Shifting Perspectives and Intersections
In a recent blog post, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin explores the evolving relationship between cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence (AI). He acknowledges the increasing importance of both technologies and delves into potential intersections and synergies between them.
The Role of AI in the Crypto World
Buterin categorizes the interactions between crypto and AI into four main categories. He explains how AI can assist users in understanding the complexities of the crypto world, detect scams, and simulate wallet features. Examples include Metamask’s scam detection and Rabby wallet’s simulation feature.
AI as the Rules of the Game
Buterin discusses integrating AIs into smart contracts or decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) to make subjective decisions. However, he highlights challenges such as adversarial machine learning attacks and emphasizes the need for transparency in open-source models.
AI as an Objective
Looking towards the future, Buterin explores designing blockchains and DAOs specifically for creating and maintaining AIs. This includes developing trustworthy black-box AIs, establishing democratic governance structures, and incorporating a decentralized AI with a natural kill switch.
Implementation Challenges
The article addresses two major challenges: Cryptographic Overhead and Adversarial Machine Learning. Buterin acknowledges concerns about incorporating cryptographic gadgets into AI computations but suggests optimistic avenues for making AI-compatible cryptography more viable. He also discusses the threat of adversarial machine learning attacks and suggests leveraging DAOs and cryptographic techniques like MPC to secure the AI pipeline.
The Importance of Cautious Exploration
The article concludes by emphasizing the need for cautious exploration when converging crypto and AI.
Hot Take: The Promise and Challenges of Crypto + AI
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin’s blog post explores the evolving relationship between cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence. He highlights the potential intersections and synergies between these two technologies. Buterin categorizes the interactions into four categories: AI’s role in the crypto world, AI as the rules of the game, AI as an objective, and implementation challenges. He discusses examples of how AI can assist users, warns about challenges like adversarial machine learning attacks, and suggests leveraging DAOs and cryptographic techniques to secure the AI pipeline. The article concludes by emphasizing the importance of cautious exploration in converging crypto and AI.