bee_rider 19 hours ago

I don’t know what dialect this is written in, but can anybody translate it to engineer? What type of problem are they trying to solve and how are they going about it? (Is this DRM for AIs?)

  • ben_w 18 hours ago

    Allow me:

    "Are you running the AI that you thought you were running, or a rip-off clone that will sneakily insert adverts for Acme, your one-stop-shop for roadrunner-related explosives, traps, and fake walls, into 1% of outputs? Here's how you can be sure."

    • ramoz 18 hours ago

      Allow me to help extract the general value:

      (your case is not the direct point, but the measures are a part of strengthening the supply chain[1]. Other application include strengthening privacy [2])

      Verifiability measures are designed to transform privacy and security promises from mere assurances into independently checkable, technical guarantees. _Generally achieving_: verification of claims (from governance/regulation, to model provenance), cryptographic attestation ensuring code integrity, enforceable transparency through append-only logs and tooling, no blind trust-but verifiable trust, a structured environment for ongoing scrutiny and improvement.

      [1] https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA2849-1.html

      [2] https://security.apple.com/blog/private-cloud-compute/

  • drak0n1c 17 hours ago

    People are starting to worry about generative AI/LLM training data - copyright, bias, knowledge gaps, bad/outdated info. They are also worried about the black box of hardcoded "alignment" layers on top - which can and has introduced similar issues. Cryptographic proof of a model's training data provenance and its compute would be reassuring to large enterprises, governments, and conscientious users who are hesitant to embrace AI.

    You don't want to accidentally use part of a biased social media chat LLM to summarize legislation or estimate results of a business plan.

  • jasonsb 19 hours ago

    Had to use bullshitremover dot com for this one. This is the translation:

    > Blah blah, AI is the future, trust it, crypto, governance, auditing, safer AI.

  • th0ma5 16 hours ago

    Some have speculated they want to command regulations so complex that only they can adhere to them.

JSR_FDED 13 hours ago

If the bank rejects your loan application they will be able, when challenged, to say “you were rejected by this particular model, trained on this particular data which was filtered for bias in this particular way”.

Similarly the tax authorities will be able to say why they chose to audit you.

The university will be able to say why you were or weren’t admitted.

malwrar 20 hours ago

I’m trying to decide if I should be concerned about the safety of general-purpose computing with such technologies sneaking into our compute. Verifying compute workloads is one thing, but I can’t find information on what kind of regulatory compliance controls this addition enables. I assume it is mostly just operation counting and other audit logging discussed in AI safety whitepapers, but even that feels disturbing to me.

Also, bold claim: silicon fabrication scarcity is artificial and will be remedied shortly after Taiwan is invaded by China and the world suddenly realizes it needs to (and can profit from) acquiring this capability. Regulatory approaches based on hardware factors will probably fail in the face of global competition on compute hardware.

  • ramoz 19 hours ago

    Reads as compliance controls being embedded into the code with integrated gates to halt execution, or verify controls are met at runtime - providing receipts with computed outputs. This is generally oriented toward multi-party, confidential, sensitive computing domains. As AI threat models develop, general compliance of things during training, or benchmarking, etc become more relevant as security posture requires.

    ref:

    https://openai.com/index/reimagining-secure-infrastructure-f...

    https://security.apple.com/blog/private-cloud-compute/

    https://arxiv.org/html/2409.03720v2

    • malwrar 18 hours ago

      Thanks for the reading.

  • drak0n1c 13 hours ago

    Cryptographic proof that the model you’re using is the one you think it is along with proof it was not trained on biased or copyrighted data is the main feature here. Think certs when looking at webpages or ssh when looking at servers.

amelius 16 hours ago

Just give us untethered AI models that we can run on our own hardware.

lawlessone 19 hours ago

>Verifiable Compute represents a significant leap forward in ensuring that AI is explainable, accountable.

This is like saying the speedometer on a car prevents speeding.

  • drak0n1c 17 hours ago

    Given the amount of worry about training data provenance and associated bias/copyright issues, such a cryptographic proof of training would certainly act as a "speedometer" that disincentivizes speeding. At least among models that large enterprises, governments, and conscientious users are deciding to use.

  • ramoz 18 hours ago

    It’s a poor comparison.

    Regardless it’s about a trusted observation - in your metaphor to help you prove in court that you weren’t actually speeding.

    Apple deploys verifiable compute in Private Cloud to ensure transparency as a measure of trust, and surely as a method of prevention whether a direct method or not (depends on how they utilize verifiability measures as execution gates or not).

  • moffkalast 18 hours ago

    No this is like saying adding a speedometer to your car makes it, as an inanimate object, personally liable for going fast if you press on the accelerator.

vouaobrasil 20 hours ago

Verifiable compute doesn't do much good if the people doing the verifying and securing are making wild profits at the expense of the rest of us. This technology is more about making sure nothing horrible happens in enterprises rather than protecting people from AI, even if "safety" is claimed.

Animats 14 hours ago

Yes, it's DRM for AI models. The idea seems to be that approved hardware will only run signed models

This doesn't end well. It's censorship on the user's machine. There will have to be multiple versions for different markets.

- MAGA (US red states)

- Woke (US blue states)

- Xi Thought (China)

- Monarchy criticism lockout (Thailand)

- Promotion of the gay lifestyle lockout (Russia)

  • ramoz 12 hours ago

    > approved hardware will only run signed models

    This is true. But this is an ability of the hardware owners. Intel and NVIDIA are not setting the rules - and there is a real commitment to that because its open source.

    It's also confidential. Data, code, rules, ... all of these are processed together in secure enclaves. It's up to the hardware owner/users to determine that processing and to stamp/verify what they want.

    • ramoz 12 hours ago

      BTW it's also a measure to ensure your own standards are met - in distant execution, e.g.where you can ensure your data is processed privately, or your end of a contract is adhered to (something that we think resonates with an agentic/autonomous future).

      "How can we ensure that the system enforces the rules that I want"

  • kfrzcode 14 hours ago

    This misunderstands what Verifiable Compute actually does. VC isn't about restricting execution, it's about proving properties of computation. The key difference is that VC lets you verify what happened, not control what can happen.

    Think SSH keys, not DRM. SSH lets you verify you're talking to the right server without restricting which servers exist. Similarly, VC lets you verify properties of AI models (like training data lineage or inference characteristics) without restricting which models can run.

    The regional censorship concern isn't relevant here since VC doesn't enable content restriction. It's a mathematical verification tool, not an enforcement mechanism.

    • chii 13 hours ago

      > lets you verify what happened

      > It's a mathematical verification tool, not an enforcement mechanism.

      enforcement comes from the rubber hose. The maths is what makes the enforcement possible.

      Unless you are able to prevent attestations from being made with your machine (presumably against your will).

      • ramoz 12 hours ago

        The attestations in this case are completely determined by you.

henning 18 hours ago

Grey on black text, cookie shit in the corner, their stupid menu overlaid over the text, their stupid announcement banner, giant quotes about the company larger than the actual press release. I fucking hate web design in 2024.

transfire 18 hours ago

Gearing up to put a hefty price on AGI. You can only run it if you have a very costly certificate which probably requires detailed security clearances as well.