In the 1997 book The sovereign individualWilliam Rees-Mogg and James Dale Davidson convincingly demonstrate that time and again throughout history the dominant power of the day has been disrupted. by new technologies. Advances in agriculture meant that people and their possessions were often geographically stationary, making them easy targets for “violence specialists”, the predecessors of modern governments, who at the time were both the plunderers and protectors against plunder. The stirrup, streamlined saddle, spur, and bit had a similar disruptive effect, shifting power from heavy cavalry to a single armed knight. The gunpowder revolution disrupted the feudal order of the time, reinforced at the time by the Catholic Church. Rees-Mogg and Davidson write that “the Church tended to make religious virtues its own economic interests, while militating against the development of independent manufacturing and commercial wealth intended to destabilize the feudal system.” The printing press disrupted the Church Even further: causing him to lose his monopoly on the biblical story. The result was a major loss of influence and power, which gave way to the modern nation-state.
Rees-Mogg and Davidson argue that the microprocessor would inevitably disrupt the nation-state in the same way that the printing press disrupted Christianity a few hundred years ago. The Internet itself (a globally interconnected community) and public key cryptography (which protects both communications and ownership of Bitcoin) are made possible by microprocessors.
The present and the future
One of the main fronts of decentralization is taking place on the monetary front. Since Bitcoin's creation in 2009, we have been able to transact permissionless, borderless, and (often) anonymously. Nation states have long been jealous of any challenge to their monetary monopoly, and they will spend enormous sums of money to ensure that there are no serious monetary rivals. Bitcoin serves as an alternative to this trap, which is why it is attacked by companies like The politicians and the traditional media in ruins.
But to transact on Bitcoin, you need miners. There is no doubt that regulators in the United States and Europe have observed that China banned Bitcoin mining in 2021, which only resulted in the majority of hash power. moving from this country to the United States. So while they would probably like to ban it outright in the US and Europe, they know that by doing so they would only lose both regulatory control and tax revenue from Bitcoin miners. So, for now, even Elizabeth Warren – the most anti-Bitcoin lawmaker in Washington – is not proposing to ban Bitcoin outright. Instead, she propose to extend know-your-customer (KYC) rules to virtually every part of the Bitcoin ecosystem and discourage self-custody and privacy-enhancing technologies.
Bitcoin has a significant centralization weakness (for now): hardware. Cambridge University produces industry reports on Bitcoin mining and communicated that, from a hardware perspective, the overwhelming majority of Bitcoin miners report using an “ASIC” chip to mine Bitcoin's SHA-256 hashing algorithm produced by a Singapore-based company Bitmain, with competitors MicroBT and Canaan lagging behind. Regardless of where Bitmain produces its ASIC chips, the ideal scenario for Bitcoin decentralization would be for ASIC miner production (and mining itself for that matter) to be dispersed across the globe so that no single region specific cannot have a definitive advantage, thus taking the upper hand. majority control of hashing power. A reasonable compromise would be one in which ASIC miners are produced, on a large scale and of high quality, by at least more manufacturers than currently exist, especially in countries that are not politically aligned with each other. on the others, so that collusion between them would be increasingly unlikely. .
A second major front in favor of decentralization is taking place on the artificial intelligence (AI) front. I once attended a conference where Peter Thiel participated as a speaker. He said something very close to the following (quoted from memory): “Bitcoin is a technology that, on the net, favors the individual. AI is a technology that, on the net, favors the State. » It is this latter technology and the fact that it favors the state that highlights the importance of putting it in the hands of as many participants as possible if we are to build a truly decentralized world.
One of the risks of AI decentralization is one that Bitcoin has in common: a potential future scenario in which hardware is monitored and must be registered by law. In the case of Bitcoin, this would mean miners must register their ASIC chips. In the case of AI, this might mean that even you or I would have to register graphics processing units (GPUs) above a certain capacity (or, in the case of software, that dies should be recorded). Guillaume Verdon, the name behind the now pseudonym @BasedBeffJesos, Underlines this risk in a podcast with Lex Fridman, arguing that it could “(prevent) the open source ecosystem from thriving…by executive order, asserting that open source LLMs are dual-use technologies and should be controlled by the government.” »
Although the executive orders cannot kill Bitcoin (but could discourage some people from using it), similar reporting requirements for miners would likely, to some extent, impact Bitcoin's open source ecosystem.
A third major battleground worth highlighting is 3D printers, assemblers, and other tools in the “creators” arsenal. This “doer” movement hints at a future solution to the problem of centralization trends for Bitcoin and AI.
Imagine a world with 3D printers and the tools that come with them in most people's homes. If you could print your own high-quality Bitcoin ASIC miners and GPUs to run large language models (LLMs), decentralization is light years away.
We can ignore for a moment the futuristic scenario in which 3D printers and other “creation” tools are used to produce hardware for Bitcoin and AI applications. Even now, at least one government views the 3D printer with the same skeptical eye that the Catholic Church had for printing in the 15th and 16th centuries. New York State Assembly Bill A8132, if passed, would require a criminal background check, with fingerprints sent to the FBI, in order to purchase 3D printers “capable of creating firearms.” It is reasonable to expect that various governments, fearful of losing their own centralized power, will continue to impose registration and “KYC” requirements to maintain control of real-space tools that facilitate decentralization. in cyberspace.
Note: The Soviet Union had similar controls on seemingly harmless products such as books, photocopiers, fax machines – all this facilitated the dissemination of information and therefore threatened the regime. Similar efforts were made to control the sale of fabric that could be used to make hot air balloons in East Germany, to prevent people from fleeing to West Germany. (See the 1982 American film Night crossing and the 2018 German film Ball both of which document an actual escape).
Localized manufacturing, whether at home or in a community manufacturing laboratory or “fab lab”, is likely to face increased hostility from various governments, as 3D printers and other manufacturing tools “creation” are capable of producing even more sophisticated electronic devices. But, for now at least, fab labs are growing exponentially in number, with well over 2,000 So far, some of them are spread all over the world and even receive varying levels of support from governments. By the way, these fab labs do not represent the many more personalized labs set up at home.
Neil Gershenfeld of MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms is trying to understand what the world is like when almost anyone can make almost anything and when machines can make other machines, even machines more sophisticated than themselves, and often with materials of local origin.
Gershenfeld argues in a appearance of the podcast that localized manufacturing is not scalable and that production is generally for personal use and not commercial sale. But when thousands of people around the world learn to locally produce their own 3D printed and home-assembled Bitcoin miner, then combine their individual hashing power with others in a mining pool and coordinate with each other. with others on the Tor network… then the world starts to look a lot more decentralized.
Conclusion
Bitcoin, AI, and 3D printers share a common theme: decentralization and the disruptive potential for the nation-state. Since Bitcoin's ASIC mining chips and GPUs used to run LLMs exist in real space where nation states are most dominant, governments may become increasingly hostile toward this hardware: requiring criminal background checks, KYC, etc. Interestingly, 3D printers, assemblers and other maker tools could be used now or in the future for localized manufacturing (whether at home or in so-called fabs). labs”), thus enabling a much more decentralized world.
Meanwhile, on a policy level, criminal background checks and registration requirements for 3D printers and other “creation” tools such as those proposed in New York Assembly Bill A8132 deserve a skeptical eye and strong political resistance.
This is a guest article from Emile Phaneuf. The opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.