⚡️After reading Vitalik @VitalikButerin's newly published article on Ethereum × AI, I'm honestly quite moved— Unlike the one in 2024, he finally pulled himself out of the predicament of insufficient applied imagination and found a new narrative that is feasible in the long term! He proposed a 2x2 construction space, clarifying four interdisciplinary directions that Ethereum is truly suitable for and worth pursuing in the AI ​​era: 1⃣ Enable AI interaction that minimizes trust and is more private. Vitalik Buterin emphasizes that local models, ZK payments, privacy calls, client verification, and TEE proofs all address the same problem: AI is powerful → how can AI be used without being controlled? If every call is linked to identity, account, and platform credit, then no matter how advanced the model is, the power structure will naturally flow back to the center. Ethereum's role here is not as a computing power market, but rather as a provider of settlement and proof services with minimal trust. 2⃣ Position ETH as the economic layer for AI-to-AI interaction. Vitalik argues that decentralized collaboration without economic constraints is virtually impossible in an open environment. For AI systems to collaborate, divide tasks, and mutually utilize each other, there must be clear boundaries regarding costs, incentives, and responsibilities. For example, should API calls require collateral? How should settlements be made between bots? Can actions be traced and accountable? Can reputation and disputes be standardized? This is not about financializing AI, but about preventing collaboration from ultimately degenerating into internal platform coordination; and Ethereum is currently the only trusted foundation that can sustain this kind of economic relationship in the long term. 3⃣ AI realizes the cyberpunk ideal of "trustless verification of everything". The complexity of modern systems has long exceeded the upper limit of human individual auditability, and the so-called verification of everything is never feasible in reality. The turning point Vitalik gave this time is: By using local, controllable LLMs to bear the costs of understanding and verification—from verifying transactions and auditing contracts to interpreting trust models of protocols—AI is no longer merely a constrained object, but a tool to help individuals exercise their sovereignty. This empowers individuals. 4⃣ AI enables more complex market and governance mechanisms to be truly implemented. The reason why prediction markets, decision-making markets, quadratic voting, and combined auctions have remained at the theoretical level for so long is not because of design flaws, but because human attention and judgment are too scarce and easily captured by a few highly motivated participants. AI can serve as an "auxiliary judgment layer" to lower the barriers to understanding and participation, while Ethereum provides a transparent, verifiable, and accountable execution environment, allowing these mechanisms to operate without relying on centralized referees. Judging from Vitalik's continuous and restrained reflections, he is not trying to save prices with short-term stories, but rather is searching for and building a long-term philosophical framework for Ethereum layer by layer. As AI continues to amplify its capabilities and power, the most difficult things to replace are not efficiency, but rather the constraints that cannot be easily bypassed—verification, settlement, accountability, and exit. This road is destined to be slow, and destined to be lonely; But looking at Ethereum's history over the years, it seems that it has always relied on this unpopular persistence to get to where it is today.

AI needs Ethereum!