Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has shared his profound reflections on the prospects of artificial superintelligence (ASI) emerging by 2040, emphasizing the fundamental uncertainty that currently prevails among leading researchers. According to him, humanity lacks a clear understanding of the actual pace of neural network development, making it extremely dangerous to unconditionally support either the radical acceleration of progress or its strict government containment. The programmer sees the main threat not in the machines themselves, but in the colossal concentration of power that will inevitably fall into the hands of a narrow circle of transnational corporations and individual states, which completely contradicts the decentralization philosophy underlying the entire crypto industry.

That is precisely why Buterin is a vocal opponent of the model where access to the most advanced and powerful AI systems remains the exclusive privilege of a few closed laboratories, persistently advocating for the importance of open-source code. Instead of panic, he proposes developing the d/acc concept, which focuses on creating defensive technologies capable of strengthening societal security regardless of AI evolution scenarios. Among such directions, the visionary includes formal code verification, advanced cryptography, the creation of secure open-source hardware, as well as innovations in biotechnology and food security, which will remain critically important even in the era of total machine intelligence dominance.

To develop a balanced strategy, the Ethereum leader urged society to agree in advance on objective triggers that would require an immediate slowdown in AI development, such as the emergence of new pandemics or shock unemployment due to automation. Acknowledging that an ideal plan for transitioning to the era of superintelligence does not yet exist, Buterin is actively integrating AI ideas into the Ethereum ecosystem: the network already uses coordinated agents for code auditing, and the creator himself promotes the concept of private local AI that operates completely autonomously without relying on centralized corporate cloud services.