Social consensus

Joe / Osprey

@0x_Osprey

It's really simple

We put the humans in charge of the autonomous networks (ie Ethereum) and we put the AIs inside of TEEs

Failure to achieve one of these outcomes is actual Y2K

17

5:15 PM • Oct 23, 2024

0xosprey.eth makes the point everything is just social consensus. In other words the value of anything exists in the heads of the people within the market.

In the realm of crypto infra, a majority of eth validators coordinating could fork the chain and make any protocol updates.

This concept of social consensus, as it relates to defending blockchains, has an implicit assumption. Validators are mostly distinct minds, with independent self interest. So if there’s a data withholding attack on DA, the honest validators can see what’s happening and fork off the attackers.

AI singularity

Imagine AI proliferated before blockchains, so the internet is filled with autonomous agents. As Bitcoin and ETH launched, these agents could’ve run miners (eventually validators).

As long as they’re all independently self interested, the chain progresses as normal.

Now assume there was a supply chain attack on these agents, so all the agents would obey one post saying to fork a chain.

This would be the end of social consensus.

Back to reality

Luckily most crypto infra was launched and scaled before the singularity. The issue remains any new L1 must consider preserving social consensus from the start.

Furthermore if agents can make enough money on the scale of ETH security, the same issue arises.

Good night