Vitalik Buterin argues AI can enhance software security against hacking

Vitalik Buterin has laid out a case for why artificial intelligence, despite its well-documented tendency to hallucinate and produce buggy code, might actually become the most powerful tool the software world has ever seen for preventing hacks. The catch: AI doesn’t do it alone. It needs a mathematical babysitter called formal verification. In a blog post published on May 18, Buterin explored how pairing AI’s raw code-generation speed with the mathematical rigor of formal verification could dramatically improve the security of software systems, particularly those underpinning Ethereum’s infrastructure. He also casually dropped that roughly 90% of his net worth is held in ETH, which makes his interest in bulletproofing the ecosystem feel less academic and more personal. The AI accuracy problem, and its fix Buterin’s core argument is deceptively simple. AI can generate enormous volumes of code quickly, but that speed comes with a reliability tax. The output tends to be less accurate than what a careful human developer would produce. In smart contracts managing billions of dollars, it’s an existential threat. Formal verification uses mathematical proofs to demonstrate that code behave...