Giving AI Agents Access to Cryptocurrency and Smart Contracts Creates New Vectors of AI Harm
It highlights a potential safety problem for AI developers and users in blockchain applications, but it is incremental as it builds on existing concerns about AI harms.
This position paper argues that granting AI agents access to cryptocurrencies and smart contracts could create formidable new vectors of AI harm, and it calls for more technical research to prevent and mitigate these risks.
There is growing interest in giving AI agents access to cryptocurrencies as well as to the smart contracts that transact them. But doing so, this position paper argues, could lead to formidable new vectors of AI harm. To support this argument, we first examine the unique properties of cryptocurrencies and smart contracts that could lead to these new vectors of harm. Next, we describe each of these new vectors of harm in detail. Finally, we conclude with a call for more technical research aimed at preventing and mitigating these harms and, thereby making it safer to endow AI agents with cryptocurrencies and smart contracts.