[DISCUSSION] AI for Bitcoin, Friend or Foe?

[terrific]

AI is just a new gun.. Does your friend have the gun or a foe has the gun? Problem is either way sometimes it doesnt stop shooting when you let off the trigger..

I agree with this.
It's a tool, can be used to harm or protect people.
If it's wrongly used, it's definitely going to harm everyone. Recently, have discovered the bugs and vulnerability.
That is a great use to detect potential threat but, if it's used by the wrong people. They can scan and use it for attacking.
Might be optimistic to think that it's going to protect us from different types of threats, so maybe in the future we'd see battles of AIs against its own.

[Munshi Prem Chand]

...

This demonstrates the importance of speed. On October 22 (6 days prior to the publication of these 3) a rapid response track was added for bugs which can be easily found using an LLM. They are published immediately, as soon as they are available to all supported release lines. If a vulnerability can be quickly found by a cheap scanner there is no point keeping the information secret, only giving more time for any attackers to perform the same scan. These were the first bugs to go through this system.

It also shows how this is a friend not foe. Project Loupe was developed by Spiral, Block's Bitcoin development arm meaning it was a defensive tool. The latest vulnerability was identified on the 23rd October, and patched releases were made on 27-28th. 2 of the vulnerabilities were of medium severity, with 1 being low. This was a great trial run of the new system.

Source: https://www.tftc.io/bitcoin-core-ai-found-vulnerabilities-easily-discoverable-disclosure

[tugba]

attackers could easily use them to find and exploit "zero-day" vulnerabilities before developers can fix them. It also depends on the vulnerability. The perpetrators could create transaction issues and divert funds.

It was not even in Bitcoin itself but it was only the software that surrounds it e.g. wallet. So BTC can still be a perfect system. AI is still nothing if without us. As for the speed, it is not with the AI but it was the person behind them. A dedicated dev or team, can still act quick even before the hackers do.

if we view them as our assistant, it will help so much, as humans cant do it alone. This is a call to those developers protecting Bitcoin's systems, anything that would help in detecting bugs, weak implementations, silent failures should be explored, then they should fix it themselves, and not use AI.

I thought we can't do things in our own? And that we will need the help of AI, but you also said that we must fix things in our own. Confused mate? Hehe.. It only boils down to preference. Some prefer to be solo and they can still act quick. But there is also no issue if one will use AI on the side. We don't know maybe they still lack in experience or knowledge, or they have other responsibilities outside.

[o48o]

My point and yours are the same, only the way and style of delivery are different.

- depends on who uses it
- like a gun or a knife

My personal view for now, like the enemy because it is seen from the condition of the AI that does more harm to it than the benefits. For now for me, not for you.

Except  threshold to use gun or knife for something evil is relatively high and often requires extreme circumstances. There's really low bar to use AI for something "evil". It can even plan and do the whole operation for you independently with agents.

I know that you are saying that this is just another tool, but i don't that's an accurate comparison. Problem with this is that this particular tool radically differs from any tools before. It doesn't require anything from people who want to plan a complex attack, so attackers / hackers / criminals don't need much motivation or dedication to use it.

[Smartprofit]

In my opinion, Bitcoin and AI have a very complex relationship.🙋

Currently, all investors are actively pouring money into AI-related projects. Investors believe this technology will radically change our world within the next seven years. Investors are so passionate about AI that they're willing to sell their Bitcoin to invest in AI-related projects.

Mining companies are abandoning Bitcoin mining in favor of AI training (or doing both at the same time). Computer hardware manufacturers are creating ASIC chips suitable for both mining and the necessary AI computations (I recently read about this).

Bitcoin and AI are competing for electricity, computing power, and human attention. So far, AI is winning this competition!

At the same time, AI agents could theoretically use Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies for transactions...

Everyone knows about hackers breaking into cryptocurrency projects (using AI tools).  There's nothing to comment on here... In short, it's very difficult to say definitively whether AI is Bitcoin's enemy or friend.💁

[d5000]

Bitcoin and AI are competing for electricity, computing power, and human attention. So far, AI is winning this competition!

I don't think there's something wrong with AI using more computing power / electricity than Bitcoin.

In the case of AI, the usage of computing power directly is related to the quality of the output. The more computing power, the better and more productive the results. It's not exactly linear but the relation is there.

In the case of Bitcoin, the usage of more computing power does first not enhance Bitcoin's inner workings at all (no faster transactions, better scaling etc.). It can enhance its security, but the security level is already extremely high. So if Bitcoin consumed more power and electricity it can be seen as "waste". In addition, you need ASICs to attack Bitcoin. So the computers currently doing AI calculations can't be "repurposed" by attackers for 51%ing BTC.

My conclusion is that I think that AI will consume more electricity than Bitcoin for a very long time (until a better technology than the current "AIs", i.e. LLMs and other artificial neural networks, emerges) and that's not a bad thing.

[Cryptomultiplier]

In my opinion, Bitcoin and AI have a very complex relationship.🙋

Currently, all investors are actively pouring money into AI-related projects. Investors believe this technology will radically change our world within the next seven years. Investors are so passionate about AI that they're willing to sell their Bitcoin to invest in AI-related projects.

