Ala Shaabana

Two ML researchers with world-class pedigrees who decided to build a company that puts AI on the blockchain. Now to most people — myself included — “AI on the blockchain” sounds like a winning entry in some kind of startup buzzword bingo. But what I discovered talking to Jacob and Ala was that they actually have good reasons to combine those two ingredients together. At a high level, doing AI on a blockchain allows you to decentralize AI research and reward labs for building better models, and not for publishing papers in flashy journals with often biased reviewers. And that’s not all — as we’ll see, Ala and Jacob are taking on some of the thorniest current problems in AI with their decentralized approach to machine learning. Everything from the problem of designing robust benchmarks to rewarding good AI research and even the centralization of power in the hands of a few large companies building powerful AI systems — these problems are all in their sights as they build out Bittensor, their AI-on-the-blockchain-startup. Ala and Jacob joined me to talk about all those things and more on this episode of the TDS podcast. --- Intro music: - Artist: Ron Gelinas - Track Title: Daybreak Chill Blend (original mix) - Link to Track: https://youtu.be/d8Y2sKIgFWc --- Chapters: 2:40 Ala and Jacob’s backgrounds 4:00 The basics of AI on the blockchain 11:30 Generating human value 17:00 Who sees the benefit? 22:00 Use of GPUs 28:00 Models learning from each other 37:30 The size of the network 45:30 The alignment of these systems 51:00 Buying into a system 54:00 Wrap-up

Ala Shaabana, co-founder of BitTensor, discusses the vision and technical architecture of the decentralized AI network. They contrast centralized AI governance with BitTensor's community-driven approach. They explore the philosophical questions around AI development pathways and highlight intriguing use cases of BitTensor. They also discuss BitTensor's roadmap to complete the decentralized vision through self-governance.