Pretty much. Luddites raise a valid concern, but the proposed solution isn’t really a solution. It’s just trying to hold back the ocean with a bucket.

What should happen is that AI should benefit and support the artists, instead of the IP owners.

For example, Kev Walker has a highly distinctive style, but he churns out hundreds of illustrations of fairly generic fantasy characters to make a living.

Ideally, with AI he should be able to only draw a handful of high-quality illustrations, working an average of a couple hours a day, then when WotC or anyone else hires him to make 20 illustrations he can offer them a lower price by using AI “students” that copy his style (like the old masters). WotC gets a discount, and Walker gets to either work less or to make more money by selling many more illustrations to more customers.

There is still a loser here - the smaller artists who would have been hired instead of Walker, for a lower price. It turns the art market into something more like the music market, where cheap reproducibility leads to very few hitting it big and very many only making music as a hobby.

But that’s still eminently more fair than WotC getting literally all the earnings from AI, and more realistic than the idea of stopping AI from producing good-enough illustrations forever.

Very good explanation, thank you.

And yes, it doesn’t map to physical businesses or assets very well, but for that one can hypothetically run a traditional bank using crypto money, it’s just going to be inefficient.

These loans:

• are permissionless - there is no approval process. You just say you want one
• you do not need to pledge security i.e. give a second mortgage on your house.
• they are under collateralized

I was curious so I went and read the whitepaper, and it’s not at all clear to me how this is supposed to work.

"Borrower’s Liquidity Tokens

Liqudity Tokens are sent to the borrower’s specified address and remain in full control by the borrower. The borrower is free to lock the liquidity in any service they wish, transfer or hold them. Liquidity Tokens are not able to re be redeemed for the liquidity while a loan is active.

Default

In the case of a default through any of the terms violated specified on the Initial Liqudiity Loan, the Loan becomes eligible for liquidation."

So there are no consequences for defaulting on the loan, but you aren’t actually receiving the loan in the form of ETH, but of monopoly money (liquidity tokens) that can only be converted to ETH once the loan is repaid? Why on Earth would anyone accept liquidity tokens as payment for any service?

“How dare they support one of the most mainstream candidates for the American presidency! Literally Nazists.”

Digitally holding and transferring money is the least important of a bank’s jobs.

The actually important job is the management and pooling of loans and investments. Bitcoin itself will never give you a loan to start a business or buy a house.

(A bitcoin bank might do that - but they would just be a regular bank using a different medium. And having to put your money in the bank’s crypto wallet, so they can operate, defeats many of the reasons to use crypto in the first place.)

Crypto is not a replacement for banks. It is, or should be, a replacement for VISA and MasterCard, which take a massive cut of the entire economy for a much simpler service.