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 concept’s implications, challenges, and future development directions.
In early 2024, Vitalik Buterin published an article titled “My Technological Optimism” and has been working on cultivating this concept over the past year, gradually maturing it. His recent publication has gained attention and sparked discussions within the community.
So, 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, are decentralized, and democratic.” This core concept has the potential to empower individuals and communities, reducing the risks of centralized control or oppression.
Vitalik Buterin believes that this strategy can better address the risks brought by future technological advancements, particularly the threats posed by superhuman artificial intelligence (AI).
The core and objectives of d/acc: Building a safer and freer world
Imagine a scenario in 2042 where a new type of pandemic breaks out in human society. However, this time, due to the development of early warning systems, rapid virus detection, open-source personal assistant AI, and other advanced technologies, the outbreak is quickly brought under control without causing significant harm.
This scenario is the future that d/acc envisions: a society that uses technology to enhance defense capabilities, ensuring human freedom and safety.
Vitalik Buterin emphasizes that the core principles of d/acc can be applied to various fields, including biological defense, physical defense, network defense, and information defense.
In simple terms, the goals of d/acc are:
– Maintaining principles in an increasingly “tribalized” world and selectively developing technology.
– Recognizing that exponential technological progress will make the world very different, and humans need to enhance their ability to protect vulnerable groups.
– Building more effective technological tools in defense and construction, rather than just focusing on disruption.
Where is d/acc currently in its development? What are the possible applications?
Since its publication, the concept of d/acc has made progress in various fields. Vitalik Buterin himself cited specific achievements, such as verifiable open-source vaccines that reduce monopolistic risks in medicine, increased attention to indoor air quality in health, the rise of predictive markets as informational tools, and the applications of zero-knowledge proof system ZK-SNARKs in government identification and social media to enhance privacy protection.
These advancements contribute to enhancing the defense capabilities pursued by d/acc and building a more resilient and secure society.
ZK-SNARKs: It is an encryption technique that allows one party to prove knowledge of specific information without revealing any details, thus helping protect privacy and enhance security.
By encouraging diverse approaches to technological development and promoting open-source technology, d/acc has the potential to drive innovation and be applied in various fields such as the metaverse, the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and healthcare.
Referring back to the example mentioned earlier, if a pandemic were to break out again in the future and the concept of d/acc has become a reality, open-source air detectors could enable people in various countries to quickly detect viruses. Through social media analysis, an early warning system could be created, providing people with real-time protection advice.
In terms of medical technology, with open-source vaccine tools, healthcare facilities worldwide could rapidly produce vaccines, solving the issue of “vaccine shortages.”
In the future, individuals can use advanced technologies like personal assistant AI to find safer places to engage in activities through encrypted data, reducing the chances of contracting viruses while protecting personal privacy.
From these examples, it is evident that under the concept of d/acc, society no longer needs as many centralized instructions or reliance on government and businesses. With decentralized innovative technologies, society can flexibly and efficiently respond to various challenges.
What challenges does d/acc currently face?
However, this concept is by no means perfect. AI posing security threats, urgent timelines, and regulatory issues were among the main criticisms received since the publication of the article last year.
Vitalik Buterin believes that if humanity only has a few years left to face superhuman AI, simply accelerating “good technologies” is not enough. It is also necessary 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 with rapid technological advancements, the standards of that bill have become outdated. Additionally, the most likely actors to cause AI disasters are military forces, and any security regulations established by governments are highly likely to exempt military forces.
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 damages, they can be held accountable. This is a very common and widely supported approach in liberal economics. He believes that placing responsibility on end-users is most in line with incentive mechanisms because it will affect how users utilize AI. However, considering that users may lack sufficient resources to assume liability, it is also worth considering holding deployers and developers accountable.
He also proposed a novel perspective: holding the owners or operators of devices taken over by AI responsible, thereby incentivizing the enhancement of infrastructure security worldwide.
2. Global “pause” on industrial-grade hardware: Vitalik Buterin suggests establishing an emergency response mechanism that can reduce global AI computing power by 90-99% through technical means during critical situations, with the reduction lasting for 1-2 years, to buy humanity more time to address technological risks. For example, demanding industrial-grade AI hardware to be equipped with trusted hardware chips that require signatures from multiple international institutions every week to continue operations.
He believes that this approach can minimize risks, and since it is based on hardware, it possesses robustness against technological changes.
Regardless, Vitalik Buterin believes that a powerful new technology crisis (especially AI or biotechnology) is imminent, coupled with reduced global cooperation. The coming decades will undoubtedly be filled with challenges.
However, humanity’s greatest hope lies in accelerating development through more powerful tools, and decentralized technology may be the optimal solution. Through AI-assisted governance, verification technology, and the popularization of open-source technology, Vitalik Buterin believes that as long as people continue to make efforts, humanity is capable of facing challenges and creating a brighter, freer, and safer future.