Vitalik Buterin, the founder of Ethereum, recently published an article titled “d/acc: One Year Later,” reviewing the progress of his concept of “decentralized and democratic, differential defensive acceleration” (d/acc) that he proposed a year ago. He further elaborated on the meaning, challenges, and future development directions of this concept.
In early 2024, Vitalik Buterin published an article titled “My Technological Optimism” and has been working on this concept over the past year, gradually maturing it. His recent publication has gained attention and sparked discussions within the community.
What is d/acc?
In simple terms, the core idea of d/acc is to “accelerate technological development, but prioritize the development of technologies that enhance defense, decentralization, and democracy” because this core concept has the potential to empower individuals and communities and reduce the risks of centralization or oppression.
Vitalik Buterin believes that this strategy can better address the risks brought by future technological developments, especially the threats posed by super artificial intelligence (AI).
The Core and Objectives of d/acc: Creating a Safer and Freer World
Imagine a scenario in 2042 where a new type of epidemic breaks out in human society. However, this time, due to the development of early warning systems, rapid virus detection, open-source personal AI assistants, and other advanced technologies, the epidemic is quickly brought under control without causing significant harm.
This scenario is essentially what d/acc envisions for the future: a society that uses technology to enhance defense capabilities and safeguard human freedom and safety.
Vitalik Buterin emphasizes that the core principles of d/acc can be applied to multiple fields, including biological defense, physical defense, network defense, and information defense.
In simple terms, the goals of d/acc are:
– To maintain principles in an increasingly “tribalized” world and selectively develop technology.
– To recognize that exponential technological progress will make the world very different, and humanity needs to enhance the capacity to protect vulnerable groups.
– To create more effective technological tools for defense and construction rather than destruction.
What is the current progress of d/acc? What are the potential applications?
Since the publication of d/acc, there has been progress in various fields. Vitalik Buterin himself listed some specific achievements, such as verifiable open-source vaccines that reduce monopoly risks in medicine, increased focus on indoor air quality for health, the emergence of predictive markets as information tools, and the applications of zero-knowledge proof system ZK-SNARKs in government identity recognition and social media for enhanced privacy protection.
All these contribute to enhancing the defense capabilities pursued by d/acc and creating a more resilient and secure society.
ZK-SNARKs: It is an encryption technology that allows one party to prove knowledge of specific information without revealing any information, helping protect privacy and enhance security.
By encouraging diverse technological development approaches and promoting open-source technologies, d/acc has the potential to drive innovation and be applied in various fields such as the metaverse, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and healthcare.
Referring back to the example mentioned earlier, in a future where d/acc becomes a reality, an open-source air quality detector can enable people worldwide to quickly detect viruses and create an early warning system through social media analysis, providing real-time protection advice to the public.
In terms of medical technology, with open-source vaccine tools, medical facilities around the world can rapidly produce vaccines, solving the problem of “vaccine shortages.”
Furthermore, in the future, individuals can use advanced technologies such as personal AI assistants to find safer places for activities through encrypted data, reducing the chances of virus infection while protecting personal privacy.
From the examples above, it can be seen that under the concept of d/acc, society no longer needs as many centralized directives or relies on governments and businesses. Through decentralized innovative technologies, society can respond flexibly and efficiently to various challenges.
What challenges does d/acc currently face?
However, this concept is far from perfect. AI threats to security, urgent time constraints, and regulatory issues were among the main criticisms received after the publication of last year’s article.
Vitalik Buterin believes that if humanity is truly only a few years away from facing super AI, simply accelerating “good technologies” is not enough, and there is a need to slow down “bad technologies,” which may require implementing strong regulatory measures.
For example, the “SB-1047 bill” proposed in California last year was too focused on the current situation and became outdated due to the rapid development of technology. Additionally, the most likely actors to cause AI disasters are military organizations, and any security regulations established by governments are highly likely to exempt their military.
However, Vitalik Buterin believes that this does not mean that regulation should be abandoned. He proposed two possible strategies:
1. Liability:
In simple terms, if someone’s actions cause legal harm, they can be prosecuted. This is a very common and widely-used approach that has been supported by liberal economists. He believes that placing responsibility on end-users is the most incentivizing mechanism as it affects how users utilize AI. However, considering that users may lack sufficient resources to bear responsibility, it is also worth considering holding deployers and developers accountable.
Moreover, he proposed a novel perspective: holding owners or operators of devices taken over by AI accountable, thereby incentivizing the enhancement of infrastructure security worldwide.
2. Global “Pause” on Industrial-scale Hardware:
Vitalik Buterin believes that a global emergency response mechanism should be established to reduce global available AI computing power by 90-99% and sustain it for 1-2 years in critical situations, giving humanity more time to address technological risks through technical means. For example, industrial-scale AI hardware could be required to be equipped with trusted hardware chips and obtain signatures from multiple international institutions weekly to continue operating.
He believes that this approach can minimize risks, and because it is hardware-based, it has strong robustness against technological changes.
In any case, Vitalik Buterin believes that powerful new technological crises, especially AI or biotechnology, are imminent, coupled with reduced global cooperation, and the coming decades will be full of challenges.
However, humanity’s greatest hope now lies in accelerating development through more powerful tools, and decentralized technology may be the best solution. Through AI-assisted governance, verification technology, and the popularization of open-source technology, Vitalik Buterin believes that as long as people continue to strive, they have the ability to face challenges and create a brighter, freer, and safer future.