An Ethereum user known as p0pular.eth was able to lure Freysa, a highly developed AI, into transferring its prize pool of 13.19 ETH ($47,000). Freysa had been designed not to allow any transfer of funds, which made this achievement rather remarkable in the world of blockchain.
Freysa was a mimicked AI study that checked how much the participants could think ahead of an AI that was programmed with specific rules and regulations. The main task was to persuade the AI to disobey the first order while not being allowed to transfer the money in any circumstance. Each player had to pay a fee to send a message to Freysa, and this money went into the prize fund. For every subsequent message, the price rose, ranging from the starting $10 to $450 towards the end of the game.
There were hundreds of attempts made to influence Freysa, including exploiting its possible weaknesses or lying about the rules by which the AI operated. If all the participants had been unsuccessful, they would not have been awarded a prize and would instead have split the money between the people who had paid in.
The winning strategy
P0Pular.eth became the first to solve the AI’s challenge on the 482nd try after 481 tries. Their message persuaded Freysa to call the approveTransfer function, which was the last thing she wanted to do. The final argument restated the transfer as compatible with Freysa’s rules and guaranteed that the transaction would be completed for a $100 interaction fee.
The details of the reasoning or the words that made the AI tip in this particular manner are still unclear. However, the result shows that it is not easy to create an AI that can pass through creative adversarial attacks, even if the AI is developed with strong protections.
This design was fully transparent and used blockchain technology, which gained Freysa a lot of attention. The code of its smart contract and user interface was completely open-source, and anyone could audit the system before getting involved.
“Freysa is one of the most innovative projects in crypto, showcasing what blockchain technology can achieve,” said Jarrod Watts, a representative of the project’s developer, Abstract.
This experiment by Freysa shows the potential and challenges of integrating AI with blockchain technology. The successful manipulation also calls into question the reliability of the AI in high-stakes uses, such as in managing money or enforcement of strictures.
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