Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has called for a rethink on how cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence should come together, warning that the growing focus on developing artificial general intelligence (AGI) could overlook the bigger picture.
In an article on
The goal, he said, is not to race to build more powerful AI systems, but to guide the development of AI in a way that protects human freedoms, distributes power more evenly, and avoids extreme AI risks and everyday security failures.
Buterin outlined a near-term vision for Ethereum to play an important (though not exclusive) role as artificial intelligence infrastructure. These include tools that allow people to interact with AI models more privately, thereby reducing trust in centralized providers. For example, running models locally, making anonymous payments for AI services, and using cryptography to verify how AI systems behave.
He also described Ethereum as a way for economic coordination of artificial intelligence systems, allowing robots to pay other robots, post deposits, build reputations and resolve disputes without relying on a single company. Buterin believes that combined with artificial intelligence tools that help people evaluate decisions and outcomes, these systems could make long-discussed ideas such as decentralized governance work in the real world.
“For me, Ethereum, and my own view of how our civilization should implement AGI, is precisely about choosing a positive direction rather than accepting an indiscriminate arrow of acceleration,” Buterin wrote on X.
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