Cloudsight adds Bitcoin Lightning payment to allow instant AI-to-AI transactions

AI-as-a-service (AIaaS) is becoming increasingly popular, with the likes of Amazon AI (which includes Rekognition), Clarifai, Google Cloud Vision, IBM Watson, and Microsoft Cognitive Services gaining traction.

One of the main economic drivers within AIaaS is the prevalence of microtransactions.

Visual cognition startup CloudSight has announced that it will now support Bitcoin Lightning payments, accepting microtransactions to gather and share visual knowledge to allow AI to learn from AI.

CloudSight utilizes data to train deep learning neural networks to automatically caption images. With a database of over half a billion images and all the associated metadata, CloudSight says its image recognition API is one of over 30 patents pending worldwide.

The incorporation of Bitcoin Lightning means that microtransactions between devices can happen at great speed, unlocking an exchange of information that was previously difficult.

For example, if your future self-driving car needs to identify an object in the road, the autonomous AI network will allow it to ask surrounding cars or reach out to a data provider. Once the car gathers the information (for a small fee), it could then be compensated by other cars asking it the same question.

CloudSight’s new partnership essentially creates a decentralized framework and provides a trusted mechanism to transfer value from data provider to data consumer. These microtransactions can take place between any human, service provider, or AI entity.

“Today, while the information economy continues to grow, data providers are seeking new methods for upgrading traditional payment networks to handle the future of AI communication,” CloudSight founder and CEO Brad Folkens said. “At CloudSight, we found that Bitcoin payments (BTC), via the Lightning network, offer the perfect pairing for a unique utility with our visual cognition neural networks. We are very excited for the future of autonomous AI, and we believe this is a critical step in the development of this new technology.”