Can Decentralized AI Fix Banking? [Newsletter #57]

Hello, AI enthusiasts from around the world.

Welcome to this week’s newsletter for the AI and the Future of Work podcast.

Ten years ago, talking about what AI might look like a million years from now would have seemed unnecessary.

Today, it’s a valid question, even if we have no idea what the answer is.

AI has made massive leaps and is evolving faster than many expected.

That’s why it’s worth asking how humans will interact with AI; not only in ten years but far beyond that.

This week’s guest works in crypto, and the conversation looks ahead. It touches on science fiction, yet stays grounded in what could soon be possible.

Let’s dive into this week’s highlights! 🚀

🎙️ New Podcast Episode With Paolo Ardoino, Tether CEO

We can’t imagine what AI will look like in a million years. But some people are already thinking about it.

One of them wants to create AI that becomes part of the fabric of the universe.

It sounds ambitious—maybe even like science fiction—but that’s Paolo Ardoino’s goal.

And he might be one step closer.

Paolo is the CEO of Tether, the company behind the world’s largest stablecoin. He built the infrastructure that now supports billions of dollars in daily transactions.

He’s also one of the most vocal advocates for using cryptocurrency to improve the global banking system.

His work goes beyond Tether. He’s also the CTO of Bitfinex, a major crypto exchange, and co-founder of Holepunch, a platform that builds apps without servers.

In this week’s episode, Paolo sat down with Dan Turchin, CEO of PeopleReign, for a wide-ranging conversation that goes well beyond crypto.

He invites us to think about how fast AI is evolving and how it might reshape our lives sooner than we expect.

Does that future feel scary? For many, the mention of AI brings up images of the Matrix or the Terminator.

For Paolo, it’s quite the opposite. He believes AI can improve human life and become an integral part of our daily routines, enhancing what we do instead of slowing us down.

This week’s episode explores that idea and much more:

• The certainty of math makes it incorruptible, which is why Paolo sees it as the foundation for the future of banking.

• How he turned Tether into the largest financial inclusion initiative in history, offering a decentralized alternative to traditional systems.

• Why generating a billion times more information per day changes everything, and how AI will soon modify itself to keep up.

• The next step for humans, according to Paolo, is building a real connection between our brains and machines to avoid falling behind.

• Why, despite his optimism, he questions whether true AI safety is even possible in the long run.

🎧 This week’s episode of AI and the Future of Work, featuring Paolo Ardoino, inspired this issue.

🎧 Listen to the full episode to hear how Paolo Ardoino brings sci-fi thinking into everything he builds, all while working toward a small but meaningful part of the AI of the future.

📖 AI Fun Fact Article

The Chatbot Arena leaderboard might sound like something out of a movie. But it’s one of the most important tools we have to evaluate how chatbot models are performing, which ones are leading, and how fast others are catching up.

In 2025, the leaderboard made one thing clear: the race is heating up. AI models are getting more sophisticated and competitive.

That part isn’t surprising. What is surprising is how much the gap has narrowed.

The difference between the top and 10th-ranked models shrank from 11.9% to just 5.4%.

That’s just one of many insights from the 2025 AI Index Report, published by Stanford’s Human-Centered AI lab (HAI). The report is 456 pages long and reflects 12 months of global data. This is HAI’s eighth edition.

The findings go far beyond model rankings. One major theme is the need for the public sector to catch up with industry. The report calls for policymakers to invest more in AI and modernize regulations to keep up with the pace of innovation.

And some changes are already happening. In 2024 alone, growing public distrust and more frequent AI-related incidents led to a spike in regulatory activity. The number of AI-related federal regulations more than doubled, with 59 new rules from 42 different agencies.

The report also highlights growing international competition, especially between the United States and China. The U.S. continues to lead in model innovation, but China’s rapid progress calls for stronger and more proactive policy responses.

Dan Turchin, CEO of PeopleReign, notes that most of what's in the report is obvious, but it's thoroughly backed by data. Which makes it a rare, objective resource at a time when so much so-called research is biased by the author's profit motives.

Yolanda Gil and Raymond Perrault, co-directors of the Index Report, do an excellent job of combining their own data with clear, prescriptive recommendations.

If you have a bit of time, read all 456 pages, or as Dan suggests, use a combination of LLMs to summarize it and focus on the most important content.

Worth a Read (And Watch)! 📚

📣 Share your Thoughts and Leave a Review!

Until next time, stay curious! 🤔

That's a Wrap for This Week!

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