Artificial intelligence (AI) agents and blockchain are redefining the digital economy.

Source: Cointelegraph Original Text: "Artificial Intelligence (AI) agents and blockchain are redefining the digital economy"

Author: Arunkumar Krishnakumar, Head of Institutional Growth at Marinade Finance

The rise of the internet and social media has reshaped the way brands reach billions of users worldwide. In this carefully designed digital ecosystem that distracts attention, the competition for user attention has reached a fever pitch—welcome to the age of attention economy, where user engagement metrics are far more important than substantial user experience.

People are bombarded with various notifications, advertisements, and content, all aimed at gaining clicks rather than meeting real needs. A 2020 study by The Economist Intelligence Unit found that 28% of American knowledge workers' time is spent dealing with distractions, and this frantic pursuit of attention has resulted in significant economic costs. The pressures of cognitive loss, financial waste, and social costs are giving rise to a new framework centered around user intent—Intent Economy.

The operating mechanism of the attention economy

Digital platforms capture and retain user attention through dopamine stimulation mechanisms. Algorithms prioritize recommending addictive content, ensuring users remain continuously hooked—such as when searching for "travel insurance" on Google, SEO optimization and paid ads distort results, often leading users to suboptimal choices. While comparison websites may seem practical, their rankings are actually based on ad placement bidding rather than genuine relevance, with the principle of efficiency completely overshadowing accuracy.

The cost of misalignment between user intent and system design is staggering. The aforementioned study estimates that distractions result in a productivity loss of $391 billion for the U.S. economy each year.

Cognitive cost

The attention economy causes dual harm to users and creators. On the user side, the continuous bombardment of notifications damages focus, not only reducing work efficiency but also weakening the ability for deep thinking. Research from King's College London shows that 51% of respondents believe technology is harming the attention span of young people.

The Dilemma of Content Creators

Creators are also mired in a quagmire. They are forced to continuously produce eye-catching content to maintain exposure, and this pressure often leads to severe mental exhaustion. In order to attract traffic, creators have to resort to clickbait, controversial topics, and other tactics, often at the expense of content quality and depth.

The existing profit model exacerbates inequality in the industry. Income completely relies on engagement metrics favored by the platform's algorithms, resulting in top creators monopolizing the vast majority of traffic benefits.

Post-Network Era and Intent Economy

The Post Web era is replacing the attention economy with the economy of intention. This paradigm proposed by Outlier Ventures achieves hyper-contextual value interaction through intention-driven AI agents. Its core lies in replacing quantity with quality, by restructuring digital infrastructure to center user intentions and delegating complex tasks to autonomous agents.

Taking the aforementioned insurance scenario as an example, the AI agents in the intention economy can comprehensively compare multi-dimensional indicators such as policy coverage, user preferences, and real-time weather. This automated process not only reduces user cognitive load but also ensures optimal decision-making.

User-Centered Design Practice

The shift towards an intention economy requires a reconstruction of design logic. The post-network infrastructure allows AI agents to act on behalf of users, integrating distributed ledger technology (DLT) to ensure trustworthy verification. Its essence is intention-driven and deterministic, while also possessing adaptability, verifiability, and hyper-contextual characteristics.

In the post-network era, user interactions are guided by AI agents capable of interpreting complex intentions, eliminating repetitive manual operations. DLT technology ensures the security and transparency of interactions. The integration of AI and blockchain will unlock new dimensions of efficiency, making the intention economy inevitable.

The key role of AI

AI drives the realization of intention economy through personalized interactions and decision optimization. In the post-network era, AI agents can dynamically adjust their behaviors based on real-time data to accurately match user needs.

This personalization requires strong privacy protection. The post-network ensures user sovereignty through privacy computing technology and a decentralized framework.

Challenges and Breakthroughs

The implementation of the intention economy faces threefold challenges: balancing personalization and privacy, ethical considerations in AI, and the reconstruction of attention monetization models. This requires multi-party collaboration among technology providers, policymakers, and users.

Although there are criticisms that AI systems may weaken human agency, the post-network intention architecture ensures that the agents are merely extensions of user will. This intricate design preserves human autonomy while eliminating cognitive friction and economic distortions in the attention economy.

The intention-driven architecture of the post-network directly addresses the fundamental flaws of the current predatory model, allowing digital systems to truly serve user needs and build a healthier and more efficient ecosystem.

Author: Arunkumar Krishnakumar, Head of Institutional Growth at Marinade Finance

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