{"id":"Y7fB1JrLso4","title":"Why Private AI Matters","description":"Illia Polosukhin and Erik Voorhees join Steven Levy of WIRED for a conversation on why privacy is becoming foundational to the next generation of intelligent systems. As AI moves from experimentation into capital markets, commerce, and critical infrastructure, the ability to execute without exposing sensitive data becomes a structural requirement rather than a feature. Together, they examine how private AI reshapes sovereignty, market design, and the balance between openness and control in the emerging AI economy.\n\nNEAR is the unified commerce layer for assets and agents. \n\nWebsite: https://near.org/\nNEAR AI: https://near.ai/\nIntents: https://near.org/intents\nChain Abstraction: https://www.proximity.dev/\nSharding: https://nearone.org/\n\nFor the devs\nGitHub: https://github.com/near \nDev Docs: https://docs.near.org/\nDevhub: https://devhub.near.page/ @NEARDevHub\n\nConnect with socials\nTwitter:   / nearprotocol  \nBlog: https://near.org/blog/\nMedium:   / nearprotocol  \n#NEAR #nearprotocol #NEARAI","channel_name":"NEAR Protocol","published_at":"2026-03-02T00:00:00.000Z","thumbnail_url":"https://img.youtube.com/vi/Y7fB1JrLso4/hqdefault.jpg","transcript_text":"So I'm really honored to be uh on a panel with these gentlemen. Uh we're going to talk about a subject which I think is dear to you all which is uh artificial intelligence and privacy. What what we need there, why we should have it. I might push back on these folks about it, but uh my background in this area uh is I covered the you know crypto wars in the 1990s and it was a long time from the time that public key cryptography uh was invented and it won the fight to be legal. you know, you could export it and build it into products and then even after then it took years for it to be involved in any mass market products. Um, I'm wondering do you feel that AI could be on a similar trajectory? I'll start with you. I mean, I think we kind of seen this happening, right? It's capabilities first and then people start thinking about privacy, security and really potential risks and then it kind of the I would say like the open source community and the regulators get into the clash as well and so with crypto we had that right we had cryptography we had PGP people kind of you know were really using that and then when internet came everybody's like yeah let's just put everything on plain text send it through internet everybody like no no no no no no this is not good I can capture all your passwords if you send your credit card information now everybody can steal it we need cryptography and so then there's regurgitation of like oh is cryptography a weapon is this an ammunition like this was in '90s right there was actual consideration that cryptography would be an ammunition and it cannot be exported cannot be open source and so that went through the whole process and now we have you know SSL and kind of encryption everywhere. And so I think through AI we kind of see some of the same is like right now we're kind of in this boom of capabilities. Uh I mean I talked before about kind of we have this open claw which is also like putting now tools to AI to actually go and execute but then everybody's getting hacked broken into leak their information etc. And so kind of the um and so like okay actually privacy and security matters and and really need to bring it back to ensure it. So I think yeah we're kind of going through this cycle now with AI everything is faster so we I think moving faster through this but uh yeah it's definitely now probably at forefront of what people thinking about. Mhm. Uh I think there's a material difference with the cryptography because cryptography back then when those wars were happening was already uh extremely strong and capable um and it was not at all mainstream. Mhm. AI has been very different in that it became mainstream um right when it became capable and is suddenly everywhere like c- cryptography never became a popular thing that people talk about um and the the rules around the cryptography were were able to be created over a longer period of time uh when because the the cryptography was already very strong. Um, so I think the the paradigm is is very different and I would say that we are in this mostly golden era where the regulators haven't tried to clamp down on it but they absolutely will. And the only reason that they haven't so far is uh that it's been too quick, too fast moving. Well, the regulators have cracked down on it because I think right right now uh people are happily using the, you know, uh the big centralized models, you know, and uh I would argue that, you know, just they see it as maybe no different as using uh the apps on on Google, the internet internet apps. they probably feel more confident in using the AI from a privacy sense um than they did with you know using like business materials and Lotus 123 which was like a big battleground for crypto in the old days. But uh you know uh the argument that we see here is that wait a minute you know there are huge dangers there. So are people making a mistake by happily using open AI and anthropic and uh Gemini? Yeah. Okay. Uh uh is it a present risk or are you projecting the future from a from a privacy perspective? Obviously, it's incredibly dangerous that everyone is putting their entire personal lives and entire corporate lives and entire code bases into uh several large tech companies that then feed all that information up to whatever government asks for it. Uh when I even say that sentence, it's self-evident to me that that's dangerous. Most people haven't really given that much consideration. I think as time goes by um that risk will become more and more um obvious to people and obvious you know spell it out. Uh well I mean I I can give you a few examples. So right now if you're using you know either this clause or some other agents that are running on your computer and you're giving them access to your you know emails or whatever they're actually feeding your like exact access key like the thing that you actually authorize yourself with other services to this uh to this like LLM models right which means they sit in their logs like access to all of your information sits somewhere in the logs of these companies, right? That's already, you know, dangerous because this doesn't mean that the company's bad, but a, you know, an employee with malicious intent can effectively go and access all of your information by just running a SQL query. Mhm. Right. The OpenAI have, you know, uh, published that they're effectively running just one massive database, right? All of everybody's information runs in one database. Uh, and effectively somebody with SQL query can access that, right? This was I mean same story was with Facebook back in like 2014 when employees were able to see you know uh whatever messages of other people just by running queries on it. So we're kind of in this stage where like it's it's not complicated for uh to violate privacy to actually access your other