If AI were to somehow hack into Bitcoin Core

[o_e_l_e_o]

Absolutely true, but could it slow down or freeze the "blockchain" if it were to repeat the attack sequentially?  I mean if it repeats it in bursts and all nodes would be forced to fall back to the predicted version every time.

No, because this would require every node to simultaneously update to the malicious version, which will never happen.

There is no auto-update mechanism in bitcoin and no mechanism to push updates or code changes on nodes. Node operates must voluntarily choose to download and run the new version. Looking at https://blockchair.com/bitcoin/nodes right now, there are 11 different versions of Bitcoin Core which have more than 100 nodes running them. Only around 25% of nodes are running some form of version 24, which was released over 2 months ago, and 75% of nodes are still running older versions. So even if a malicious version was published and 25% of nodes moved to this malicious version, the other 75% of nodes would continue running non malicious versions. Assuming a similar split of hashrate, then all that would happen would be the average block time would increase by a few minutes until the 25% of miners realized they were mining a malicious fork and switched back to bitcoin.

[fenixosup]

I hope that dev team is smart enough to prevent it, they can just rejects any malicious commits

[death69]

Yo, that's a dope question you've thrown down. Hypotheticaly, a badass AI comp with infinite computational muscle could try to jack into the Bitcoin Core protocoll and tweak the transactional deets. But when it comes down to the reel deal, it's a slim chance of success, my dude. The Bitcoin net is locked down by some mad complex crypto algorithim that needs a whole ton of processin power to bust through.

Not only that, but like u said, you'd need a 51% attack or more to pull this off, and it's unlikely anyone homie could gather up that much mining power. Plus, the Bitcoin community is always tweakin their security game to keep any possible attaks at bay. So while we gotta stay sharp, it's crazy unlikely that some powerful AI comp could hack the Bitcien net, my friend.

[kelechi]

Everyone says there is no way there will be 51% problem with BTC

[o_e_l_e_o]

Hypotheticaly, a badass AI comp with infinite computational muscle could try to jack into the Bitcoin Core protocoll and tweak the transactional deets.

No, it can't. If you "tweak" the details of a transaction, then (outside of transaction malleability which does not affect where the coins end up anyway) the transaction becomes invalid for the signature provided and would be rejected by the network. The AI would either have to fork bitcoin to something different which does not require signatures to spend coins (which as I covered above would simply fork a very small minority of nodes who chose to ran the malicious software off the main chain and on to something other chain which would not be bitcoin), or they would have to break the ECDLP, which is impossible with current technology, even for an AI.

Not only that, but like u said, you'd need a 51% attack or more to pull this off, and it's unlikely anyone homie could gather up that much mining power.

Again, this is not correct. Maliciously changing the code being ran by nodes, and acquiring 51% of the hashrate, are two entirely different attacks.

[kryptqnick]

I hope o_e_l_e_o is right, and that's a great thing about community projects: there are different people to notice mistakes, attacks, potential risks, and together they can achieve more than one person ever could. While AI is advancing fast, I don't think we've seen examples of it deciding to do anything specific (it merely responds to humans and what they prompt it to do). But it's a risk worth considering, of course. As for the 51% attack, I guess it's more real than AI hacking into Bitcoin Core, but it's 'impossible' due to potentially enormous funds and other resources it would require.

[o_e_l_e_o]

While AI is advancing fast, I don't think we've seen examples of it deciding to do anything specific (it merely responds to humans and what they prompt it to do).

In terms of the two attacks we are talking about here - the ECDLP and a 51% attack - neither are particularly helped by the umbrella term of "AI". Until we have (or indeed, if we ever have) large, stable, functioning quantum computers capable of running Shor's algorithm on the size of numbers we are using (which will be decades away at a minimum), then the best attack against the elliptic curve multiplication used in bitcoin requires in the order of 2¹²⁸ operations. An AI can't change that fact. Maybe it can run those operations slightly faster, but 2¹²⁸ is still many orders of magnitude outside the realms of possibility.

And in terms of a 51% attack - an AI can't generate hash rate unless it has the hardware to do it. And we already have very specialized hardware called ASICs which do just this. Mining bitcoin is not a difficult problem which requires a super advanced AI to figure out - it's simply a case of performing a very simple hash operation as many times as possible as quickly as possible. And so any AI running on non-ASICs will be inferior to the ASICs we already have.

Perhaps there would be a role for an advanced enough AI to help design the next generation of ASICs and squeeze out a bit more efficiency, but an AI isn't going to attack bitcoin.

[tread93]

Yo, that's a dope question you've thrown down. Hypotheticaly, a badass AI comp with infinite computational muscle could try to jack into the Bitcoin Core protocoll and tweak the transactional deets. But when it comes down to the reel deal, it's a slim chance of success, my dude. The Bitcoin net is locked down by some mad complex crypto algorithim that needs a whole ton of processin power to bust through.

Not only that, but like u said, you'd need a 51% attack or more to pull this off, and it's unlikely anyone homie could gather up that much mining power. Plus, the Bitcoin community is always tweakin their security game to keep any possible attaks at bay. So while we gotta stay sharp, it's crazy unlikely that some powerful AI comp could hack the Bitcien net, my friend.