Mining companies are abandoning Bitcoin mining in favor of AI training (or doing both at the same time). Computer hardware manufacturers are creating ASIC chips suitable for both mining and the necessary AI computations (I recently read about this).

Bitcoin and AI are competing for electricity, computing power, and human attention. So far, AI is winning this competition!

At the same time, AI agents could theoretically use Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies for transactions...

Everyone knows about hackers breaking into cryptocurrency projects (using AI tools).  There's nothing to comment on here... In short, it's very difficult to say definitively whether AI is Bitcoin's enemy or friend.💁

Your last sentence points to one fact about AI being just a tool that can be a friend or a foe to Bitcoin progress and evolution and that's why it's pertinent to use AI defensively to protect Bitcoin from bad actors because in the hands of bad actors, AI could become a big enemy.

I won't see AI as a competition to Bitcoin because they are distinct in their own lanes and regulations and that's one salient point to bear in mind despite the talk of investors shifting from Bitcoin to AI tokens and stocks and hardware because it assures more profit that they need.

[o48o]

In my opinion, Bitcoin and AI have a very complex relationship.🙋

Currently, all investors are actively pouring money into AI-related projects. Investors believe this technology will radically change our world within the next seven years. Investors are so passionate about AI that they're willing to sell their Bitcoin to invest in AI-related projects.

Mining companies are abandoning Bitcoin mining in favor of AI training (or doing both at the same time). Computer hardware manufacturers are creating ASIC chips suitable for both mining and the necessary AI computations (I recently read about this).

Bitcoin and AI are competing for electricity, computing power, and human attention. So far, AI is winning this competition!

At the same time, AI agents could theoretically use Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies for transactions...

Everyone knows about hackers breaking into cryptocurrency projects (using AI tools).  There's nothing to comment on here... In short, it's very difficult to say definitively whether AI is Bitcoin's enemy or friend.💁

I don't see it as a bad sign if mining companies pivot to more profitable use cases. I just hope they all will, as i thought it was bad sign that bitcoin mining was mainly controlled by handful of mining farms.

Ideally i would love to see that all that mining to shift from corporate to devoted and idealistic users mining it for the sake of it.

[retreat]

Since AI is a tool, anyone can use it for good or for evil, which is the fundamental premise behind the title of this thread. Wouldn't it be terrifying if an attacker were to discover a vulnerability first?

AI can be good or bad depending on who is going to use it. If it's a hacker who first discovers a vulnerability, they could exploit it for their own gain. But if it's a developer or a white-hat hacker who finds the vulnerability, it can be patched faster and prevent more users from being affected.

So far, AI has already helped developers quite a lot, not just by analyzing code, but also by speeding up project development and providing many other benefits. So saying that it's a "foe" isn't really fair considering what he's done. But we also can't ignore the risk that AI could become a threat in the future.

[Smartprofit]

Bitcoin and AI are competing for electricity, computing power, and human attention. So far, AI is winning this competition!

I don't think there's something wrong with AI using more computing power / electricity than Bitcoin.

In the case of AI, the usage of computing power directly is related to the quality of the output. The more computing power, the better and more productive the results. It's not exactly linear but the relation is there.

In the case of Bitcoin, the usage of more computing power does first not enhance Bitcoin's inner workings at all (no faster transactions, better scaling etc.). It can enhance its security, but the security level is already extremely high. So if Bitcoin consumed more power and electricity it can be seen as "waste". In addition, you need ASICs to attack Bitcoin. So the computers currently doing AI calculations can't be "repurposed" by attackers for 51%ing BTC.

My conclusion is that I think that AI will consume more electricity than Bitcoin for a very long time (until a better technology than the current "AIs", i.e. LLMs and other artificial neural networks, emerges) and that's not a bad thing.

I agree with you that there can't be any "good" or "bad" characteristics here; it's simply an objective reality. 🙋

Both Bitcoin and AI, in my opinion, can be viewed in the context of technological evolution. After all, technologies also compete for resources. As a child and teenager, I loved reading science fiction. And you know what? There was very little about virtual worlds, the internet, smartphones, and digital money. But there was a lot about space, about ball lightning that people carried in suitcases, and about colonizing Mars and Venus. But humanity's resources are limited, so we don't have colonies on Mars and Venus right now. We don't have ball lightning in our pockets, but we do have smartphones with 4G and 5G internet in our pockets.

I think AI and Bitcoin are competing with each other. If you look at it as technological evolution, Bitcoin "wants" all the electricity and computing power.  And the AI ​​wants the same.

What will happen if Bitcoin doesn't get the necessary electricity and computing power? I don't know. Perhaps mining difficulty will decrease, and with it, the price of Bitcoin... Perhaps miners will stop mining Bitcoin, and it will become centralized... Perhaps those same miners will start constantly 51% attacks on Bitcoin because the AI ​​will want to create a new, better cryptocurrency, and miners will have no incentive to protect Bitcoin. Anything is possible.

Positive scenarios are also possible, for example, a kind of symbiosis between AI and Bitcoin. After all, living beings don't always compete with each other. Sometimes, they even cooperate. 💁