some of the use cases that we see for AI and blockchain, you know, everything from Fetch.ai agents are really cool. It's just an on-chain version of and we will be implementing themselves, they're our partners. So, by implementing AI agents behind our

15:15replicas, that's what enables them to do things. So, at the moment, it's super simple, it's things like search for local restaurants. But as soon as it becomes book a local restaurant or book my favorite restaurant, you know, all of a sudden your replicas start to kind of have that autonomy. And then, you know, that's a that's a snowball effect all the way down to

15:35actually being able to do like big serious tasks online for you. They could be fill out your entire tax return for you. And then, you know, that becomes a lot less stressful. You know, there's plenty of there's plenty of applications for that in terms of Is it necessary to have it on chain? Probably not. Is it nice? Yeah, and I think we're big proponents big believers

15:55that Web3 is a better way of doing things. So, we get asked a lot, you know, why do we why are we building this on chain? And the reality is that I just believe it is a is a is a best technology for what we're trying to do. So, on top of the, you know, Web3 authorization ID that we talked about already, building our data marketplace to actually accrue value for the

16:18users and owners of the replicas is important. Having the, you know, cuz if the some of the non-private data is being used to be, you know, essentially generate value elsewhere, that's you know, that should be that should be value that is owned by the replica owner and creator. Likewise, having centralized data storage just helps to protect privacy

16:41and, you know, is better for longevity. And even the replicas themselves, you know, there's value in someone's replica. Someone may be more famous than others, and having that replica mintable as an NFT down the line and tradeable as an NFT means that someone who maybe has passed in the a few years ago the rights for them and the rights

17:04to their their replica might be able to be, you know, passed on and sold to various individuals and traded. Yeah. No, those are all great use cases, and tokenizing it, I feel like would definitely make it easier to transfer and just more transparent and just recording everything on the blockchain is awesome. So, thank you for explaining that

17:26part a little bit. I'm curious on the crypto side of blockchain. From what I understand, you guys are also integrating in a Sensei token to create value and be able to transfer it around throughout the ecosystem. Can you talk a little bit about how that works? Mhm. Yeah, so the Sensei token is initially being deployed to Ethereum mainnet,

17:51but it has an layer zero OFT, the omnichain fungible token, implemented into it. So, it means that we can deploy to other L2s and soon non-EVMs as well, should we wish to. So, we may deploy to Arbitrum or Mantle down the road in the not-too-distant future to enable, you know, faster faster, less costly transactions. So, that means that when we implement

18:17the token into the is the ecosystem properly, we will essentially be able to not only take payments for subscriptions, subscriptions being the main revenue model here. We'll be able to you know, offer monetization for use cases and interactions with the replicas on the platform. So, obviously any any users coming in who are paying for subscriptions to

18:40interact with replicas, that revenue share will go to the replica owner. And then likewise, when we do then license out the technology to different use cases and different API calls, we'll be able to monetize that as well and then that data will obviously go to that value will be accrued and go and be accumulated as a in the Sensei token on the user's

19:02account. And those use cases could be anything. You know, like I said, we'll talk about interactive NPCs. It could be someone who maybe is a particular expert in a field. You know, could be could be actionable out there earning money teaching teaching about blockchain or teaching about investing in blockchain. And people will subscribe into that

19:21off of your one of your platforms would be able to would be accruing money for you and via your replica and that would be accruing to your into into your into your account. So, yeah, it's there's there's plenty of opportunities where where where we will be exploring one or two use cases ourselves. But the vast majority of different

19:42use cases we less than we talk about a lot and we welcome anyone to come and talk to us about exploring any of them themselves if they want to build with Sensei. Mhm. It's very cool. And you talked about the early use cases. What's the timeline or is it available right now for people to start testing out the platform and building up basic replicas?

