As i dive deeper into the intersection of the 2 industries, i’ll begin posting some thoughts here, some will make sense, most may not, but would love to learn and discuss these ideas together in the open. Disclaimer: I have 0 investments in any of the things I am writing about (no halo’s for binji)

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.

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