I watched, as many of you did, the keynote presentation by Sam Altman of OpenAI yesterday. The vibe and hype, as well as the ability to maintain attention through pure innovation rather than a squeaky-clean show, were somewhat reminiscent of the first Apple iPhone presentations. I have a few thoughts I wanted to share and perhaps ask the community for their opinion.

First of all, it’s hard to deny the fact that what OpenAI (and probably hundreds of other AI startups) are doing is at least a revolution on the scale of the invention of computers. This means that it will highly impact our lives and economy by boosting productivity to unprecedented levels, similar to, or even much higher than, what the invention of the PC did for the growth of the post-industrial economy.

Now, here is my question. We are all here in the community of Nostr and Bitcoin enthusiasts for a reason. One of the narratives behind the belief in Bitcoin as sound money, besides its decentralized nature, censorship resistance, and other qualities, is a very strong disbelief in the US monetary system and the US Dollar. This is mainly caused by enormous money printing, which leads to a further unhealthy gap between national debt and GDP, dilution of the USD as a currency, and the loss of its purchasing power. So far, it seemed to me like a vicious circle, with only two ways for the government to fix it:

1. Lose control over money by giving up on having the USD as the national currency and shifting towards a Bitcoin-based economy.

2. Radically increase productivity in the national economy which would remove the gap between debt and GDP.

I always thought that option 2 was not realistic, and hence my Bitcoin inevitability assumptions were built on this. Now, with what I see in the realm of AI technology revolution and its potential implications on productivity, it shakes my thinking and forces me to doubt if I was right. What do you think?