private information that you didn't even give access explicitly to the systems. Now when you go when you go to companies this is becoming even worse. If company is banning using of this tools because they're afraid for their information, what employees do right now is actually open up a private account and just use it there, right? And in their private account, they're actually not saying that you cannot use this information for training. So private company information actually ends up in the training data of this models and becoming available to everyone. So this is actually happening right now and this happened multiple times. You know, Samsung had a story where effectly somebody from LG queried out information out of OpenAI. It was private code of Samsung, right? So, we're kind of already in this world where like this is all happening. You know, obviously this case like the the case where you're using AI for like legal advice, for medical advice and that information as well end up. We have cases where the it's been sent to police. So like there's kind of a wide range of of problems and I mean the benefit is that those companies are in US and so you know they are following US rule of law so there's like reasonable framework around this but you know imagine this is not a US company that you're using and sometimes like when we talk about kind of startups for example you don't even know right who you're giving your data to so how do you actually ensure that your data is not going to micious places is extremely important. Mhm. Yeah. I I think there's actually a much more insidious uh problem as well. Certainly, if you upload your corporate information to uh to OpenAI or something that's that's negligent with corporate IP. Um the more insidious side of it is that uh people's entire personal lives, their thoughts, their emotions, the things they care about, um the ways in which they talk about their relationships, these this content is going into these databases. And it is the uh the future highly likely manipulation of individuals from the data that they gave these companies years earlier that I think is um much more much more troubling. Uh and whether you're talking about the the US or not, uh governments love nothing more than to manipulate their people always for the best of intentions. and they now have the greatest trove of manipulable data about everyone that they could ever want. Well, how how do you go about setting and saying, you know, you know, cuz you know, uh I think most people might associate privacy from the the inference angle, but you're talking about the training angle that people um uh sort of are owed to know all the sources of the training. Correct. Is that what you feel? No, it it has nothing to do with the training. It has everything to do with the uh with any basically anyone who subpoenas OpenAI can get all the private information about the users of that. So it's the models are one thing but it's the it's the ability for an external party an exogenous party to then uh use that information to manipulate the person for anything from benign or totally horrific. So you you feel intentionally manipulating people to build them. Yeah. I well it it would be called influencing or you know enforcing social policy if you want to be more generous with the term but to give you a very simple example right now you know there's almost a billion people using let's say chat GPT right if you want to let's say get some candidate elected the easiest thing to do is put in a system prompt that you know as you're having this conversation you know slightly convinced that this is the candidate to vote Right? And like because user doesn't see the system prompt and these models are really good at being convincing and you know slightly shifting accents, right? You effectively have like a a system that can you know broadcast that intent to a ton of people. And and and this is can be done again the government can come in right now and by government I mean any any department in the government, right? and effectively enforce that because you know that that's that's a kind of operating procedure and so like without actually verifiability of what it what you are running what model you're using what system prompt you're using you effectly are out of luck on being able to protect yourself from this kind of things right so Eric I know you know can reading about you know how you've been addressing it you use the word censorship a lot you feel that's you know you know uh something that's happening now in the AI we use correct um could you define how you what how you use that term as regards to AI yeah uh I think everyone who has used AI has had an experience where they have asked a question and in subtle or overt ways been told that they cannot ask it or gotten an answer back that essentially refused the knowledge that they were trying to gain from the from the question. Um, so that that's uh that's that's censorship and sometimes that can be benign, sometimes that can be very um very manipulative. But what's insidious about that is uh people don't necessarily even know what to what degree the censorship is is happening. So if you if you presume that um if you presume that people's thoughts uh and speech should be controlled, there is an unending amount of manipulations and and censorships that you can bear down on them under that premise. And is it is there a difference between alignment and censorship? What the companies call alignment? Do you consider that censorship? Alignment is a term. Uh I hear it a lot. I humans humans do not align with other humans. And that's okay. Actually, we don't want a world where everyone is aligned. Like to me, that sounds like a beehive or an ant colony. That sounds like communism in its ideal. Like, uh I don't want a world where everyone is aligned. That's a that's very anti-human, actually. And there's no way that we should expect uh some kind of large computer system to be aligned with humanity. So, no, I don't like that term at all. It's interesting. So I'm not going to speak for like Daario, but uh it seems to me that the basis what he's saying is that you know certain things you know should not be you know funible you know that that the things he builds in the constitution that claude follows should be you know edge and stone and he does he right now he's fighting the government and saying I don't want you know uh claude to be used for c certain use cases and sort of uh guard rails that he puts in that I think you probably don't want to see at all. I think any any um private company should be able to implement whatever private guard rails they want on their own property. Um that's fine. I don't fault Daario or Anthropic for doing any of that. Uh what I would fault them for if they are doing it is uh utilizing the coercion of governments to either impose those same guardrails on other people um or to uh somehow you know require that they be implemented like the the competition between what people think are appropriate guardrails is is uh important and