Vitalik Buterin on the future of AI and Ethereum. Vitalik argues that blindly chasing AGI is the wrong goal. The real question is what kind of AI future we are building. His vision: • AI should expand human freedom, not replace people or concentrate power in the hands of elites • Technological progress should be stabilizing, not catastrophic • Crypto and AI should evolve within the same philosophical framework, not as two separate worlds Near term focus: Private AI interaction Local LLMs, ZK payments for API access, cryptographic verification of AI computations and server guarantees. Ethereum as the economic layer for AI Onchain payments for AI services, autonomous agents hiring other agents, economic bonds to enforce honest behavior, onchain dispute resolution and reputation systems for AI agents. The cypherpunk angle LLMs make “don’t trust, verify” practical again. Local AI can audit transactions, app interfaces, and even smart contracts without manual reviews. New markets and governance Prediction markets, DAOs, and quadratic voting were limited by human attention. LLMs remove that bottleneck. Bottom line Ethereum isn’t just scaling finance. Vitalik sees it as the coordination and economic layer for a more private, verifiable, and human aligned AI future.