Artificial intelligence is advancing at extraordinary speed. But as AI becomes more capable, the question is no longer simply what it can do.
The question is: who is it serving?
In this episode of The Edge of Show, host Josh Kriger sits down with Eric Pulier—entrepreneur, investor, author, and technology pioneer—to discuss how society can align AI’s exponential trajectory with humanity’s best interests.
Pulier has founded more than 15 companies across cloud computing, digital media, blockchain, and emerging technology. He is also the CEO of Vatom, cofounder of Exponential Ventures, and cochair of the AI Coalition at the Future Investment Initiative (FII) Institute.
The conversation covers everything from election deepfakes and AI-powered cybercrime to cultural preservation, decentralized identity, smart NFTs, and a future where every person can own their data and participate in a value-based digital economy.
AI Has Always Been Part of the Journey
Eric Pulier’s interest in AI began early.
As a child, he encountered one of the first home computers his father brought home—a Sol-20 with a CP/M operating system. One of the earliest programs he saw was a simple AI-like conversational experience that could respond with questions and simulate a form of dialogue.
It was not sophisticated by today’s standards, but it sparked something lasting.
Pulier has spent his career working at the edge of technological change, from early internet infrastructure to cloud computing, blockchain, and AI. For him, AI has never been a sudden trend. It is part of a long arc of human ambition to build tools that can understand, assist, and extend human capability.
But today’s AI systems have reached a new level of scale, accessibility, and potential impact.
That is why the ethical conversation can no longer wait.
The Ethical Wake-Up Call: When Technology Knows Too Much
For Pulier, the urgency around responsible AI became clearer as social media evolved.
Online platforms learned how to measure attention at increasingly precise levels—identifying what keeps people scrolling, what triggers fear, and what drives engagement. The resulting systems can influence behavior in ways that users may not fully recognize in the moment.
“People think they’re making decisions,” Pulier noted, “but they can be led.”
This is not only about entertainment or advertising. It is about data privacy, manipulation, political influence, emotional well-being, and trust in information.
AI itself is not inherently good or bad. Like any powerful tool, it can be used to solve meaningful problems or create serious harm. The challenge is magnified because AI can operate at scale, adapt quickly, and affect millions of people at once.
Building an AI Blueprint for Humanity
As cochair of the FII Institute AI Coalition, Pulier is helping bring together leaders from government, industry, finance, and technology to move beyond abstract debate and toward practical action.
The coalition’s mission is to align AI development with humanity’s best interests.
That work includes thinking through an AI blueprint that organizations and governments can use when deploying AI responsibly. Pulier described a framework that starts with ethical principles and moves upward through infrastructure, risks, priorities, and real-world implementation.
Some of the coalition’s key areas of concern include:
- Election interference and AI-generated misinformation
- Deepfakes and synthetic media
- AI-enabled phishing and cybercrime
- Biological risks and synthetic biology
- Privacy, identity, and data ownership
- Systemic risk in automated financial systems
- Cultural preservation in an AI-dominated information environment
Pulier emphasized that no single group has all the answers. The goal is to gather the people capable of finding and implementing them.
Deepfakes, Elections, and AI-Powered Deception
One immediate challenge is election interference.
As generative AI becomes more realistic, people may see convincing videos of public figures saying things they never said or events that never happened. In a fast-moving media environment, even a short period of confusion can influence public opinion.
Pulier described the coming wave of synthetic content as a “torrent” of fabricated media. The response requires more than simply labeling content after the fact.
It requires preparedness.
That means developing systems to identify manipulated media, establishing clear standards for verification, and preparing institutions to respond quickly when coordinated misinformation campaigns occur.
The same concern applies to personal fraud.
AI can make phishing attacks more convincing, more targeted, and cheaper to run at scale. A bad actor no longer needs to send a generic scam email to thousands of people. They can use AI to simulate trust, familiarity, and human connection with frightening precision.
The result is a new generation of “catfishing” that could affect relationships, finances, personal safety, and public trust.
Cultural Preservation in the Age of AI
One of the most distinctive ideas discussed in the episode is the need for cultural preservation.
AI models are trained on available data. If certain languages, customs, stories, values, and local perspectives are underrepresented, they may be distorted, minimized, or lost in the systems people use every day.
Pulier believes communities need to preserve their own cultural knowledge before it is flattened into generic AI outputs.
That could include documenting family recipes, bedtime stories, local traditions, language, art, narratives, patterns, and lived experience. These inputs could help build secure, locally informed AI models that reflect a community’s own norms and history.
The goal is not to prevent progress or trap society in the past. It is to ensure that the future retains access to the richness of where people came from.
Without this effort, AI may offer a simplified, stereotyped version of culture—one that feels convenient, but fails to represent the real depth of human experience.
AI Should Augment Human Judgment
Pulier does not argue for removing humans from every decision.
In areas such as criminal justice, finance, and public policy, AI can help reduce certain forms of bias, identify patterns, and give people access to more information. But turning decisions entirely over to automated systems would create serious risks.
Human judgment remains essential.
The most promising path is augmentation: AI systems that support people, help them reason through complex information, and improve decisions without erasing accountability or context.
