On July 6, Lightning Labs unveiled a new toolkit that lets layer-2 apps for artificial intelligence (AI) communicate with the Bitcoin network.
The most recent action attempts to improve payment efficiency, accessibility, and convenience for AI developers. By utilizing Lightning’s features, developers can avoid using laborious and expensive traditional payment methods like credit cards. These tools also make it possible to use pay-per-use AI models on the Lightning Network.
As a result of OpenAI’s ChatGPT’s successful debut, the AI industry’s popularity soared. Within two months of its November introduction, this sophisticated chatbot had amassed over 100 million users.
An example of a large language model (LLM) that uses training on big datasets to produce text that resembles human speech in response to user input is ChatGPT.
Lightning Labs have praised the innovation that LLM models bring. The recently released tools are based on the Lightning Network’s native authentication protocol, the L402 protocol. They also use Langchain, a library that simplifies using AI applications.
Lightning Labs stated that the lack of native web-based payment channels is a problem for existing LLMs. As a result, developers of AI applications frequently rely on antiquated payment systems like credit cards, which raises user expenses.
Lightning Labs advocated the development of software that would allow users to pay for access to application programming interfaces (APIs), easing communication between various software components, as a solution to this problem.
The company illustrated an AI program or agent that pays to query another agent. The agent making the query would receive money for API access, and only after receiving a positive response would additional payments be made.
The limits that the expanding class of intelligent LLMs or AI agents must overcome were emphasized by Lightning Labs. Due to the fact that they are not recognized as legal persons by any country, these entities need help with using fiat payment systems.
On a recent episode of the “Stack Sats” podcast, Kody Low, a developer at the community payments platform Fedi, emphasized the compatibility of AI with Bitcoin for payments.
According to Low, Bitcoin offers unrivaled solutions to the commercialization problems facing AI startups. The Lightning Network’s current capacity is around 5,448 BTC ($144.9 million), according to data from LN analytics site 1ML. However, according to Bitcoin Visuals, the number of Lightning Network channels has decreased from roughly 80,000 in July 2022 to about 70,000.
