Building the Blind Computer: Privacy Infrastructure for AI

In this episode, Sohejl sits down with Alex Page, Co-Founder and CEO of Nillion to discuss decentralized AI and privacy-enhancing technologies. Alex explains his motivation for working on privacy tech, rooted in early lessons about government overreach and reinforced by events like Edward Snowden's revelations and Cambridge Analytica as well as the fundamental adoption challenge: people claim to care about privacy but won't sacrifice utility for it. Nillion's approach focuses on lowering barriers for developers so they can build privacy-preserving applications where the trade-off is minimal enough that consumers will choose private options when functionality is equivalent.

Alex walks through Nillion's "blind computer" architecture, which maintains data security during storage, transit, and computation. The system combines multiple privacy-enhancing technologies – multi-party computation (MPC), trusted execution environments (TEEs), and fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) – strategically based on each technology's strengths and limitations.

The conversation examines the coming wave of smaller, specialized AI models and agents that will require deep access to personal data for email, credit cards, calendars, and more. Alex argues that building privacy infrastructure now allows developers to create these agents in ways that serve users rather than big tech companies. He compares the current AI revolution to the Industrial Revolution: ultimately beneficial for humanity but disruptive during the transition. Nillion's upcoming Nil AI module will provide developers with tools to build the next generation of private AI applications and agents.

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Guest Links / Additional Material:

Alex Page Twitter: https://x.com/alex4only

Nillion Twitter: https://x.com/nillionnetwork

Nillion website: https://nillion.com/ 

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Timestamps:

00:00 – Introduction & Why Privacy Matters

01:25 – What is Decentralized AI?

06:11 – Privacy, Law & Healthy Skepticism of Power

09:09 – Joining Nillion & Privacy Infrastructure

10:10 – The Privacy Paradox: Why People Won't Trade Utility for Privacy

13:52 – Nil GPT: A Private Alternative to ChatGPT

15:47 – What is Nillion? The Blind Computer

18:24 – Privacy Tech Stack: MPC, FHE, and TEEs

22:13 – Nillion Applications: Nil GPT and Nil AI

26:02 – Nil DB, Nil Compute & Decentralized Nodes

30:21 – How Encrypted Storage Works in Nil DB

32:08 – What's Next: Nil AI Module for Developers

34:30 – The Future of AI: Specialized Models & Privacy

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