Leading experts at nChain have identified and successfully tested ways in which the output of an AI system can be verified using a blockchain. This can ensure the model operates according to its specifications, is free of critical bugs, and adheres to ethical standards such as fairness, transparency, and safety, all without revealing proprietary information about the system – a major step in bringing trust and accountability to AI.
nChain is a leading global blockchain technology company, offering software solutions, consulting services and IP licensing for clients in various industries looking to benefit from the security, transparency, and scalability of the blockchain.
Founded in 2015, with offices in Lichtenstein, Switzerland, the UK and Slovenia, nChain employs more than 260 staff and has a patent portfolio of over 3,900 patents and applications, of which over 1,090 have been granted. nChain is the developer of the BSV Node software, Teranode and more.
Demonstrating a verifiable AI
nChain successfully demonstrated verifiable AI inference (processing queries) showing the relevant transactions on the BSV blockchain. The transactions can be found on the main net with the corresponding generation code on GitHub.
While this is a relatively new research area, and something nChain only recently started exploring, after having successfully implemented verifiable computation on the BSV blockchain the team challenged themselves to see if it could also apply this to machine learning.
‘Training is computation. Inference is computation. If you can do verifiable computation, then you can do verifiable training or verifiable inference,’ says Dr Hamid Attar (Lead AI Researcher at nChain).
The team trained a simple neural network on the MNIST dataset of images of hand-written digits. The model was then run on an input image, such as one provided by a user, and produced an output predicting which digit the input image represents.
A cryptographic proof was generated to verify the output was indeed produced by running the model on the specified image while hiding all the information about the model. The proof was subsequently used to claim a small amount of BSV from the blockchain – in this case from the user. Here, the BSV blockchain not only provides a decentralised independent verification platform but also facilitates micropayment between a user and an AI model.
With verifiable computation approach, nChain can prove cryptographically that an AI model is trained on the claim dataset. For example, it can be proven that a generative AI model is trained on a dataset that is known to have no bias.
More importantly, AI developers can prove that they did not tamper with the training dataset to train an AI model for malicious intentions. nChain can also prove that an output of an AI mode is obtained by running the specified AI model on the given input. For example, a piece of artwork can have a proof showing that it is generated by an AI model on a given prompt, or as a paid user you can be sure that you are getting answers from ChatGPT4 and not from the free versions.
The relevant transactions on the BSV mainnet and the code that generates them can be found on the zkScript GitHub repo.
