NFT is more than digital art: Will smart agents be the next trend?

Original text: Daniel Barabander , Variant

Compiled by: Yuliya, PANews

In today's digital age, NFT (non-fungible tokens) has become a hot topic. To understand the value of NFT, we can imagine it as "special items" in the digital world, which have similar characteristics to items in the real world.

Let’s start with the common example of buying a house. When we buy a house, we will get a real estate certificate, which can prove who the previous owner of the house is (property rights tracing). As homeowners, we can use this house alone and have the right not to let others enter and exit at will (exclusive rights). And if we renovate the house or make other improvements, these changes will remain in the house (improveability). Ordinary digital items cannot do these, but NFT can simulate these three core features.

At present, NFTs have mainly achieved product-market compatibility in the art field, but most of them only use the two characteristics of property rights traceability and exclusive rights. For example, Botto's work "Asymmetrical Liberation" relies on the traceability of NFTs to prove that it was the first work generated by Botto's "creation period" and the holder has exclusive control over it. However, like physical artworks, the owner cannot make changes to the work itself. NFTs have less explorations in "improveability", and the closest application may be gaming NFTs, such as players operating character upgrades in games. However, this characteristic is still severely underestimated.

A more innovative application scenario is to use NFT for smart proxy. Smart proxy is like a digital assistant that can remember the experience of interacting with users. It can perfectly demonstrate the three core features of NFT:

• Exclusive rights : NFT holders exclusively have access to proxy memory.

• Improveability : Whenever an NFT holder uses the proxy, his memory will be updated, exclusive experience will be accumulated, and the holder's optimization adjustments will be remembered.

• Property rights traceability : The agent is only used by NFT holders, so its past holding records can show their accumulation of experience, which is equivalent to a "resume".

For example, if the famous writer Tolkien once used a smart agent to write "The Hobbit". For new writers who want to create fantasy novels, this smart agent with special experience will have unique value. Because not only does it accumulate experience from Tolkien when he created it, but these experiences are unique and cannot be copied.

Although most agents may be more suitable as public-facing API services, similar to SaaS products, smart agent NFT is more like a racing horse: its value comes from who the former trainer was, the accumulated training results will be retained, and only one owner can use it at the same time. Currently, companies like Plastic Labs are developing underlying technologies that support this smart proxy NFT.

This innovative model that combines NFT with intelligent agents not only expands the application boundaries of digital assets, but also brings new design ideas to the fields of software development and artificial intelligence. With the continuous development of technology, we may be able to see more intelligent agent applications that are both personalized and market-worthy.