The Rollup Illia Polosukhin: This Is The Biggest Opportunity in AI
Sep 21, 2025
Illia Polosukhin, co-creator of the Transformer architecture and CEO of NEAR, dives into the future of AI and the challenges of centralized systems. He discusses the pressing issues of bias and censorship, likening current scenarios to the AOL monopoly. Illia unveils NEAR's innovative approach with private verifiable AI solutions, including encrypted model weights and user-owned data. The conversation highlights the importance of blockchain for building trust in AI, paving the way for a new era of sovereign technology.
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AI As The Defining Technology
- AI will reshape the world more massively than previous platforms like the internet or cars.
- Illia calls this the "AI last cycle" because future work will be done by AI systems.
AI Spending Is Financial Engineering
- Much of today's AI investment is financial engineering around capital, compute and electricity.
- Illia highlights leverage, borrowing and revenue from compute as central to scaling AI infrastructure.
Whoever Controls AI Controls Perception
- Whoever controls widely used AI will shape how people perceive reality and make decisions.
- Illia warns against an AOL-like monopoly where one AI gatekeeper decides what users see.
