*Cue the 2001: A Space Odyssey opening instrumental.

First… Simon said. Then… We asked Jeeves, Now… GPT is ready to chat.

🎙️ Record Scratch 🥶 Freeze Frame…

But is the future of AI doomed by humanity's shortcomings? Are we not ready for the next best thing?

OpenAI’s Sam Altman certainly seems to think so. So, is the AI revolution going to end before it can even truly begin?

Espresso Shots

☕️ Dogecoin Surges 🐕

Dogecoin enjoyed a nice little price hike on Saturday surrounding speculation around X (formerly Twitter)’s latest, potential development, “Xpayments.”

The Xpayments account is currently inactive but has accrued over 115k followers as many believe this will be the source of X’s next payments function.

The gossip alone was enough to pump Dogecoin up 12% on Saturday though Dogecoin currently sits at $.083 at the time of writing.

But there’s no telling how Dogecoin will react when Musk inevitably dilutes X’s brand further by renaming it “_” or perhaps “;”.

☕️ Vitalik’s Zu-Villages 🐒 🐼

Last year, Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, played a big part in establishing Zuzalu, a seaside blockchain conference in Montenegro.

The first conference was so successful, consisting of crypto discussions, dinner dances, and polar plunges into the Adriatic, that it spawned a grants program seeking to replicate it across the globe.

The spin-offs are referred to as “Zu-villages” and participants can access a 250 ETH distribution fund, provided their proposed zu-village contains at least one member who attended Zuzalu.

Inevitably, when Buterin’s crypto outreach extends to animals, he’ll be forced to create a “Zu-topia.”

Spilling the Beans

🔋 AI’s Energy Crisis  🪫

When log cabins were in vogue, settlers cut down large swathes of forest to build little cottages where they could birth Abraham Lincolns.

When the automobile arrived on the scene, Henry Ford’s factory workers labored around the clock to process the vanadium steel necessary to manufacture the Model T. In fact, in those same factories, Henry Ford invented the five-day workweek as well as American antisemitism.

Now, not only America, but the entire world is bearing witness to a new, industrial revolution.

We’ve been toying with AI since the summer of 1956 when the Dartmouth Summer Research Project brought together some of the greatest scientific minds to establish a framework for AI.

Those dorks worked hard to devise a path for AI that didn’t include flamethrower-wielding automata.

Though, and this is a point of contention, we didn’t see a functional AI model until later that year, when Arthur Samuel unveiled the IBM 701 model, a computer capable of defeating a human being in checkers.

Since then, we’ve had all sorts of AI. There was SmarterChild, the AIM buddy for lonely pre-teens of the early aughts.

Then of course there’s Grammarly, which is looking at me threateningly as I write this newsletter, daring me to make a joke or type one unkind word.

But of course, it wasn’t until ChatGPT that AI truly arrived on the scene. Suddenly we had accessible, comprehensive AI that was entirely capable of doing your homework for you.

But could ChatGPT be the end of the road? 

According to OpenAI’s founder, Sam Altman… We we might run out of sidewalk a lot sooner than we thought.

Current AI models require thousands of graphical processing units (GPUs) to keep their operations running. And that computational power has a massive energy cost.

Altman feels that if we don’t devise a new energy solution AI, the tech’s current path may be untenable.

In remarks at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Altman claimed that as far as AI’s future, “there’s no way to get there without a breakthrough.”

But all hope is not lost. Altman believes that breakthrough could come in the form… of fusion energy. AI’s current technical challenge “motivates us to invest in more fusion.” Altman continued.

And Altman’s a man of his word. Though we may be far from the energy support necessary for the continued advancement and eventual domination of AI, Altman has already invested $357 million in Helion, a fusion energy.

As a power source, fusion energy has a great deal of potential. On a fundamental level, fusion consists of fusing two atoms together to form a heavier atom, this process releases energy.

Fusion energy dates back to 1879, but to date, no functional fusion reactor has been invented.

Some eyes have turned to nuclear power as the next potential energy source for coming AI advances, most notably Microsoft’s initiative to begin using nuclear power for its AI operations.

But like AI itself, we’re all still learning.

So hey, feel free to write in to Coffee & Crypto if you have an idea for an untapped energy source that could power the future of AI.

But DO NOT write to us if you’re just going to recommend that we switch from coffee to green tea. We’ve heard every argument…

Less jittery, more calm, better sleep. If you’re a green tea drinker, your bloodline is weak and history will not remember you.

The Last Sip

All those science fiction writers who tried to come up with a compelling weakness, a secret weapon to use against the rise of the machines, never imagined that much like my four-year-old nephew when he skips his midday nap… AI may simply run out of energy.

Stay Caffeinated,

Coffee & Crypto Team

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DISCLAIMER: None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.