Locally Executable AI Could Protect User Privacy and Ensure Independence: Tether CEO

USDT stablecoin issuer Tether is reportedly working on decentralized artificial intelligence (AI) models, CEO Paolo Ardoino hinted on a Tweet.

According to Ardoino, Sam Altman’s OpenAI seemed to have been hacked not long time ago. He wrote that the hack is “scary.”

OpenAI seems to have been hacked a while ago. Scary.

Locally executable AI models are the only way to protect people privacy and ensure resilience / independence.

New generation smartphones and laptops are more than powerful enough to fine tune general LLMs with user's own…

— Paolo Ardoino 🤖🍐 (@paoloardoino) July 6, 2024

He believes that “locally executable AI models” could have prevented the unreported OpenAI hack, which supposedly occurred early last year.

“Locally executable AI models are the only way to protect people privacy and ensure resilience / independence,” Ardoino noted.

Per a detailed report from New York Times, the OpenAI hacker gained access to the internal messaging systems, stealing the company’s AI tech designs. Apparently, the company revealed the exploit only to its employees and decided not to share the news publicly. The executives did not consider this incident as a threat as no information about customers or partners had been stolen.

Tether CEO Ardoino further said that new-gen smartphones and laptops are “more than powerful enough to fine tune” general large language models (LLMs) with user’s own data. He added that this would preserve “enhancements locally to the device.”

Additionally, he also hinted that there is “work in progress” to develop such models. Tether is aiming to create decentralized, localized AI solutions, which can run on personal devices, enhancing the privacy and control.

Decentralized AI Could Be a Solution

Decentralized AI has been one of the burgeoning topics in the Web3 space. While traditional artificial intelligence models are centralized and controlled by a group of large corporations, raising concerns regarding data privacy and security, decentralized systems address the limitations of conventional AI models.

Ardoino, last month, said in an interview that Tether has already invested more than $1 billion in AI. Already, the company has made significant investments in such companies including the Northern Data Group.

“We can offer AI computing to all the companies we have invested in,” he told Bloomberg.