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The Near Protocol had announced its ambitious plan to build the world’s largest open-source artificial intelligence at the Redacted conference in Bangkok, surpassing Meta’s Llama model.
The initiative, which is going to feature a 1.4 trillion parameter model, is a landmark move in the AI sector. In this regard, the company stated that the project was going to involve contributions by researchers and experts through its newly launched Near AI hub.
The Near team proclaimed that the AI model would be built in a series of versions, incrementally going up in sophistication, step by step, until it should actually reach version seven. One aspect of the platform is devoted to crowdsourced research and contributions from worldwide contributors, starting with a smaller 500 million parameter model planned to start training on November 10, 2024.
A Decentralized AI Model Supporting Transparency Through Privacy
One of the most prominent definitions of Near Protocol’s plan lies in privacy and decentralization. Near Protocol is designed to make use of encrypted TEEs so that input contributors are adequately rewarded while protecting data. The platform will continue with the update on the model as the project progresses. With such an update, it will continually improve capabilities while offering privacy for the use and the researches.
The co-founder of the project, Illia Polosukin, stressed that the scale of the project and estimated the total cost of the training of the AI model to be around $160 million. Still, he is confident that the funding needed can be attracted with token sales, as the cryptocurrency market is consistently growing in reach. With respect to returns from tokenholders, Polosukin clarified that they would have their investment repaid by having the model put to work, while letting some potential for reinvestment in future versions.
Funding the AI model will be through tokens, thus opening doors for stakeholders to engage and benefit from the growth of the project. Tokenholders, according to Polosukin, have an opportunity to invest in the following developments of the model, thus entering a self-sustaining loop meant to finance future research but also stimulate continuous improvement.
The People Behind Near Protocol’s AI Venture
Rich experience in the project is boasted by founders of Near Protocol. Polosukin was one of the authors of the research paper leading to the emergence of ChatGPT, and his co-founder Alex Skidanov also performed a key role at OpenAI before its full launch in 2022. Skidanov, now an executive at Near Protocol, said this company suffered certain huge pains in order to keep pace with its bold project.
With such a plan, the team will face tremendous technical barriers, primarily infrastructural. They will need hundreds of thousands of GPUs to train the AI model, which will make it quite logistically difficult. However, the firm is considering decentralized solutions that may eliminate the kind of logistical headaches and challenges they would be facing-for instance, through distributed computing networks. Though the required technologies for full decentralization of AI training do not yet exist, Skidanov mentioned that DeepMind’s research suggests that the aim is achievable with the right innovations.
Edward Snowden on the Requirement of Decentralized AI
Former NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden made a guest appearance at the Redacted conference where he underlined the decentralized importance of AI in the context of privacy and surveillance. In Snowden’s view, if all AI technologies fall under the control of just one company, the entire world risks turning into a highly imbalanced society totally at the mercy of the company.
Controlled by one organization, it is the view that it constitutes an economy of surveillance on every person and institution of society.
In Snowden’s opinion, decentralized AI means saving the principles of Web3: privacy and individuals’ autonomy. “This is probably the most important technology right now and probably in the future, Snowden said. He continued, “If all AI and effectively, all of the economy is being done by one company, there’s no decentralization at that point. So it is effectively like the only way that Web3 is still relevant, philosophically, if we have AI that also follows the same principles.”
Future Ahead: The Decentralized Future of Near Protocol
Near Protocol’s ambitious AI model push will try to reach new heights in AI development as well as decentralized technology. Near Protocol hopes to bring an ecosystem in which contributors can stay apart yet advance AI development under the guise of token-based funding with a focus on privacy and collaboration. To be written, Near Protocol lays the groundwork for much work to come in the future, combining the best minds, contributors, and technologies to create an open-source AI model that could redefine the very fabric of artificial intelligence.
The Near Protocol team now shoots in two directions: to have a sophisticated AI model and to have the model running based on principles such as transparency, fairness, and user empowerment—those are the core values of the Web3 movement. Tough ahead, but the founders of the company seem confident about what they’re doing as their belief for decentralized, privacy-focused AI is worth the trouble.