20:07Yeah, so it's it is live. So, you go to sensei.io and we've got the first use case of dementia already live. We've got about over 25,000 users already already using the platform, which is has been great great traction. We haven't pushed out too much and so it's been nice to see such a you know, big pick up. The other use cases will be in I guess next

20:30Next quarter next next two quarters. We've got spoilers but I'm I'm not going to say which which use cases in particular we're we're we're we're exploring ourselves. But we have had a couple of enterprise clients dimension one for the legacy technology. A few inquiries for that. But yeah, as soon as we've our focus really is on the ability to replicate people in a

20:53really good with a really good quality replicas that are consistent not too buggy and enable access to them via the API. The next kind of steps for us really are implementing video replication. So, the ability to have live stream video call with the replica. Which is really cool. And also just improving the training. So enabling, you know, faster, easier

21:19training both in terms of file uploads, but also we're working with a couple of partners to develop out the ability to actually have essentially a phone call. So you get you get a phone call from the training bot in a voice of your choosing. And it will just ask you a few questions for like 20 minutes every every week. And whatever else you give just goes

21:40back into the training for your replica. That's very cool. I'm looking forward to that and I'm going to test out the initial stages because I want to be there when the other use cases come out and I could really use a virtual assistant myself that is myself because you know, blockchain never sleeps and if you're not struggling to keep up then you're not paying attention cuz there's

22:03just so much going on. On the crypto side of it, you mentioned the Sensei token intricacies how it works in the system. I know that the team is in the process of releasing it into the market right now. Can you talk about exactly where it's at and how can people learn more and get involved on that part? Yeah, sure. So shockingly we did we've done things a bit backwards. We've we've

22:28bootstrapped ourselves to this point. Which has been fun. I don't recommend it. The So yeah, we've got to this point where we've actually built out most of the platform bootstrap with a team who believe in the project and see the future and have been working, you know, around other jobs and you know, where they can to help us get here. We

22:50have achieved a lot even with that. So we also then decided to actually essentially, you know, go straight for a public sale. So we didn't we haven't done any pre-sales or private rounds or kind of KL or VC rounds first. There are no pre-seed or seeds. So, there's a public sale on and it started last week and it's got five parts. I think with

23:14launchpads, gem pads, engine starter, pools, Communitas, and Fjord Foundry. There's a solid launchpads with a liquidity boot shopping pool at the end before we list on to decentralized central exchange next week. So, we're in the middle of it right now. Tomorrow is Wednesday, which means Communitas launches. Engine starter and gem pad. Gem pad

23:39was last week. It sold out in 4 minutes. Engine starter was yesterday. That sold out in 4 minutes. So, it's it's, you know, the price has been set, I guess, fairly. Relatively, you know, low compared to other AI tokens. But, you know, there apparently there's just a huge amount of demand. So, we expect it to, you know, do extremely well and hopefully that it

24:00it will rewards the community that people have been with us for quite a while now to, you know, do do very well out of it and gives us the capital we need to actually keep building out the products in the way we want to. Mhm. That's incredible. Congratulations on bootstrapping it to this far and just just not having to have the VCs

24:20down your throats probably helps. It's a struggle, but I think it's worth it in the end and congratulations on selling those out in such a short time. I'm really excited for just the product itself to because there's so many potential use cases for AI, but, you know, something like ChatGPT where anybody was able to just go and start inputting and receiving information

24:42back really opens people's eyes up to, hey, you know, this is not just for high-level corporations to utilize AI in their trading strategies. This is something that I can use as an individual for myself, for work, or just for family, and I just for recognition of my family's heritage after they passed, which is really cool. I feel like that helps a lot more people

25:06that aren't even tech users. So, I'm excited to see how Sensei grows out. I will definitely leave the link to the platform, as well as the launch pads and other information, the community social links as well, in the show notes below. All the best with everything moving forward in Sensei. I would love to follow up in the coming quarters, as you mentioned, for the next use cases and

25:27see how the growth of the platform goes. Thanks so much, yeah. I'm excited to big big bright future. No idea where we're going to end up, but it's we've got a lot of a lot of fun products to build.