What is Effect.ai?

The Effect Network

In the Artificial Intelligence industry, there’s a popular and logical sentiment that most of the industry’s resources are being monopolized by a few major players. As a result, the industry is moving forward but its doing so without giving small companies and startups a chance to succeed. Effect AI is looking to change this with a network that’s similar to, and yet also different from the currently running, Golem Network. In the event that you’re not sure what the Golem Network is yet, just think of it as a Blockchain network that wants to be a supercomputer which is eventually used for ambitious projects. Prime examples of would be such projects would be those that lead to advancements in AI as well as advancements in overall computing. As mentioned above, Effect AI hopes to be the same and a bit more as well. Through a brief discussion of its ICO as well as its first working product, we hope to blaze a path for you to better understand how decentralized AI networks could help us all.

The Effect ICO with NEO

First and foremost, Effect AI is a Blockchain network that has its own native token. At this time, however, the Effect Network is still on the existing NEO Blockchain, therefore, its EFX token is akin to NEO’s version of an ERC20. The ICO was recent, having taken place in March of this year and unlike projects like EOS, it seems to have finished in the same month. As some projects are geographically restricted, it is somewhat notable that Effect AI apparently wasn’t.

Monetizing your Data with Effect Force

Effect Force is Effect AI’s only current working product, on top of its foundational network. The Effect AI team advertises it as a “Decentralized Mechanical Turk.” What this actually refers to may bear a bit of explanation. The easiest way to do so is to draw the connection between Effect Force and Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, as the Effect Team seems to be trying to do.

Amazon’s Mechanical Turk is a place where almost anyone can do micro-tasks like data entry exercises, to earn very small amounts of money. One problem with Amazon’s version is that, in practice, the promise of anyone being able to work on the platform doesn’t prove to be true. Effect Force, doesn’t hope to change this completely, but they do hope to carve out a different niche in the same space. Judging by the currently available info on the product from the Effect team as well as from outside sources, Effect Force’s biggest goal is to be the Mechanical Turk for AI professionals. Judging by the fact that Effect Force is actually, precisely, described as a place for anyone to do what the Effect team calls “human intelligence tasks,” it actually appears that their first product isn’t directly for AI teams alone. On the other hand, it does appear to be catered to average people to generate large amounts of data that can be used by AI teams, particularly for projects involving replicating human emotions, actions, or even a small example of a human brain. At this time of course, our capabilities don’t seem to have gotten to the point in which we can create an exact copy of a human brain.

Even without the ability to do whole brain emulation, we still have examples like Sophia, which can respond in pre-programmed as well as machine-learned ways, almost identical to humans. At this point, it might be ideal to pause for a moment and delineate exactly what we mean here, by, “machine-learned ways.” This is just another way of saying that the AI, in question, takes in data from the real-world and learns better ways to respond, from this data.

The Smart Market

As the Effect AI network moves into Phase 2, we should see the implementation of what will be called “the Smart Market.” In a simple sense, the team seems to be planning for this to be a different kind of Ethereum. This possibility comes to light and is further clarified with the statement on the Effect AI Medium page that it will be a place for AI developers to share their work on a Blockchain network. With this small piece of information, it does appear that the major difference between the Effect Smart Market and the existing Ethereum network is that the Smart Market is shooting for the AI industry niche. Beyond Phase 2, comes a phase that appears almost identical to what the Golem network is currently offering. In fact, again, it appears logical to state that there are actually one major difference between the two. While the Golem network is for anyone and so, any team, to have access to a decentralized supercomputer, phase 3 of the Effect Network, which they’re calling Effect Power, will again, only be for AI teams. The major goal of Effect Force, according to the development team is to move the AI industry away from its reliance on very large groups of servers and very large, specialized computers, and towards a decentralized network that can do all of the same work, at once.

In the end, at least for now, phase 3 appears to be where Effect AI’s roadmap stops. At the same time, it isn’t even clear what an AI/Crypto team could do next, after changing the entire AI industry in such a way. Given also that their project aims to lead up to this point, the conclusion can be drawn that its success depends on the industry accepting their supercomputer. Before the team even gets to this point, however, the Smart Market as well as Effect Force, need to fall into place as industry standards.

One of the key roadblocks during this process might be the fact that Amazon’s Mechanical Turk is backed by its near monopoly core business as well as the first mover advantage, in its niche. In short, all of these conclusions could be simplified as: it all depends on the customer believing in the product.

As Effect AI hits the open market, it is entering a space that is already crowded with similar offerings. With the right marketing and the right business execution, its differentiators just might bring it over the red ocean. If they do not, then success will almost definitely be impossible. In future pieces, since we’ve already introduced a few projects that are trying to create decentralized supercomputers, we’ll examine the possible effect of Quantum Computing on their chances at success.