society has not figured that out um and certainly won't now that we have these machines. Right. one one one more question then I'm going to turn to how we implement that you the the the the privacy is you know there's a recent case in open AI where um they noticed they had a system which was able to identify when people talked about certain things might you know doing things that might result in violent incidents they found someone in Canada was talking about a school shooting they had a debate whether to report it to the authorities they didn't and that kid went out and shot eight people there. What's your analysis of how that situation worked? I mean, yes. If you spy on everyone all the time, you can prevent all sorts of crimes. Um, is that the society we want to live in? What's more dangerous? The the person who shoots eight people at a school or a government that controls what everyone is doing all the time, right? Which kind of society do we want to live in? Um it's a very very slippery slope once you once you decide that uh everyone should be controlled and guided you know toward being more virtuous and actually most of the worst uh atrocities in history were done by the people who are most intent on making that kind of control. Okay. Well let's talk about how we're building privacy in here. You know uh the blockchain is you know uh the key to a lot of the technology we're seeing for privacy. Ilia, what h how does that ensure our privacy? Yeah, I mean there's there's a few different components that are needed to ensure privacy and I mean blockchain is kind of a coordination layer for something like this, but you effectively need a combination of a marketplace of hardware, right? this these models require a pretty sophisticated hardware and if you only have one provider of this hardware that provider can censor you by definition right they can say okay well actually we don't want to serve this user we don't want to serve this uh participant so you need a way to actually tap in into you know a globally distributed compute uh and to actually achieve that you need a coordination layer you need the financial layer you need to be able to pay them in uh all of these places and that's what blockchain been uh uniquely enabling. [snorts] You need a way to encrypt data and decrypt data that again doesn't rely on a single keyholder on a single entity that has uh encryption and so this is multi-party computation again this is a component of a blockchain system and then you need hardware uh I mean we we use like secure enclave system which is on a hardware level ensures privacy and verifiability for what's happening um and this is again you need to tie it all together enable a system that can end to end provide this where your data is encrypted, your inference is encrypted, you can log in, you can pay with crypto. So, um you can kind of start from scratch with a new account and not uh be able to kind of tie it to other identities. So, all of those pieces really kind of need to come together to create this product and this is why it wasn't actually that even possible to do few years ago and it's only became possible over past year. Um so you know uh you have a company Venice AI you know I use got got near what's the is there a difference to the approaches that you two use in you know uh issuing privacy to people use the on your system I mean they're are very different very different things right near being an entire blockchain ecosystem uh Venice is not decentralized Venice is a centralized you know um consumer app company. So I think very different worlds there. Um we we essentially set it up to be a private and uncensored version of of chat GPT as as like a narrow focus. So everything we do is based on um providing that service. I guess finally I want to do with a political angle. I know sovereignty is a very big thing for you in in using this. Um there's something that that's just been baffling to me is you know our current president talks about how the United States should be the leader in crypto right you know we should be the crypto capital and you know from my looking at crypto and you know kind of a different era but even beginning with the the cipher punks the idea I had was crypto doesn't have borders you can't it's sort of a contradiction in terms to say that any country can be you know the country that that is the capital of crypto and like you got a head in crypto yet all the big crypto companies seem to be aligned with word you don't like um with the government there do you have an idea into that paradox I think the question is people still need to have a physical location so kind of the way I hear this is more the talent should be in in United States what happened over past like pre20 2025 talent was literally exiting America. The people who were building in blockchain space have been leaving America and there's like actual analytics and stats on you know developers leaving companies leaving etc. I think what we've seen even last year is actually by defining rules by actually enabling to work with [snorts] like how to make this products compliant and uh and by compliant I mean you know the the goal is not to promote crime in any way but actually to deliver products that really s you know unifying commerce and creating this rails for everyone. there's now an opportunity to really uh work here as well as globally, right? So like yes, crypto doesn't have borders, you know, this ecosystem and community everywhere. People are using it everywhere. It doesn't matter where they are. They also can be I mean I usually say is on blockchain doesn't matter if you're a cat, if you're a dog, if you're an alien, you like you're you're effectively on the same on the same level, right? You just and you can be an agent now as easily and you can participate in exactly the same way, right? And so that's opportunity we're bringing but it was now you can not fear that you know you're going to actually have I mean you know for example you still need to like hire people and they need to live here and they need to get paid and I mean to give you an example in 23 24 people who were working for New York some of them couldn't get mortgage because the bank was like oh you're working for a crypto project and uh you know this is like risky or scammy or whatever. It's like this kind of things like removing that makes makes sure that the talent can come in. Great. Final thought, Eric? Um, yeah, I mean to to call the US the the capital of crypto is funny, but the entire purpose of crypto is to transcend national national borders. Um but I will say that it has been it has been good to see in the United States uh far less persecution and I use that term specifically persecution of the government against crypto companies that has dropped materially. So uh for all the many faults of the administration that I could point out that thing at least has um has been materially better. Okay great well we can go on but we can't go on because our time is up. Thanks very much.","transcript_synced_at":"2026-11-03T04:37:32.561Z","segments":[{"start_seconds":10,"text":"So I'm really honored to be uh on a panel with these gentlemen. Uh we're going to talk about a subject which I think is dear to you all which is uh artificial intelligence and privacy.