Anarchy and the Machine: The Bittensor Experiment
Mark from PRvalidator, a professional media validator dedicated to securing top-tier coverage in the world’s most recognized publications.
AI development is advancing at breakneck speed, transforming the world of business and how people live and work. But these rapid advancements could come at a significant cost, with increasingly sophisticated AI technology putting us ever closer to a scenario where we lose control over the very machines we have created. Big tech claims we have nothing to worry about, but can we trust them? Recent experience suggests we should be skeptical, given the extent to which these tech titans preside over private systems, selling data, pump stock and force policies to broaden their influence and power.
What if, instead of having to put all our faith in these corporations, we placed responsibility for AI development on those who are motivated not by profit, but the betterment of society as a whole? What if we give corporations, and especially HR, the middle finger, and applications people can use, and divorce our need from big government’s overreaching hand into our lives? That is precisely the idea behind Bittensor, a decentralized open-source platform that runs contrary to established technological norms, championing collaboration and sharing over closed-loop proprietary models.
The Open-Source Supercomputer
Bittensor was founded in 2019 by Jacob Steeves and Dr. Ala Shabaana, with the goal of building a decentralized, peer-to-peer model for the production of machine learning. The system runs in similar fashion to Bitcoin, but instead of mining for digital gold, it mines AI models, building up a supercomputer of collective intelligence. This collective approach fosters a culture of democratization, collaboration and innovation, achieved partly through an incentivization structure that rewards developers who create highly functional models with a native cryptocurrency called TAO.
The best thing about Bittensor is that it is not just an abstract vision. Developers have already built several apps on the Bittensor platform, amassing billions of dollars in TAO-based rewards. The level of success it has achieved thus far is already a clear rebuke to the centralized AI models wielded by big tech, whose ownership of valuable data affords them extensive market dominance and control. Much like the literal bullshit narrative of ‘’weapons of mass destruction’’ we were spoonfed prior to the invasion of Iraq, the addition of donations to certain media outlets and lobbying lawmakers provide big tech cult-like hypnosis they need over the public to convince them that AI is coming for their jobs, and possibly their lives.
Steeves’ vision for AI is profound yet very simple. When I first spoke with him in 2023, he put it simply: “Why should we let a handful of elites own the most powerful technology humanity has ever created? We don’t have to.” He’s right. And Steeves is far from the stereotypical Silicon Valley entrepreneur, having spent six months in the Amazon jungle where he says he was inspired by nature to further improve Bittensor. Contrary to where big tech finds inspiration, Steeves would know all too well about where to find the heart and soul of how AI should not be designed. After working at Google on Google Brain, Steeves moral conflict with the megalithic organization may have pushed him to live in his van in the parking lot. Now he lives in Peru, where he is quietly plotting a technological revolution through protocol updates and Tweets, and giving the world the tools they need to set AI free.
Why Big Tech Is Freaking Out
Dominant players in the tech space are concerned about community-oriented projects like Bittensor, and for good reason. For decades, the likes of Google and Microsoft have exercised a virtual monopoly on innovation, touting their credentials as arbiters of “safety” and “responsibility” in managing a technology that can be highly susceptible to exploitation and misuse. But look closely, and you’ll see that these companies aren’t protecting anything but their profits.
Google’s Gemini AI model highlights the potential pitfalls of relying on big tech to determine the future of AI. Soon after its launch in February 2024, the platform was in the headlines, following its refusal to condemn pedophilia when prompted and its propensity to generate historically inaccurate answers to user queries. In large part, these outcomes were the result of a business ethos that prioritizes virtue signaling over and above the creation of a product that the people want. And because the nuts and bolts of Gemini, like many innovations developed by big tech companies, are effectively hidden within a corporate black box, no-one is able to examine or scrutinize its configuration. Bittensor, on the other hand, is built with transparency in mind, enhanced by an incentive structure that ensures the most valid, transparent and useful models can flourish.
Bittensor is already a major competitive force, but it’s not competition that big tech fears the most, as much as the loss of control. Venture capitalist and leading tech commentator Marc Andreessen recently revealed that the Biden administration tried to lay the groundwork to centralize AI, by granting a select few government-approved corporations the power to dictate its development. Had this reached fruition, Bittensor’s survival would have been threatened, as would the opportunity for decentralized networks to re-shape the course of AI for the better.
The Money and the Movement
The irony of all this is that Bittensor’s anti-establishment ethos hasn’t stopped it from attracting big-money backers. VanEck, a global investment firm with around $89bn worth of assets under management, refers to Bittensor as the “Bitcoin” of machine intelligence. Billionaire crypto investor and entrepreneur Barry Silbert has also thrown his weight behind the protocol, launching decentralized AI firm Yuma in November 2024 to help scale Bittensor. These backers have amassed their fortunes by making informed bets against the status quo, and the scale of their investment clearly demonstrates a recognition of Bittensor’s disruptive potential.
Challenges and the Road Ahead
None of this progress detracts from the fact that Bittensor is far from a finished product. Plenty of technical challenges still need to be resolved, and a comprehensive marketing strategy put in place to broaden the platform’s appeal beyond its largely niche and tech-savvy user base. Much like the early iteration of Bitcoin, it can be a confusing platform to navigate for normies. The protocol’s reward system has also faced criticism and some of its early projects, that claim to use the protocol or announce their supposed breakthroughs in tech, are yet to gain real traction outside the crypto eco-chamber. The big bet most are placing on Bittensor are the handful of subnets - the sub-networks a.k.a the applications - that are doing something useful. No more than a few promising subnets exist, but the ones that do are solving real world problems and they’re particularly savvy at marketing them making Bittensor palatable for retail. Perhaps the most challenging part of all is the fact Bittensor is up against the brute force of big tech, who have the luxury of being able to rely on bought and paid for publications and politicians who lick their boots at the drop of a penny. But here’s the thing: the fight with big tech is not Bittensor’s to win or lose. The platform’s existence alone poses a risk to the corporate business model, forcing big tech players to acknowledge the possibility of a decentralized future they cannot fully control. And with increasing numbers of developers and investors gravitating towards the platform, the Bittensor ecosystem is only growing stronger by the day.
Why This Matters
The challenge Bittensor poses to the supremacy of big tech underlines how the battle over AI isn’t just about technology—it’s about power and control. Or more specifically, who owns it, who benefits from it and who gets left behind. It serves the interests of the big tech incumbents to have us believe that their top-down, closed-door approach is the only option on the table. As Bittensor clearly shows, we don’t have to accept the hand we have been dealt. Indeed, it reminds everyone, from engineers to investors and normies, that AI’s future need not be dictated by corporate interests, but by those who seek to make it a more collaborative, transparent, trustworthy and accessible technology - the antithesis to a model based on greed.
The big question now is whether the band of misfits behind Bittensor can scale their decentralized vision before big tech stops them in their tracks. If they succeed, the future of AI will be open, messy and free - which is exactly the way it should be.
