Lightning Labs Unveils New Tools to Ease Bitcoin Transactions for AI

Lightning Labs, a company involved in developing Lightning Network, a layer-2 solution for Bitcoin, has introduced new tools that facilitate the interaction of artificial intelligence (AI) applications like Open AI’s ChatGPT with the Bitcoin network.

OpenAI introduced ChatGPT in November 2022 and it boosted a new wave of interest in the capacities of AI. The AI is a large language model trained with a large amount of data. The training allows it to generate text to answer questions based on its prompt. The responses are usually similar to how humans would answer the same questions. Within two months of its launch, the chatbot had attracted over 100 million users.

Tools by Lightning Labs Will Solve the Payment Challenges of the Current AI Models

Lightning Labs believes that one major issue with the current Large Language Model is the lack of a built-in method of paying over the Internet.

The announcement published by the company on July 6 says that the new tools will make payments that involve the use of Bitcoin faster, cheaper, and more accessible to AI developers. This way, they can move away from traditional, expensive, and often restrictive payment methods and use Lightning Network’s solution.

Lightning Labs stated that:

“The success of an AI application can actually become a barrier to further success due to the current billing paradigm: … Given these factors, it makes sense the creators of AI agents will ultimately gravitate towards a globally available, permissionless, near-instantly settled internet native monetary system in Bitcoin and Lightning rather than the traditional fiat system which simply cannot support these types of payments or evaluations.”

Lightning Labs also mentioned that there is a rapid increase in groups of AI agents, which it referred to as organisms, that face difficulty accessing traditional payment systems since they are not officially recognized or registered as legal entities in some nations. These agents require access to resources that may require payment before performing these tasks. This won’t be an issue anymore with the new toolkit.

“With the tools we’re releasing today, developers will be able to build more accessible AI infrastructure for both humans and agents alike,” added the company.

The new tools are built on the L402 protocol, an authentication mechanism for Lightning, and Langchain, a library that adds external data and generates more advanced functionality to ease working with AI agents. This way, the company ensures access to open language models through an open payment system connected to different open APIs around the world.