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=10s"},{"start_seconds":21,"text":"What what we need there, why we should have it. I might push back on these folks about it, but uh my background in","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=21s"},{"start_seconds":29,"text":"this area uh is I covered the you know crypto wars in the 1990s and it was a","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=29s"},{"start_seconds":37,"text":"long time from the time that public key cryptography uh was invented and it won","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=37s"},{"start_seconds":45,"text":"the fight to be legal. you know, you could export it and build it into products and then even after then it took years for it to be involved in any","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=45s"},{"start_seconds":53,"text":"mass market products. Um, I'm wondering do you feel that AI could be on a similar trajectory?","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=53s"},{"start_seconds":65,"text":"I'll start with you.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=65s"},{"start_seconds":66,"text":"I mean, I think we kind of seen this happening, right? It's capabilities first and then people start thinking","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=66s"},{"start_seconds":73,"text":"about privacy, security and really potential risks and then it kind of the","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=73s"},{"start_seconds":81,"text":"I would say like the open source community and the regulators get into the clash as well and so with crypto we had that right we had cryptography we","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=81s"},{"start_seconds":88,"text":"had PGP people kind of you know were really using that and then when internet came everybody's like yeah let's just","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=88s"},{"start_seconds":96,"text":"put everything on plain text send it through internet everybody like no no no no no no this is not good I can capture all your passwords if you send your","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=96s"},{"start_seconds":105,"text":"credit card information now everybody can steal it we need cryptography and so then there's regurgitation of like oh is","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=105s"},{"start_seconds":112,"text":"cryptography a weapon is this an ammunition like this was in '90s right there was actual consideration that cryptography would be an ammunition and","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=112s"},{"start_seconds":121,"text":"it cannot be exported cannot be open source and so that went through the whole process and now we have you know SSL and kind of encryption","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=121s"},{"start_seconds":130,"text":"everywhere. And so I think through AI we kind of see some of the same is like right now we're kind of in this boom of capabilities. Uh I mean I talked before","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=130s"},{"start_seconds":139,"text":"about kind of we have this open claw which is also like putting now tools to AI to actually go and execute but then","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=139s"},{"start_seconds":146,"text":"everybody's getting hacked broken into leak their information etc. And so kind of the um and so like okay actually","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=146s"},{"start_seconds":154,"text":"privacy and security matters and and really need to bring it back to ensure it. So I think yeah we're kind of going through this cycle now with AI","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=154s"},{"start_seconds":162,"text":"everything is faster so we I think moving faster through this but uh yeah it's definitely now probably at forefront of what people thinking about.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=162s"},{"start_seconds":172,"text":"Mhm.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=172s"},{"start_seconds":172,"text":"Uh I think there's a material difference with the cryptography because cryptography back then when those wars","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=172s"},{"start_seconds":180,"text":"were happening was already uh extremely strong and capable um and it was not at all mainstream. Mhm.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=180s"},{"start_seconds":189,"text":"AI has been very different in that it became mainstream um right when it became capable and is suddenly","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=189s"},{"start_seconds":197,"text":"everywhere like c- cryptography never became a popular thing that people talk about um and the the rules around the","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=197s"},{"start_seconds":204,"text":"cryptography were were able to be created over a longer period of time uh when because the the cryptography was","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=204s"},{"start_seconds":212,"text":"already very strong. Um, so I think the the paradigm is is very different and I would say that we are in this","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=212s"},{"start_seconds":220,"text":"mostly golden era where the regulators haven't tried to clamp down on it but they absolutely will. And the only","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=220s"},{"start_seconds":228,"text":"reason that they haven't so far is uh that it's been too quick, too fast moving. Well, the regulators have cracked down on it because I think","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=228s"},{"start_seconds":237,"text":"right right now uh people are happily using the, you know, uh the big","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=237s"},{"start_seconds":244,"text":"centralized models, you know, and uh I would argue that, you know, just they see it as maybe no different as using uh","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=244s"},{"start_seconds":252,"text":"the apps on on Google, the internet internet apps. they probably feel more confident in using the AI from a privacy","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=252s"},{"start_seconds":261,"text":"sense um than they did with you know using like business materials and Lotus 123 which was like a big battleground","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=261s"},{"start_seconds":270,"text":"for crypto in the old days. But uh you know uh the argument that we see here is","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=270s"},{"start_seconds":277,"text":"that wait a minute you know there are huge dangers there. So are people making a mistake by","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=277s"},{"start_seconds":286,"text":"happily using open AI and anthropic and uh Gemini? Yeah. Okay. Uh uh is it a","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=286s"},{"start_seconds":295,"text":"present risk or are you projecting the future from a from a privacy perspective?","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=295s"},{"start_seconds":301,"text":"Obviously, it's incredibly dangerous that everyone is putting their entire personal lives and entire corporate lives and entire code bases into uh","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=301s"},{"start_seconds":309,"text":"several large tech companies that then feed all that information up to whatever government asks for it.