Bittensor is an incentives design space (which every blockchain is at its core). Subnet creators build their own incentives distribution mechanism, miners provide valuable work (doesn't have to be AI) and validators come to consensus regarding how accurate / useful that work is.
Bittensor network has no way of accruing value from people actually using the models. Today it prints money based on validator preferences. It is a DAO voting on whom to pay from new token supply based on what’s useful.
Currently all emissions go as rewards to miners and validators as a 50/50 ratio.
In the long run, validators will not be rewarded newly created TAO. Only miners will.
Validators stake TAO to get access to the resu lt of the network and can subsequently monetize these results (e.g. sell inference API).
TAO will never be used as a payment to access the network.