Why decentralized ai?

The AI revolution is at a crossroads. Today's environment is not unlike a once-public plaza that has suddenly partitioned into a bureaucratic labyrinth of regulations and restrictions. Many are beginning to feel that these safeguards are going to become stifling. E.G Karpathy.

Andrej Karpathy

@karpathy

Thinking a lot about centralization and decentralization these few days.

11.6K

12:38 PM • Nov 21, 2023

Enter Hyperspace

Positioning itself as a countermeasure, Hyperspace aims to reclaim this plaza for the people. It advocates for a move back to open collaboration, urging developers and AI aficionados to return, unshackled, to an environment where their intellectual cultivation can thrive. In the Hyperspace ecosystem, the proverbial little guy is just as empowered to innovate as the industrial titan. It seeks to offer an extensive and dynamic exchange of ideas, data, and computational prowess.

The protocol is interesting to me because of its intended use of crypto primitives like fraud proofs and reputation slashing to ensure trust and disputability among participants. I have always felt that core L2 primitives will become core trust primitives on the internet more broadly than just for L1<>L2 proofs, and it is exciting to see an idea emerge that further expands the scope of possibility.

At its core, Hyperspace operates like an interconnected system of couriers, each with a map and a personal seal ensuring the safe and verified delivery of parcels—the parcel being data or an AI task. There's no central hub directing traffic; instead, these 'couriers' form a reliable chain, passing information directly to one another.

Someone wanting to participate must set up a node with computing capabilities and follow the protocol's guidelines to connect with the Hyperspace Community Servers (HCS). These servers coordinate the network, match computational tasks with appropriate nodes, and oversee the verification process.

Here's what sets Hyperspace apart:

• Decentralized Validation: Each node contributes to AI model inferences, with results cross-verified by other nodes using blockchain-based fraud proofs and challenge mechanisms.

• Economic Incentives: Nodes are rewarded with cryptocurrency for accurate computations, and penalized if fraud is proven, aligning interests with network integrity.

• Open Participation: Anyone with computational resources can become a node, enabling equal opportunities for involvement irrespective of one's physical or corporate resources; of course this is conjecture right now because if this is expensive then its restricted; but still more open than the current state of AI.

• Blockchain-Backed: Embedded smart contracts orchestrate the challenge-response protocol. This means no human involvement in executing punishment, which is great because human justice systems are inherently fallible!

Here’s how it uses crypto:

• Unique Node Identity:

  • Nodes are assigned a distinct NodeAddress via a cryptographic hash for secure identification.

  • Proof of Work (PoW) is used to generate these addresses, deterring attacks by imposing a computational cost.

• Tiered Message Authentication:

  • Weak Signatures for non-critical communication, covering elements like IP address and timestamp.

  • Strong Signatures for crucial messages, protecting the integrity of the content and guarding against attacks.

• Blockchain-based Accountability:

  • Our immutable ledger, the eternal scripture, records all actions and transactions, its the theater of transparent truth, and very importantly; it means that everything is contestable/disputable!

  • Smart contracts administer fraud proofs, enabling challenges and responses to be verified on-chain.

    • Entities submit on-chain challenges within specific time-windows if suspicious activity is noticed.

    • Should inconsistencies emerge, the offending node is financially penalized while honest participants are compensated.

      • Note: I’m curious what fault proof model they’re using in particular.

Excited to track their journey as the space grows increasingly mature; there are many headwinds to overcome, however, the path to decentralized acceleration is not to be fighting the winds; but to soar above it.

binji

Markets ebb and flow,

tethered to the transient whims of impulse,

yet technology remains unbounded,

free from the flicker of charts,

burning bright amidst the flames of progress

do not fall for the same things you are trying to break

would you rather paint a chart or the future?

I wrote this on 23.07.2021 as a reminder to myself about the idea that my life’s work will be for something greater. Sometimes I feel the need to reflect on it when crypto gets too fixated on price.

onchain culture is a euphemism for the next generation of internet communities, it is the beating heart of crypto. It is what created the blockchain world we are in today, and it will be pivotal in the formation of the decentralized web we build tomorrow.

onchain culture is what turned a forum post in 2009 into a trillion dollar industry.

onchain culture is what made a young prodigy from Canada network with droves of cryptographers, publish a magazine, and ultimately create Ethereum.

onchain culture is what allowed for a globalized force to be spawned in record time to create shared rules, co-invest, and build out a DAO to bid for the US constitution.

onchain culture is what took the world by storm through the creation of non-fungible-tokens that allowed people to express their values & identity in new ways to create communities around shared beliefs

onchain culture is what led to the rise of decentralized social apps like farcaster and lens, which have paved the way for novel friendships and collaboration away from the walled gardens of Web2.

onchain culture is what brought you here.

and now..

It is time to turn it up a notch.

It is time to sync nodes, load up charts, post blogs, send attestations, release art, collect work, bridge assets, send XMTP messages, fund public goods, and design +ve incentive structures.