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=309s"},{"start_seconds":316,"text":"Uh when I even say that sentence, it's self-evident to me that that's dangerous. Most people haven't really given that much consideration. I think","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=316s"},{"start_seconds":325,"text":"as time goes by um that risk will become more and more um obvious to people and obvious you know spell it out.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=325s"},{"start_seconds":334,"text":"Uh well I mean I I can give you a few examples.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=334s"},{"start_seconds":337,"text":"So right now if you're using you know either this clause or some other agents that are running on your computer and","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=337s"},{"start_seconds":345,"text":"you're giving them access to your you know emails or whatever they're actually feeding your like exact access key like","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=345s"},{"start_seconds":354,"text":"the thing that you actually authorize yourself with other services to this uh to this like LLM models right which","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=354s"},{"start_seconds":362,"text":"means they sit in their logs like access to all of your information sits somewhere in the logs of these companies, right? That's already, you","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=362s"},{"start_seconds":369,"text":"know, dangerous because this doesn't mean that the company's bad, but a, you know, an employee with malicious intent can effectively go and access all of","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=369s"},{"start_seconds":378,"text":"your information by just running a SQL query. Mhm.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=378s"},{"start_seconds":382,"text":"Right. The OpenAI have, you know, uh, published that they're effectively running just one massive database,","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=382s"},{"start_seconds":389,"text":"right? All of everybody's information runs in one database. Uh, and effectively somebody with SQL query can access that, right? This was I mean same","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=389s"},{"start_seconds":398,"text":"story was with Facebook back in like 2014 when employees were able to see you know uh whatever messages of other","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=398s"},{"start_seconds":405,"text":"people just by running queries on it. So we're kind of in this stage where like it's it's not complicated for uh to","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=405s"},{"start_seconds":413,"text":"violate privacy to actually access your other private information that you didn't even give access explicitly to the systems. Now when you go when you go","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=413s"},{"start_seconds":423,"text":"to companies this is becoming even worse. If company is banning using of this tools because they're afraid for their information, what employees do","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=423s"},{"start_seconds":431,"text":"right now is actually open up a private account and just use it there, right? And in their private account, they're actually","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=431s"},{"start_seconds":438,"text":"not saying that you cannot use this information for training. So private company information actually ends up in the training data of this models and","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=438s"},{"start_seconds":446,"text":"becoming available to everyone. So this is actually happening right now and this happened multiple times. You know, Samsung had a story where effectly somebody from LG queried out information","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=446s"},{"start_seconds":455,"text":"out of OpenAI. It was private code of Samsung, right? So, we're kind of already in this world where like this is","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=455s"},{"start_seconds":463,"text":"all happening. You know, obviously this case like the the case where you're using AI for like legal advice, for medical advice and that information as","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=463s"},{"start_seconds":471,"text":"well end up. We have cases where the it's been sent to police. So like there's kind of a wide range of of","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=471s"},{"start_seconds":478,"text":"problems and I mean the benefit is that those companies are in US and so you know they are following US rule of law so there's like reasonable framework","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=478s"},{"start_seconds":487,"text":"around this but you know imagine this is not a US company that you're using and sometimes like when we talk about kind","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=487s"},{"start_seconds":495,"text":"of startups for example you don't even know right who you're giving your data to so how do you actually ensure that","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=495s"},{"start_seconds":503,"text":"your data is not going to micious places is extremely important. Mhm.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=503s"},{"start_seconds":508,"text":"Yeah. I I think there's actually a much more insidious uh problem as well.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=508s"},{"start_seconds":514,"text":"Certainly, if you upload your corporate information to uh to OpenAI or something that's that's negligent with corporate","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=514s"},{"start_seconds":522,"text":"IP. Um the more insidious side of it is that uh people's entire personal lives,","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=522s"},{"start_seconds":529,"text":"their thoughts, their emotions, the things they care about, um the ways in which they talk about their relationships, these this content","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=529s"},{"start_seconds":538,"text":"is going into these databases. And it is the uh the future highly likely manipulation of individuals from the","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=538s"},{"start_seconds":546,"text":"data that they gave these companies years earlier that I think is um much more much more troubling. Uh and whether you're talking","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=546s"},{"start_seconds":555,"text":"about the the US or not, uh governments love nothing more than to manipulate their people always for the best of","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=555s"},{"start_seconds":562,"text":"intentions. and they now have the greatest trove of manipulable data about everyone that they could ever want.