Buterin Tests AI Privacy with zkAPI and Tor Routing

Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, has conducted an experiment to test AI privacy using zkAPI and Tor routing. He used a local model to coordinate requests to remote systems, drawing on their reasoning and knowledge to generate personalized diet and exercise recommendations.

The experiment combined three layers of protection: carefully written prompts to avoid identification through phrasing or personal details, private payments through zkAPI to separate payment authorization from user identity, and Tor routing to obscure network information such as IP addresses.

Vitalik Buterin reported that the recommendations benefited from remote input, but identified four weaknesses: slow responses, weak separation between requests, a tradeoff between sharing less information and receiving useful advice, and the need for better strategies in request preparation.