Meet the Founders of PIN AI: Unlocking the Future of Personal AI ($10M Backed by a16z CSX, Hack VC)

BFC Super Founder Interview Series - Episode 03: A Conversation with PIN AI Co-Founders, Davide Crapis (Columbia Ph.D.) and Bill Sun (Stanford Ph.D.)

Interviewee:

Davide Crapis, Co-Founder leading Protocol Research, PIN AI

Bill Sun, Co-Founder and Chief Scientist, PIN AI

Interviewers:

Manasvini Kothari, Media Director at the Bay Area Founders Club

Komal Vij, Director of Partnerships at the Bay Area Founders Club

Paul Fang, Founder of the Bay Area Founders Club

Watch the Full Interview Here:

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Unlocking the Future of Personal AI with PIN AI

In the rapidly evolving world of artificial intelligence, a new breed of startups is emerging that aims to put the power of AI directly into the hands of individuals. One such company is PIN AI, a blockchain-based platform for personal AI assistants co-founded by Davide Crapis and Bill Sun.

Davide and Bill bring a wealth of experience to the table. Davide has a background in protocol research on Ethereum, while Bill is a Stanford AI Ph.D. with a long-standing interest in the intersection of crypto and AI. Their complementary expertise has led them to envision a future where personal AI is not controlled by a handful of tech giants, but rather empowers users through decentralized, blockchain-powered systems.

Decentralization in the AI Revolution

At the core of PIN AI's mission is the belief that the future of personal AI cannot be owned or controlled by any single company.

As Davide explains,

"We believe that in order to build useful personal AI in the future, no single company can do that because you need a lot of contextual data from all your other activity interacting with all other Web 2.0 services."

This is where blockchain technology comes into play. By leveraging the global reach and decentralized nature of blockchain networks, PIN AI aims to create a platform that can attract a diverse ecosystem of builders to contribute to the development of personal AI agents. The protocol is designed to incentivize the sharing and aggregation of user data, while still maintaining user privacy and control through the use of technologies like zero-knowledge proofs.

"The only way to break all the kind of consumer-level private data is by crypto," says Bill. "Because if you look at all the laws that are written today, like GDPR and the California version of that, it's all about the user owning their own data and they have the rights to do whatever to their data."

Differentiating from Big Tech

While companies like Apple and Google are also exploring the realm of personal AI, PIN AI believes it has a unique advantage by being built on a decentralized, blockchain-powered foundation. Unlike the walled gardens of big tech, PIN AI's platform is designed to be open and accessible to a wide range of developers and AI researchers.

"We cannot achieve the vision of PIN AI just with our own initial core team company," says Davide. "We need other people to basically understand the value of building on our platform and also like stuff getting that value to basically come become ecosystem projects."

This open approach extends to the technical side as well. By leveraging open-source AI models and empowering a community of builders, PIN AI aims to avoid the pitfalls of centralized control that have plagued some personal AI efforts.

Overcoming Challenges

Of course, building a decentralized platform for personal AI is no easy feat. Davide and Bill acknowledge the technological and ecosystem-related challenges they face, from extracting user data from Web2 platforms to onboarding a diverse community of AI developers.

To address these challenges, the PIN AI team is taking a page from the Ethereum playbook, focusing on transparent, open-source development and fostering a collaborative, decentralized ecosystem. They plan to launch a dedicated research forum, similar to Ethereum's ETH Research, to invite contributions and innovations from the broader community.

"We're truly trying to learn from Ethereum Foundation and operate in a way like that, that we can almost become like the new Ethereum platform for all the like personal AI projects," says Bill.

The Future of Personal AI

As the personal AI landscape continues to evolve, Davide and Bill see a future where conversational, multimodal AI assistants become the primary interface for how humans interact with technology. They envision a world where users can seamlessly manage their digital lives by simply talking to their personal AI agent, which in turn leverages the power of decentralized blockchain networks to access and process data.

"I think the future would be you just talk to your AI, or even your AI knows you so well, don't you? You talk and they do things for you," says Bill.

The convergence of personal AI and blockchain technology, as embodied by PIN AI, represents a significant shift in how we think about the ownership and control of our digital lives. By empowering users and fostering a decentralized ecosystem of builders, PIN AI aims to unlock the true potential of personal AI and redefine the way we interact with technology in the years to come.