Giving artificial intelligence models consent to use content for training is a “perfect use case” for blockchain technology, according to Avery Ching, co-founder and chief technology officer of Aptos.

Speaking at India Blockchain Week 2024, Ching emphasized how blockchain could enhance control over how AI models are trained.

He highlighted the potential for blockchain to provide clear consent mechanisms for determining whether specific content can be used for AI training.

How blockchain can improve controls over AI training data

Ching said that AI and blockchain are the “buzzwords of the day” in many spaces. However, he stressed that despite the hype around large language models (LLMs), what he finds interesting is the data used to train AI models. 

AI training consent a ‘perfect use case’ for blockchain — Aptos co-founder image 0

Aptos chief technology officer and co-founder Avery Ching at the India Blockchain Week Conference 2024. Source: Cointelegraph 

Using the event as an example, Ching noted how content from the stage — recorded on video or written in news articles — could be used to train AI. He explained: 

“There’s going to be a question on whether we want that content to be allowed and whether we want that content to be trained on. So, this is a perfect use case for blockchains because they’re immutable. They provide a center of control.”

The Aptos co-founder said with blockchain, there should be ways to control whether people allow AI to access their content. “As a natural back end for this kind of information, it’s perfect,” Ching added. 

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Potential application on social media platforms

Ching, who previously worked at Meta, acknowledged the scalability challenges of applying such controls to platforms like Facebook, where billions of pieces of content are generated daily. Adding blockchain-based permissions for AI training to each piece of data could involve significant transaction throughput and costs: 

“If you’re gonna add controls around each of those pieces of data, there’s gonna be a high transaction throughput, there’s gonna be costs involved.”

Despite the challenges, Ching said Aptos is actively working on supporting this type of use case within its blockchain network. He sees blockchain as a natural back end for controlling how content is used, particularly as AI continues to evolve.

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