The Neuron: AI Explained Illia Polosukhin: Fixing the Broken System He Helped Create
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Sep 12, 2025 
Illia Polosukhin, co-author of the groundbreaking Attention Is All You Need and co-founder of NEAR Protocol, shares his vision for a reimagined AI landscape. He argues that today’s centralized AI is broken and champions User-Owned AI for better privacy and user alignment. The conversation dives into the evolution of AI technologies, ethical concerns with current systems, and innovative blockchain solutions that could enhance AI operations. Illia also highlights the potential of open protocols in improving trust and creating personalized AI experiences.
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Design Payments For Models And Data
- Structure payments so users pay compute and creators get shares for inference and training contributions.
- Tokenize model value (model tokens) to compensate data creators for training contributions when attribution is impossible.
Paying Students Sparked NEAR
- Illia recounts needing a global micropayment system in 2018 to pay students across countries and banks.
- That pain motivated building NEAR as a fast, cheap programmable payments layer.
Scaling Blockchain For Real Apps
- NEAR focuses on making blockchain scalable, cheap, and hidden so millions can use it without noticing complexity.
- The platform already supports real-world micropayments and 50M monthly users behind the scenes.
