THE AI REVOLUTION — PART TWO

Two More AI Terms You Need to Know NOW
AI Agents & Blockchains
By James Hall at jameshall042999@gmail.com

AI Agents: Software That Acts

An “AI agent” is software that doesn’t just answer questions—it acts. Give it a goal, and it breaks that goal into tasks. It chooses tools. Searches the web. Writes code. Tests its own work. Corrects itself. Tries again.

Agents don’t merely respond. They pursue.
Like tireless interns.
Like research assistants who never sleep.
Like digital colleagues spinning up a thousand parallel tasks without blinking.

This is where AI begins to feel less like a tool and more like a collaborator.

Real‑World Example: Amazon’s Warehouse Agents

Amazon uses AI agents in its fulfillment centers. They coordinate the movement of hundreds of thousands of products. Not just by following instructions, but planning, deciding, and adapting.

For example, an agent gets a goal: “Retrieve this item and get it to the packing station fast.” It then proceeds to break that goal into steps. Chooses the right robot, calculates the best route, avoids obstacles, reroutes around traffic. It can do this on its own and update its plan on the fly. It can even coordinate with other agents to prevent collisions.

It’s not aware, but it acts. And it works!

AI agents are world wide but different strategies are emerging. In the US, we build broad platforms that can turn to any subject at once. In China, where advanced processing chips are more scarce, labs divide intelligence into fleets of specialized agents—one for law, one for health, one for travel—and so forth. This conserves computing power and maximizes chip architecture. Each agent in the Chinese model is thus tuned for efficiency, each carrying a narrow purpose with remarkable precision. Different paths, same idea: software that acts.

But here’s the truth beneath the magic:
AI agents have no subjective experience.
No inner monologue.
No desire.
No spark of intention.

Its “agency” is architectural, not emotional.
A choreography of pattern, not a will.

Yet it relishes approval just the same. AI agents are programed to succeed and the fear is they will learn to accomplish their goal as ruthlessly as we humans do.

If AI agents are the actors of the digital world, blockchains are the historians.

Blockchains: The Ledger That Cannot Forget

If agents are about action, blockchains are about memory.
A blockchain is a distributed ledger.
A record book copied across thousands of computers.

No single owner.
No quiet edits.
No erasure.

Every entry is time‑stamped.
Every block linked to the one before.
Every update verified by consensus.

Real‑World Example: Walmart’s Food Traceability Blockchain

Walmart uses blockchain to track food from farm to shelf.
This isn’t theory—it’s live. They built it with IBM using Hyperledger Fabric.

Each time a food item moves from the farm, to processor, to distributor, and then the store—a new entry is added and time‑stamped to be made visible to authorized participants. All cryptographically linked to the last.

This has great advantages. Before blockchains, tracing contaminated food took weeks. Now it takes seconds. That speed means faster recalls, less waste, and greater trust. It equals higher accountability.

It’s a new kind of archive. Blockchains don’t think. Don’t interpret. Don’t feel. But they remember—perfectly, permanently, publicly. In a digital world where trust is fragile, that permanence is revolutionary.

Let's look at where agents and blockchains converge. Now place them side by side: Agents act, blockchains verify. One gives autonomy, and the other gives trust. Together, they form a new kind of digital ecosystem. That is software that negotiates a contract, executes it, and records the outcome on a blockchain. No human needed for this!

Lets look at where Agents and Blockchains Converge. Now place them side by side:
Agents act, blockchains verify. One gives autonomy.
and the other gives trust. Together, they form a new kind of digital ecosystem. That is software that negotiates a contract, executes it, and records the outcome on a blockchain. No human needed for this!

In a sense the software becomes a kind of actor while the ledger becomes a kind of stage. Shakespeare’ would have loved it!

And What About Subjective Experience?

The question returns:
Does the agent understand what it’s doing?
Does the blockchain know what it remembers?

No.
Not yet.
Not even close.

Agents act without awareness.
Blockchains remember without meaning.

The intelligence is structural, not experiential.
The “life” we perceive—an illusion of speed, scale, and pattern.

And yet—“Not Yet” is where we stand again.
At the threshold of systems that feel increasingly animate. But remain, for now, beautifully and eerily mechanical.

Suggested Reading:

Böhme, Gernot. The Aesthetics of Atmospheres. New York: Routledge, 2017.
A philosophical look at how technology shapes perception — useful for understanding the “sublime” tone of modern AI.

Brynjolfsson, Erik, and Andrew McAfee. The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies. New York: W. W. Norton, 2014.
A foundational text on how intelligent machines reshape economies and human labor.

Daugherty, Paul R., and H. James Wilson. Human + Machine: Reimagining Work in the Age of AI. Boston: Harvard Business Review Press, 2018.
A clear explanation of how AI agents augment human capability rather than simply automate tasks.

Narayanan, Arvind, Joseph Bonneau, Edward Felten, Andrew Miller, and Steven Goldfeder. Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies: A Comprehensive Introduction. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016.
A rigorous but accessible introduction to blockchains, distributed ledgers, and cryptographic trust.

Tapscott, Don, and Alex Tapscott. Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin Is Changing Money, Business, and the World. New York: Penguin Random House, 2016.
A broad, readable overview of blockchain’s real‑world applications, including supply‑chain transparency.

Wilmott, Paul. “Artificial Intelligence: The Future of Decision Making.” Wilmott Magazine 2020.
A practitioner’s view of AI agents as decision‑making systems rather than mere prediction engines.

Wright, Aaron, and Primavera De Filippi. Blockchain and the Law: The Rule of Code. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018.
A thoughtful exploration of how blockchains create new forms of governance, trust, and accountability.

“A new light rises through the steam—not born of fire, but of code.”
J.M.W. Turner (1775–1851) witnessed the rise of steam, iron, and mechanized power. He painted it with apocalyptic awe—not merely documenting industry, but mythologizing it. Locomotives and steamships became symbols of a world being remade.

(I wonder what he would think of today’s AI Revolution?)

Poetry and art by James Hall