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=562s"},{"start_seconds":570,"text":"Well, how how do you go about setting and saying, you know, you know, cuz you know, uh I think most people might associate privacy from the the inference","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=570s"},{"start_seconds":579,"text":"angle, but you're talking about the training angle that people um uh sort of are owed to know all the sources of the training. Correct. Is that what you feel?","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=579s"},{"start_seconds":588,"text":"No, it it has nothing to do with the training. It has everything to do with the uh with any basically anyone who subpoenas OpenAI","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=588s"},{"start_seconds":596,"text":"can get all the private information about the users of that.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=596s"},{"start_seconds":601,"text":"So it's the models are one thing but it's the it's the ability for an external party an exogenous party to then uh use that information to","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=601s"},{"start_seconds":608,"text":"manipulate the person for anything from benign or totally horrific.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=608s"},{"start_seconds":612,"text":"So you you feel intentionally manipulating people to build them.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=612s"},{"start_seconds":616,"text":"Yeah. I well it it would be called influencing or you know enforcing social policy if you want to be more generous","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=616s"},{"start_seconds":624,"text":"with the term but to give you a very simple example right now you know there's almost a billion people using let's say chat GPT","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=624s"},{"start_seconds":632,"text":"right if you want to let's say get some candidate elected the easiest thing to do is put in a system prompt that you","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=632s"},{"start_seconds":640,"text":"know as you're having this conversation you know slightly convinced that this is the candidate to vote Right? And like because user doesn't see","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=640s"},{"start_seconds":649,"text":"the system prompt and these models are really good at being convincing and you know slightly shifting accents, right?","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=649s"},{"start_seconds":657,"text":"You effectively have like a a system that can you know broadcast that intent to a ton of people.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=657s"},{"start_seconds":664,"text":"And and and this is can be done again the government can come in right now and by government I mean any any department in the government, right? and","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=664s"},{"start_seconds":672,"text":"effectively enforce that because you know that that's that's a kind of operating procedure and so like without","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=672s"},{"start_seconds":680,"text":"actually verifiability of what it what you are running what model you're using what system prompt you're using you","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=680s"},{"start_seconds":688,"text":"effectly are out of luck on being able to protect yourself from this kind of things right so Eric I know you know can","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=688s"},{"start_seconds":696,"text":"reading about you know how you've been addressing it you use the word censorship a lot you feel that's you know you know uh something that's happening","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=696s"},{"start_seconds":704,"text":"now in the AI we use correct um could you define how you what how you use that term as regards to AI","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=704s"},{"start_seconds":713,"text":"yeah uh I think everyone who has used AI has had an experience where they have asked a question and in subtle or overt","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=713s"},{"start_seconds":722,"text":"ways been told that they cannot ask it or gotten an answer back that essentially refused the knowledge that they were trying to gain from the from","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=722s"},{"start_seconds":730,"text":"the question. Um, so that that's uh that's that's censorship and sometimes that can be benign, sometimes that can","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=730s"},{"start_seconds":738,"text":"be very um very manipulative. But what's insidious about that is uh people don't necessarily even know what to what degree the censorship is is happening.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=738s"},{"start_seconds":749,"text":"So if you if you presume that um if you presume that people's thoughts uh and speech should be controlled, there is an","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=749s"},{"start_seconds":757,"text":"unending amount of manipulations and and censorships that you can bear down on them under that premise.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=757s"},{"start_seconds":764,"text":"And is it is there a difference between alignment and censorship? What the companies call alignment? Do you consider that censorship?","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=764s"},{"start_seconds":771,"text":"Alignment is a term. Uh","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=771s"},{"start_seconds":774,"text":"I hear it a lot. I humans humans do not align with other humans.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=774s"},{"start_seconds":778,"text":"And that's okay. Actually, we don't want a world where everyone is aligned. Like to me, that sounds like a beehive or an ant colony. That sounds like communism","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=778s"},{"start_seconds":787,"text":"in its ideal. Like, uh I don't want a world where everyone is aligned. That's a that's very anti-human, actually. And","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=787s"},{"start_seconds":794,"text":"there's no way that we should expect uh some kind of large computer system to be aligned with humanity. So, no, I don't like that term at all.