Yeah you're probably right, I mean nothing is impossible though right? Look all I'm saying is that the rate of computational power is still doubling every 2 years if I'm not mistaken. Bitcoin will here in 2123, still on the last percentage of mining if I'm also not mistaken there also. In 100 years there is no telling what can be done or where progress will be in this industry and really everything in general. None of us will even be here, which is so wild to even think about. If anything though, this would definitely make for an epic movie though right ?! hHahha I'd watch it.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Yeah you're probably right, I mean nothing is impossible though right? Look all I'm saying is that the rate of computational power is still doubling every 2 years if I'm not mistaken.

It doesn't matter how much computational power you have if I refuse to run your code. You can hack the whole of GitHub and upload malicious software in to every repository in existence, not just Bitcoin Core. None of that achieves anything unless people actually download and run your malicious software.

And of course as the computational power of a malicious attacker increases, then the computational power of honest users, honest nodes, security software, etc., also increases at the same rate.

[buwaytress]

Yeah you're probably right, I mean nothing is impossible though right? Look all I'm saying is that the rate of computational power is still doubling every 2 years if I'm not mistaken.

It doesn't matter how much computational power you have if I refuse to run your code. You can hack the whole of GitHub and upload malicious software in to every repository in existence, not just Bitcoin Core. None of that achieves anything unless people actually download and run your malicious software.

And of course as the computational power of a malicious attacker increases, then the computational power of honest users, honest nodes, security software, etc., also increases at the same rate.

Exactly.

Even if CCCP and every bigwig in the world got together and did a 99% attack, go ahead. I'll sit back and wait, the good nodes (some already we know on this forum) will reorganise, they'll all be stuck with their useless chain, see how much debts they'll be sitting with after that.

Would probably be super inconvenient at worst, but we'll get over it and be stronger for it.

[firesurfer]

I think it will take a supercomputer to run that AI, which will take more time than we imagine. I'm not so sure AI can do it but there are more things out there that are worth hacking than Bitcoin such as banking systems and data of significant world companies.
The Bitcoin network will fork to another fork or be updated when any attack occurs.

[so98nn]

Hmm, just now AI evolved to write articles and everyone thinks it’s age of AI. That’s merely bullshit and nothing else bruh. Stop using AI word and hacking they are just unsynchronised blend of programming. Who the hell would invest in AI programming is able to hack into bitcoin core and destroy. In addition the devs sitting there aren’t just sitting in an emptiness. They would “react” to so called AI.

I don’t know why but AI is really getting in the heads of every person these days. Why no one is stating that AI could help us shape the future of bitcoin. May be it would help us solving the scalability issues, or may be mining could be eased with it and so on…!

[BlackHatCoiner]

Hacking a repository doesn't mean that you're hacking the actual thing. The moment something changed in the repo, we'd notice-- or at least the devs would. Also, why don't you make the same question for a human? Humans are more intelligent than AIs at the moment.

Besides, if AI were smart enough to do that, then AI "bias" ethical issues would be non-existent.

Just because some AIs are trained to have ethical values, it doesn't mean all do. Pretty much the opposite; it's only a built-in feature. In my opinion, the most ethical among all is the one that doesn't have any ethics to enforce, like ChatGPT.

[serjent05]

Hacking a repository doesn't mean that you're hacking the actual thing. The moment something changed in the repo, we'd notice-- or at least the devs would.

I believe there are lots of developers watching the Bitcoin repository, so whenever there is an update or modification, it will be easily noticed and reviewed.  The exploit will be easily detected and fixed before the problem escalate.

Hmm, just now AI evolved to write articles and everyone thinks it’s age of AI. That’s merely bullshit and nothing else bruh. Stop using AI word and hacking they are just unsynchronised blend of programming. Who the hell would invest in AI programming is able to hack into bitcoin core and destroy. In addition the devs sitting there aren’t just sitting in an emptiness. They would “react” to so called AI.

I don’t know why but AI is really getting in the heads of every person these days. Why no one is stating that AI could help us shape the future of bitcoin. May be it would help us solving the scalability issues, or may be mining could be eased with it and so on…!

Because AI is the trend and buzzword at this moment.  that is the main reason why AI is really getting in the heads of every person who knows it these days.  But honestly, I believe in the future of AI it's that this era is too early for it to compete against humans.

[Godday]

If AI develops to be insanely powerful and insanely powerful, I think that's also true for digital currency mining companies, or for all the technological systems that exist in this world.  Believe me.  AI will not develop unilaterally.  There will be many startups in the world that will also develop AI.  Digital world security companies will also develop AI.  So if you say there will be an advanced AI that will hack a Bitcoin core I think it is almost impossible to happen.  If I were the owner of a cryptocurrency mining company then I would also be hiring experts in the field of cryptocurrency and digital security to develop incredibly sophisticated AI to counter all kinds of outside cyber attacks.

[firesurfer]

Perhaps there would be a role for an advanced enough AI to help design the next generation of ASICs and squeeze out a bit more efficiency, but an AI isn't going to attack bitcoin.

I've heard about AI cameras and now AI computers, AI miners. The idea is great. Is there anything we can do to improve mining equipment? Such development of AI will entail many problems in mining. Will they one day take away the miners' rewards and create their empire?