Ethereum Co-Founder Names Major Tech Threats

In a recent post on the X social media, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin singles out some of the main threats in the world of technology as of today. 

The Canadian programmer believes that countering centralization should extend beyond finance-based applications.

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Buterin mentioned centralized identity systems, bugs and backdoors in insecure operating systems, the opaqueness and centralization of algorithms, and AI-powered surveillance.

Open-sourcing BCI 

Notably, the Ethereum co-founder has also voiced concerns about mind-reading brain-computer interfaces (BCIs). Researchers recently developed a non-invasive BCI that is capable of decoding language from the brain by combining fMRI technology with AI. Of course, such mind-reading tech is still years away from commercial availability, but there are already some worries about its implications for privacy.

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Even though Buterin is "super pro-BCI," the cryptocurrency luminary believes that there is a risk of a proprietary BCI with backdoors eliminating the privacy of the mind. Hence, this is why he is convinced that BCI should be open-sourced. 

Decentralized finance and decentralized tech  

Without addressing the aforementioned threats, the world would still "really really suck" even if there is "perfect" decentralized finance, according to Buterin. At the same time, he has noted that finance is a critical way of addressing these problems, naming privacy-preserving ways of paying for one's VPN as one of the examples. "So I think intersections between decentralized finance and other decentralized tech are going to be very important," Buterin added.