Crypto Firms Call on AI Labs to Share Powerful Tools with Security Researchers
More than 40 Bitcoin and digital-asset organizations have signed an open letter to leading artificial intelligence (AI) labs, urging them to provide controlled early access to powerful AI systems for vetted security researchers.
The letter, titled 'Defenders Need the Frontier,' argues that attackers are gaining an unfair advantage due to the rapid development of AI-assisted vulnerability searches. This can make attacks cheaper and easier to scale, while defenders face safety restrictions when trying to use public AI products for legitimate research.
The coalition, which includes Coinbase, Block, and Bitgo, among others, is not asking for unrestricted access to advanced models but rather standing trusted-access programs that would offer early, controlled access to prerelease systems. This would also provide computing capacity for long-running AI tasks, secure spaces to inspect private code, and direct communication channels with lab security teams.
The letter highlights the strain on small maintenance teams due to sophisticated actors using advanced AI capabilities to sustain pressure on open-source developers. It also cites a recent audit that showed AI's defensive power in detecting vulnerabilities in Bitcoin-related code.