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Comment by cranberryturkey | Hacker News Reader

this is why we need an actual AI blockchain, so we can donate GPU and earn rewards for the p2p api calls using the distributed model.

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> donate GPU .. earn rewards

Is a blockchain needed to sell unused GPU capacity?

That's actually interesting. While crypto GPU mining is "purposeless" or arbitrary, would be way cooler if to GPU mine meant to chunk through computing tasks in a free/open queue (blockchain).

Eventually there could be some tipping point where networks are fast enough and there are enough hosting participants it could be like a worldwide/free computing platform - not just for AI for anything.

This idea has been brought up tons of times by grifters aiming to pivot from Crypto to AI. The reason that GPUs are used for blockchains is to compute large numbers or proofs - which are truly useless but still verifiable so they can be distributed and rewarded. The free GPU compute idea misses this crucial point, so the blockchain part is (still) useless unless your aim is to waste GPU compute instead.

IRL all you need is a simple platform to pay and schedule jobs on other’s GPUs.

folding@home predates Bitcoin by eight years. the concept isn't inherent to grifters

Folding at home does not use a blockchain, further proving non-grifters don’t need it. That was the point being discussed, not distributed computing as a concept.

I don't think you are being fair to the previous poster. As I read it they are simply pointing out that there is precedent for such decentralized contribution of compute resources. However folding at home doesn't allow to reward users for their contributions AFAIK. So maybe if a Blockchain based reward system could be layered on top of that it could increase participation. That's a big if I grant you but don't see how it is completely inconceivable that such a thing might be possible.

I think the word blockchain confuses people, including you and the previous poster. Maybe you could clarify your “layering” idea and how it would work for further discussion.

Folding at home can track user contributions and issue micro/payments as they see fit. Crucially, this does not need an immutable chain of truth to do.

Instead, if we added a blockchain, then we would require 2 sets of participants - those who run the useful simulations for science, and those who run the useless calculations for the blockchain. A complete waste of resources.

No idea about the previous poster but I'm pretty sure I know how blockchain(s) work thanks. I don't claim to have a concrete proposal but the idea of proof of useful work has been around for a while as a research area (https://eprint.iacr.org/2017/203.pdf). Having a system that supports arbitrary computations might be hard, but perhaps any task for which solutions are easy-to-verify but difficult to compute might be a good fit. Alternatively, if creating an open/decentralized compute system is a goal then a proof of stake blockchain could allow users to post tasks with associated rewards (again in cases where solutions are easy-to-verify but hard to compute).

I imagined if it was proof-of-work the mining would actually be the compute work requested. Everyone is racing to solve the problem just like in Bitcoin, except the problem is the requested GPU task. The fastest/first one to provide a result gets to update the ledger (and receives the reward).

Maybe you run a private platform too like git/GitHub if there are real world payments and user accounts, but I wonder why couldn't that technology be used? Does "blockchain" just have an irreparably bad name at this point?

I also think this idea has been explored a little bit at least in terms of GPU distribution networks for AI (Petal and Horde come to mind).

https://stablehorde.net

https://petals.dev

Similar concept https://petals.dev/

Problem is once you have to scale to multiple GPUs the interconnect becomes the primary bottleneck.

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