Cardano NFT: EntheosAI – The Cryptonomist

This week’s guest on the Cardano NFT Column is a project that uses AI (Artificial Intelligence) to generate beautiful artworks: EntheosAI.

Last week’s guest was a project that aims to use blockchain technology and NFTs to decentralize the music industry.

This initiative is a point of reference for NFTs on Cardano and every week or two we will invite someone to answer some questions and give us an update directly from within the Cardano community.

Considering that many of our readers are new to the crypto space, we will have a mix of simple and technical questions.

Cardano NFT project: EntheosAI

Hey, glad to have you here. Please introduce your team, where are you from, what are your backgrounds?

Hey! Thank you for taking this time and interest in our project! I’m Entheos (William Woodall), and the creator, founder, and lead developer at EntheosAI. We have a small but very talented team that includes community management, services and outreach, and a blockchain developer. We’ve also recently brought on another amazing AI artist who goes by ADAliens to help expand the creative aspect of our work.

I live in California but our team is spread out all over the world. For example, we have people in Singapore, Malaysia, Vancouver, and New Mexico. 

Of course we all bring to the table diverse experience, but personally I have a background in mathematics, programming, and artificial intelligence. 

What is EntheosAI? How are you utilizing NFTs and AI technology? And why Cardano?

EntheosAI is an NFT project that was started back in late April of 2021. We were the first fully algorithmic AI art project on Cardano. In comparison to today, at that time AI art was really still in its infancy, and using an algorithm I created and coded from scratch, we produced incredibly unique and original pieces of artwork. 

Over the past year the world of AI art has exploded, and we have evolved with it, creating new algorithms that showcase the latest developments in state of the art AI technology.  

I chose to launch the project on Cardano because I believe in the vision. Coming from the world of AI, I was used to parsing through academic papers, and I understood the value of peer reviewed academic research. For that reason I was attracted to Cardano’s approach. Very quickly, I fell in love with the community and other builders and creators in the space. I really feel that we’ve found a home and could not be happier that we decided to build here on Cardano.

It is often said that Artificial Intelligence (AI) will not replace the creativity of humans, yet AI art is emerging. What are your thoughts on this topic?

Great question! I don’t believe AI will replace the creativity of humans, at least not in its current state and not any time in the near future. On the contrary, I believe it has become a tool to allow humans and artists to explore new methods of creative expression. If we look for example at the emergence of transformer guided image generation, the ability to use text or phrases to generate images, we can see how it has brought about a whole new field or system through which artists exhibit talents and creativeness. In the world of AI art we call this system prompt engineering. 

When I first started using these models I thought naively that maybe this process would be limiting, that maybe people would have similar ideas and therefore create similar images, but very quickly I learned that the space of possibilities is vast. People include in the phrases things like famous artists or styles each giving the model a different quality with which to create variation in the resulting images. An artist using these algorithms will quickly develop their own unique style as they learn to express their ideas through language and interaction with the model. 

I know many artists and I can often recognize their works just by seeing the style and content of their images. Our thoughts are composed of and structured with language, so the idea and dynamic of using language as a tool for expression is fascinating and brings with it a new world of possibilities. 

What’s the vision for your project? Where would you like to see EntheosAI in 1 year?

Well, even 1 year is a long time in this space, but one thing is certain, we are here to stay. We will continue to evolve and follow the latest developments and possibilities in both AI research and the utilisation of blockchain technology. 

As the world of AI art grows, and more artists come into the space, I’d like to take the project in a direction that showcases our distinct abilities and talents. With an extensive background in programming and a deep understanding of how these models work, we have the unique ability to manipulate the technology and create our own algorithms to produce truly original works. 

Marvellous. Any final closing words? Where can people learn more?

Again, thank you for taking the time. Please visit our website. There is a lot of great information there about the project, the team and even the processes behind how some of these AI models work. Also, I would invite people to join our discord which you can find through my Twitter account. There is a vibrant and welcoming community there and we’d be honoured to have you drop by.

Disclaimer: The opinions and views of the people interviewed are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Cardano Foundation or IOG. Moreover, this content is for educational purposes, it doesn’t constitute financial advice.