It is time for onchain

Find me on farcaster @binji

Other mirror posts: contributor highways

A contributor highway is a structure that facilitates the transportation of an idea across a network and allows anyone to join the ride.

The power of many minds often beats the genius of one. This is where contributor highways shine. They act as vibrant arteries, channeling ideas and fostering growth while welcoming many perspectives and skillsets. By creating effective onramps for open contributors, these highways speedrun innovation and can keep a vision alive.

Examples of these highways range from Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) projects, where global contributors have come together to ship software, to Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs), which allow for community-driven enhancements to the Ethereum network. Crowdsourcing platforms like Kickstarter and open hackathons also play their part, providing a stage for ideas to flourish and realities to be molded.

Why are contributor highways important?

Everything starts through some form of a contributor highway. The P2P foundation’s open forum (where Satoshi made their first post) was arguably a simple yet powerful highway that allowed for discussion, contributions, and the eventual dissemination of a collective goal.

Crypto redefines digital contributor highways: Rewarding contributions is simpler and less obfuscated by geo-fencing. AKA: one can fund anyone anywhere in the world for their contributions to a project (KYC laws may apply but are not nearly as restrictive as W2s).

Contributor rewards are important too. Bitcoin’s reward for contributors in the early days was simple: just mine BTC. Some other protocols have other ways to incentivize contributors. E.G Optimism’s retroactive public goods funding approach.

Rewards, however, do not strictly need to be financial; there can be certain rewards like hitting personal milestones, gaining social status and more, these can be effective too.

TLDR: incentives are important. But not all incentives are strictly financial.

binji

@binji_x

črypto’s biggest value proposition

is that it allows for the incentivization of a global workforce,

(who would have never met otherwise)

to work together on a shared goal from day 1.

No other industry exists where a worldwide force can be created as quickly.

37

1:42 AM • Nov 21, 2022

How do you nurture these powerful Contributor Highways?

Step 1: Initiate a shared goal that people have an incentive to fulfill

Step 2: Create a platform or process where contributions can be made

Step 3: Promote and manage this platform to ensure the growth and success of both the platform itself and its contributors (people need to feel appreciated and be seen for their work!)

When done successfully, this can lead to the emergence of a dynamic, productive, and self-reinforcing community.

For instance, forming a writing collective where members hold each other accountable can be a starting point. The shared personal goal of writing more becomes the magnetic north, drawing contributors to join, engage, and eventually, construct a self-sustaining highway of collective efforts leading to the completion of individual objectives.

binji

@binji_x

Who wants to do a writing challenge with me? Publish one piece of content each week about the space and hold eachother accountable.

Can be any topic but a focus on highlighting builders from hackathons, L2s, protocol economics or crypto philosophy would be great.

52

11:57 PM • May 17, 2023

This highway is essentially an accountability engine, aiming to help individuals meet their personal goals. Not directing content, just encouraging commitment.

📝🤪 Crypto Writers’ Accountability

@CryptoWritersGG

Hey everyone- welcome!

@0xrelativity and @binji_x and I started this group to help crypto writers keep eachother accountable with “shipping” their writing

silly-max and have a good time

It’s honestly pretty casual-

We’ll be tweeting leaderboards and memes and whatever

11

4:22 PM • May 18, 2023

In a nutshell, Contributor Highways are a testament to the fact that when we embark on a journey together, the destination becomes not just a shared achievement, but a shared journey of growth, learning, and success. Nurturing effective and open contributor highways can lead to a collective impact that far outweighs that of any one individual

**Interested in sparking up a contributor highway? Join the CryptoWriters GG group. **

• You can join this group if you just want to write more and be held accountable or if you want to act as a reviewer for others’ writings before they publish!

• If you want to help bring more stuff onchain:

  • Issue Attestations via EAS or others with a multiplier effect for those who complete writing streaks (mirror already gets every post onchain so there is a headstart!)

  • Help create twitter bots to retweet writers’ publications

  • Help gamify the thing, how can this be made to be more fun?

  • Issue NFTs for all guild members -- wen pfp?

  • Create a website!

• Help work with DAOs so writers can write on behalf of projects and get retroactively funded -- education is a public good. Imagine joining this group to fullfill a personal goal, and then having the opportunity to be compensated for it :O

• Make memes.

📝🤪 Crypto Writers’ Accountability

@CryptoWritersGG

WE ARE GROWING

guild(dot)xyz for on-chain attestations of member publications:

guild.xyz/writers-guild-…

twitter for official updates:

@CryptoWritersGG

telegram for collabs and discussion:

t.me/+8vzeBW3rnQBjN…

guild.xyz

writers guild (support group)

(✍️,✍️)

10

6:27 PM • May 19, 2023

What I am personally excited about here is how this can bring new people onchain, 0xreflexivity put it perfectly:

“The role of crypto for this group is accountability as on-chain attestations- long term we see this as potentially a gateway for liberal arts to seamlessly integrate with crypto”

There are numerous ideas on how one can contribute to this highway; the best part is that the lanes are completely open (:

gg.