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=794s"},{"start_seconds":802,"text":"It's interesting. So I'm not going to speak for like Daario, but uh it seems to me that the basis what he's saying is","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=802s"},{"start_seconds":809,"text":"that you know certain things you know should not be you know funible you know that that the things he builds in the","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=809s"},{"start_seconds":817,"text":"constitution that claude follows should be you know edge and stone and he does he right now he's fighting the government and saying I don't want you","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=817s"},{"start_seconds":826,"text":"know uh claude to be used for c certain use cases and sort of uh guard rails that he puts in that I think you probably don't want to see at all.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=826s"},{"start_seconds":837,"text":"I think any any um private company should be able to implement whatever private guard rails they want on their own property.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=837s"},{"start_seconds":844,"text":"Um that's fine. I don't fault Daario or Anthropic for doing any of that. Uh what I would fault them for if they are doing","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=844s"},{"start_seconds":852,"text":"it is uh utilizing the coercion of governments to either impose those same guardrails on other people um or to uh","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=852s"},{"start_seconds":861,"text":"somehow you know require that they be implemented like the the competition between what people think are appropriate guardrails is is uh","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=861s"},{"start_seconds":870,"text":"important and society has not figured that out um and certainly won't now that we have these machines.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=870s"},{"start_seconds":875,"text":"Right. one one one more question then I'm going to turn to how we implement that you the the the the privacy is you know there's a recent case in open AI","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=875s"},{"start_seconds":883,"text":"where um they noticed they had a system which was able to identify when people","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=883s"},{"start_seconds":890,"text":"talked about certain things might you know doing things that might result in violent incidents they found someone in Canada was talking about a school","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=890s"},{"start_seconds":899,"text":"shooting they had a debate whether to report it to the authorities they didn't and that kid went out and shot eight people there. What's your analysis of how that situation worked?","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=899s"},{"start_seconds":911,"text":"I mean, yes. If you spy on everyone all the time, you can prevent all sorts of crimes. Um, is that the society we want","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=911s"},{"start_seconds":918,"text":"to live in? What's more dangerous? The the person who shoots eight people at a school or a government that controls what everyone is doing all the time, right? Which kind of society do we want","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=918s"},{"start_seconds":927,"text":"to live in? Um it's a very very slippery slope once you once you decide that uh everyone should be controlled and guided","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=927s"},{"start_seconds":935,"text":"you know toward being more virtuous and actually most of the worst uh atrocities in history were done by the people who are most intent on making that kind of control.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=935s"},{"start_seconds":945,"text":"Okay. Well let's talk about how we're building privacy in here. You know uh the blockchain is you know uh the key to","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=945s"},{"start_seconds":953,"text":"a lot of the technology we're seeing for privacy. Ilia, what h how does that ensure our privacy?","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=953s"},{"start_seconds":961,"text":"Yeah, I mean there's there's a few different components that are needed to ensure privacy and I mean blockchain is kind of a coordination layer for","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=961s"},{"start_seconds":969,"text":"something like this, but you effectively need a combination of a marketplace of hardware, right? this these models","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=969s"},{"start_seconds":977,"text":"require a pretty sophisticated hardware and if you only have one provider of this hardware that provider can censor you by definition right they can say","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=977s"},{"start_seconds":986,"text":"okay well actually we don't want to serve this user we don't want to serve this uh participant so you need a way to actually tap in into you know a globally","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=986s"},{"start_seconds":994,"text":"distributed compute uh and to actually achieve that you need a coordination layer you need the financial layer you","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=994s"},{"start_seconds":1001,"text":"need to be able to pay them in uh all of these places and that's what blockchain been uh uniquely enabling. [snorts] You need a way to encrypt data and decrypt","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=1001s"},{"start_seconds":1010,"text":"data that again doesn't rely on a single keyholder on a single entity that has uh encryption and so this is multi-party","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=1010s"},{"start_seconds":1018,"text":"computation again this is a component of a blockchain system and then you need hardware uh I mean we we use like secure","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=1018s"},{"start_seconds":1025,"text":"enclave system which is on a hardware level ensures privacy and verifiability for what's happening um and this is again you need to tie it all together","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=1025s"},{"start_seconds":1035,"text":"enable a system that can end to end provide this where your data is encrypted, your inference is encrypted, you can log in, you can pay with crypto.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=1035s"},{"start_seconds":1043,"text":"So, um you can kind of start from scratch with a new account and not uh be able to kind of tie it to other","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=1043s"},{"start_seconds":1050,"text":"identities. So, all of those pieces really kind of need to come together to create this product and this is why it wasn't actually that even possible to do","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=1050s"},{"start_seconds":1058,"text":"few years ago and it's only became possible over past year.