This is especially important when automated systems begin interacting with one another. Financial trading bots, algorithmic systems, and AI agents can create cascading effects that move faster than people can understand.
Pulier’s message is clear: intervention and safeguards need to be built now—not after a system-wide failure makes the risks impossible to ignore.
From Blockchain to the First Smart NFTs
Eric Pulier’s blockchain journey began with a question: what would it mean if people could truly own digital objects?
The internet made information easy to share, but it was not built around self-sovereign identity or digital ownership. People create accounts across platforms, accept terms they do not control, and hand over data to systems that define their identity for them.
Pulier saw blockchain as a possible way to change that.
In 2015, he began exploring the concept that became Vatom: the “virtual atom.” The idea was to create unique, programmable digital objects with real-world properties and utility.
He imagined a digital beer that could be owned, transferred, viewed in augmented reality, and programmed to change state. It might turn into something new during an event, reward a user for participation, or lose value if it was left unused.
The point was not just novelty. It was to create digital objects that could carry value, context, engagement, and ownership.
Those ideas helped shape what the industry now recognizes as smart NFTs.
Vatom and the Value-Based Digital Economy
At the heart of Vatom’s mission is a shift away from interruption-based advertising and toward direct, value-based engagement.
Instead of repeatedly targeting people with ads, brands can offer something useful, interactive, or rewarding. With permission, those interactions can create a more direct relationship between organizations and their communities.
That same infrastructure can support practical use cases far beyond collectibles:
- Loyalty and membership programs
- Digital identity and credentials
- Community engagement
- Policy-based rewards and benefits
- Tokenized entitlements for goods and services
- Real estate and ownership records
- Direct communication between brands and consumers
- Financial access for underbanked populations
Pulier sees digital wallets as a potential foundation for a more empowering internet. A wallet can represent identity, ownership, communication preferences, and the ability to receive or send value.
For billions of people without access to traditional banking systems, these tools could create new forms of participation in the global economy.
The Power of Self-Sovereign Identity
The promise of self-sovereign identity is simple: people should own their identity and data rather than repeatedly surrendering it to centralized platforms.
In today’s internet, a person may have dozens of accounts, each controlled by a different company. Their data, profile, and access can be limited or removed by systems they do not govern.
Pulier believes the next generation of the internet can work differently.
With a self-sovereign identity and wallet, an individual could receive value directly, control their information, and decide who gets access to their data and attention.
That could be especially transformative in regions affected by weak financial infrastructure or high inflation. A person could potentially hold stable forms of digital value, receive payments across borders, and access services without needing a traditional bank account.
The technology alone will not solve inequality. But it can create new infrastructure for financial inclusion, direct ownership, and greater individual agency.
Smarter Companies Need More Than Smarter Technology
As mainstream organizations adopt AI, blockchain, and digital wallets, Pulier believes the question is shifting.
Companies are no longer asking whether these technologies matter. They are asking how to use them effectively, ethically, and in ways that improve the customer experience.
That is the difference between a company that merely adopts new technology and a truly smart company.
A smart company uses AI to create value without exploiting attention. It uses data transparently. It gives people more control, not less. It creates systems that build trust, protect identity, and strengthen communities.
The technology is only part of the equation.
The real value comes from the people who implement it—and the principles they choose to follow.
Key Topics Covered
- Eric Pulier’s lifelong interest in AI and emerging technology
- The ethical risks of AI-powered attention systems
- Election deepfakes and synthetic misinformation
- AI-enabled phishing, fraud, and cybercrime
- FII Institute’s work toward an AI blueprint for humanity
- Cultural preservation and local AI models
- AI augmentation versus automated decision-making
- The origins of Vatom and smart NFTs
- Self-sovereign identity, digital wallets, and data ownership
- The convergence of AI, blockchain, and value-based engagement
Episode Highlights
- Eric Pulier explains why the ethical urgency around AI has intensified in recent years.
- He outlines how FII Institute is moving from AI discussion to practical projects and implementation.
- The conversation explores how deepfakes could affect elections, trust, and public discourse.
- Pulier shares the concept of preserving cultural stories, practices, and knowledge through local AI models.
- He reveals the early inspiration behind Vatom and programmable digital objects.
- Josh and Eric discuss how self-sovereign identity could create a more equitable digital economy.
- Pulier explains why the future belongs to companies that use emerging technology to empower people.
People and Resources Mentioned
- Eric Pulier — Entrepreneur, investor, author, and technology pioneer
- Josh Kriger — Host, The Edge of Show
- FII Institute and the AI Coalition
- Vatom
- Exponential Ventures
- Vatom House
- Peter Diamandis
- Abundance 360
- Singularity University
- Mustafa Suleyman
- David Blunden
- AI Resolution for Humanity
- Self-sovereign identity
- Smart NFTs
About Eric Pulier
Eric Pulier is an entrepreneur, investor, author, technologist, and philanthropist who has founded more than 15 companies across digital media, cloud computing, blockchain, and AI. He is the CEO of Vatom, cofounder of Exponential Ventures, and cochair of the AI Coalition at the Future Investment Initiative Institute.
His work focuses on building technology that empowers people, supports ethical innovation, and creates practical pathways for a more equitable digital future.
Listen to the Full Episode
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