NEAR’s co-founder Illia Polosukhin shares the need to shift from corporate-owned AI to models that benefit individuals and communities.  Follow the show here for more. This installment of "The Protocol," hosts Brad Keoun, the founding editor of The Protocol Newsletter, and tech journalists Sam Kessler and Margaux Nijkerk interview Illia Polosukhin, co-founder of NEAR Protocol. Polosukhin discusses the intersection of AI and blockchain technology, explaining how NEAR Protocol began as an AI project and evolved into a blockchain platform to address issues related to compensating collaborators. Takeaways NEAR Protocol started as an AI project and transitioned into a blockchain platform to address the challenge of paying collaborators. User-owned AI is crucial to ensure that AI models and systems benefit individuals and communities, rather than just corporations. Data availability is a fundamental component of blockchain technology, ensuring that all transactions are accessible and can be used to reconstruct the state of the blockchain. Chain abstraction allows users to interact with multiple blockchain networks without needing to understand the underlying technology or worry about transaction fees. NEAR Protocol is focused on solving real problems and finding use cases that drive the adoption of blockchain and AI technology. Chapters |  00:00 Introduction and Background of Ilya Polosukhin 05:20 The Disruptive Potential of AI 08:35 User-Owned AI 22:17 Chain Abstraction 26:15 Solving Real Problems with NEAR Protocol - Sign Up for THE PROTOCOL NEWSLETTER  EPISODE LINKS |   NEAR  Enter the Black Dragon: NEAR Co-Founder Joins the NEAR Foundation as CEO  - The Protocol has been produced and edited by senior producer Michele Musso and our executive producer is Jared Schwartz. Our theme song is “Take Me Back” by Strength To Last. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.