OpenAI Closed, Goertzel Open: Why the AGI Pioneer Bets the Future on Blockchain and Decentralized Networks?

Written by: Boaz Sobrado

Translated by: AididiaoJP, Foresight News

"I don’t want to hand over control of my work to venture capital firms," Ben Goertzel said on the podcast "On The Margin," "because I think AGI is too important to do that."

Goertzel popularized the term "Artificial General Intelligence" (AGI) through an influential book, led the development team of the Sophia robot, and has spent decades trying to build a thinking machine. Now, his bet runs counter to nearly everyone racing towards the same goal: the most important software in human history should not be monopolized by a single company. "I firmly believe that the core AGI code responsible for thinking should be free and open source," he said.

Note: Ben Goertzel is the founder of SingularityNET and a well-known AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) researcher, recognized as the "Godfather of AGI." He strongly advocates that AGI must be open source and decentralized, opposing monopoly by a few companies like OpenAI and Anthropic. He believes AGI is too important to be controlled by venture capital firms or a single enterprise.

This belief drives the blockchain project SingularityNET that he operates, as well as the broader Artificial Superintelligence Alliance. The alliance, formed in 2024 by Fetch.ai, SingularityNET, and Ocean Protocol, merges their respective tokens into FET (Ocean Protocol will exit by the end of 2025). While OpenAI and Anthropic raise billions of dollars and hide their most powerful models behind closed doors, Goertzel connects his AGI work to a user-owned crypto network.

Open Source Code is Not Enough; Decentralized Computing is Needed

His argument starts with a problem that open source itself cannot solve. He says that simply releasing code does little good if no one can afford to run it.

"If the code is open source but the data requires a server to store, and you need a super-scale server to use it, then the open source code is actually not much use," he said. "What you really want is to deploy the first AGI on a decentralized network controlled by a thousand different people spanning fifty different countries."

In his view, that is the entire point of putting AI on the blockchain. He acknowledges that this makes some people nervous because bad actors could fork the system and create harmful things, but he is willing to accept that trade-off.

"I think there are more good people in the world than bad people, and they would be willing to host AI systems," Goertzel said. "We would be better off with open and decentralized AI, rather than getting caught in an AGI arms race where only a few great powers have AGI and use it to destroy each other."

Those Laboratories that Shifted from Open to Closed

Goertzel is blunt about the companies that once held the same open ideals as him but later deviated. He points to the legal records between Elon Musk and Sam Altman, clearly showing how quickly OpenAI's founding mission shifted.

"If you look at all the court hearing records between Elon Musk and Sam Altman, it seems Sam Altman didn’t hold out for long," Goertzel said. "He very quickly shifted to wanting to make it proprietary. The records show he quickly turned to acquiring hardware, which requires them to be closed and proprietary."

He is harsher regarding the origins of Anthropic and is equally unsparing about Musk's shift from AI doomsayer to AI builder.

"Dario Amodei's stuff has been closed and proprietary from the start," Goertzel said. "Elon Musk’s relationship with openness has always been complicated. In 2015, he first said AI is summoning demons and no one should build it. Then he himself probably started trying to build it. But now what he’s doing at xAI is also closed AI development."

Goertzel acknowledges that the closed path is indeed simpler: raising venture capital, locking up models, and moving towards acquisition. He insists that the open path is not impossible; it is just harder. "Linux and the internet itself are proof: it can be open source, globally decentralized, and still be the foundation that makes many people money," he said.

How Coin Founders Make Money

Currently, his business operates on cryptocurrency. "I have SingularityNET, which is a utility token, so it’s a blockchain project," Goertzel said. "We have node operators running SingularityNET, hosting AI processes. We basically make money through the token economics on this network."

He expects this situation to change. The plan is to keep the AGI code open source while selling polished products built on top of it, hiding the blockchain in the background. "Our project might shift slightly from Web3 to Web2, starting to offer products that can be purchased with regular currency," he said. "The backend is still our crypto network, but for the end user, it’s just an AI service."

Goertzel stated that SingularityNET will launch a paid tier for enterprises and heavy users sometime next year. "We will launch something similar to Claude Pro or ChatGPT Pro but smarter," he said. "It runs on a decentralized blockchain backend, but its reasoning ability and creativity are far more advanced than today’s chatbots." He will not chase the mass market for chatbots. "I won’t try to launch a retail product like ChatGPT because those guys are all losing money," he said.

The Agent Economy He is Building

Goertzel's pitch to ordinary users is: the next wave of advantage will belong to those who can command fleets of AI Agents, rather than laboratories.

"The next batch of victories will likely belong to small groups that can effectively organize larger-scale AI Agent teams to get things done," Goertzel said. "The key is how you educate and command your army of beneficial Agents."

Other builders in the crypto space are trending toward the same vision: Agents not only answering questions but also spending money. "The next step — which has already begun — is that AI Agents start trading on your behalf," Varun Kabra from identity chain Concordium said on the same podcast. "They will make payments, register services, and may even handle your financial transactions."

This gives software a risky job. "The essence of the Agent is outsourcing purchases, and anyone who has ever had experience with outsourcing knows it comes with trade-offs," Nitya Subramanian from crypto wallet company Para said on the same podcast. Goertzel’s answer is to run this economy on open networks rather than corporate clouds.

Why This Matters

Goertzel still believes human-level AGI is coming soon. "I think we can achieve it by 2029," he said. "I wouldn’t be shocked if it happens in 2027. If it’s 2030, I wouldn’t be shocked either." What concerns him more is who will be left behind by machines rather than what those machines will do.

"If the top tier and the bottom tier populations have a gap in understanding what’s happening with AGI, that gap will worsen the speed of inequality's growth," he said.

Whether a crypto network can defeat companies holding hundreds of billions of dollars remains unproven. Goertzel's first test will launch within a few weeks. "We will launch the first downloadable version of the new Agent Omega Claw in a few weeks," he said. "We will have the opportunity to teach our own personal Agent to help us manage our lives and help us make money."