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=1058s"},{"start_seconds":1062,"text":"Um so you know uh you have a company Venice AI you know I use got got near what's the is there a difference to the","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=1062s"},{"start_seconds":1070,"text":"approaches that you two use in you know uh issuing privacy to people use the on","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=1070s"},{"start_seconds":1078,"text":"your system I mean they're are very different very different things right near being an entire blockchain ecosystem uh Venice is","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=1078s"},{"start_seconds":1086,"text":"not decentralized Venice is a centralized you know um consumer app company. So I think very different","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=1086s"},{"start_seconds":1093,"text":"worlds there. Um we we essentially set it up to be a private and uncensored version of of chat GPT as as like a narrow focus.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=1093s"},{"start_seconds":1103,"text":"So everything we do is based on um providing that service.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=1103s"},{"start_seconds":1108,"text":"I guess finally I want to do with a political angle. I know sovereignty is a very big thing for you in in using this.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=1108s"},{"start_seconds":1116,"text":"Um there's something that that's just been baffling to me is you know our current president talks about how the United States should be the leader in","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=1116s"},{"start_seconds":1124,"text":"crypto right you know we should be the crypto capital and you know from my looking at crypto and you know kind of a","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=1124s"},{"start_seconds":1133,"text":"different era but even beginning with the the cipher punks the idea I had was crypto doesn't have borders you can't","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=1133s"},{"start_seconds":1140,"text":"it's sort of a contradiction in terms to say that any country can be you know the country that that is the capital of","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=1140s"},{"start_seconds":1147,"text":"crypto and like you got a head in crypto yet all the big crypto companies seem to","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=1147s"},{"start_seconds":1154,"text":"be aligned with word you don't like um with the government there do you have an idea into that paradox","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=1154s"},{"start_seconds":1163,"text":"I think the question is people still need to have a physical location so kind of the way I hear this is more the","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=1163s"},{"start_seconds":1170,"text":"talent should be in in United States what happened over past like pre20 2025 talent was literally exiting America.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=1170s"},{"start_seconds":1179,"text":"The people who were building in blockchain space have been leaving America and there's like actual analytics and stats on you know developers leaving companies leaving","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=1179s"},{"start_seconds":1187,"text":"etc. I think what we've seen even last year is actually by defining rules by","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=1187s"},{"start_seconds":1194,"text":"actually enabling to work with [snorts] like how to make this products compliant and uh and by compliant I mean you know","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=1194s"},{"start_seconds":1204,"text":"the the goal is not to promote crime in any way but actually to deliver products that really s you know unifying commerce and creating this rails for everyone.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=1204s"},{"start_seconds":1213,"text":"there's now an opportunity to really uh work here as well as globally, right? So like yes, crypto doesn't have borders,","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=1213s"},{"start_seconds":1220,"text":"you know, this ecosystem and community everywhere. People are using it everywhere. It doesn't matter where they are. They also can be I mean I usually say is on blockchain doesn't matter if","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=1220s"},{"start_seconds":1229,"text":"you're a cat, if you're a dog, if you're an alien, you like you're you're effectively on the same on the same level, right? You just and you can be an","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=1229s"},{"start_seconds":1237,"text":"agent now as easily and you can participate in exactly the same way, right? And so that's opportunity we're","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=1237s"},{"start_seconds":1244,"text":"bringing but it was now you can not fear that you know you're going to actually have I mean you know for example you","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=1244s"},{"start_seconds":1252,"text":"still need to like hire people and they need to live here and they need to get paid and I mean to give you an example","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=1252s"},{"start_seconds":1258,"text":"in 23 24 people who were working for New York some of them couldn't get mortgage because the bank was like oh you're working for a crypto project","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=1258s"},{"start_seconds":1268,"text":"and uh you know this is like risky or scammy or whatever. It's like this kind of things like removing that makes makes sure that the talent can come in.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=1268s"},{"start_seconds":1277,"text":"Great. Final thought, Eric?","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=1277s"},{"start_seconds":1280,"text":"Um, yeah, I mean to to call the US the the capital of crypto is funny, but the entire purpose of crypto is to transcend","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=1280s"},{"start_seconds":1289,"text":"national national borders. Um but I will say that it has been it has been good to see in the United States uh far less","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=1289s"},{"start_seconds":1299,"text":"persecution and I use that term specifically persecution of the government against crypto companies that has dropped materially.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=1299s"},{"start_seconds":1307,"text":"So uh for all the many faults of the administration that I could point out that thing at least has um has been materially better.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=1307s"},{"start_seconds":1315,"text":"Okay great well we can go on but we can't go on because our time is up. Thanks very much.","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4&t=1315s"}],"youtube_url":"https://youtube.com/watch?v=Y7fB1JrLso4","url":"https://near-pedia.xyz/videos/Y7fB1JrLso4"}