Illia Polosukhin is one of the “Transformer 8,” a group that many call the founding fathers of generative AI. They co-wrote a paper at Google in 2017 that established the core concept that makes generative AI possible: transformers. Polosukhin left Google before the paper was published to co-found Near, an AI startup and blockchain ecosystem with millions of users. CNBC's Katie Tarasov sat down with Polosukhin to talk about how the transformer was invented and what he sees as the pitfalls and possibilities of the tech revolution he helped kick off.