100 Billion Robots, Generative Monopoly, and the Compute Highway: The Liberman Brothers' Vision for AI's Endgame
- Core Viewpoint: The Liberman brothers believe AI will bring about a productivity singularity and an era of 100 billion robots, but centralized AI giants could form a "generative monopoly," threatening humanity's compute sovereignty. The decentralized AI compute network Gonka, which they founded, aims to provide a solution against this monopoly and reshape future AI infrastructure through compute democratization.
- Key Elements:
- Productivity Singularity: Predicts that once embodied intelligence matures, Earth will see 100 billion robots acting as human "physical twins," leading to extreme productivity surplus and impacting existing socio-economic systems.
- Risk of Generative Monopoly: Argues that giants like OpenAI could directly fulfill user needs with the most powerful AI models, replacing traditional app stores and achieving absolute control over the logical construction of the digital world.
- Gonka's Solution: Builds a decentralized compute network, converting idle computing power into useful AI inference through a novel consensus mechanism, aiming to drastically reduce compute costs and achieve compute democratization.
- Rapid Network Growth: Within 100 days of launch, Gonka's aggregated H100-grade compute power surged from 60 units to over 10,000 units, and secured investments from institutions like Bitfury, indicating market attention.
- Individual Coping Strategy: Advises individuals to build interdisciplinary, compound cognition to maintain uniqueness, emphasizing that in the AI era, the value of "decision-making" and "responsibility endorsement" will surpass mere execution.
- Strategic Opportunity for Small Nations: Believes decentralized AI networks can provide small nations with a channel to bypass chip bans and leverage local resources to access the global compute market.
Core Summary:
As global capital pours into OpenAI, attempting to build algorithmic walls with centralized data centers, Silicon Valley's most legendary "visionary" brothers, the Libermans (Daniil & David Liberman), have sounded a warning. As serial entrepreneurs who sold their company to Snapchat for $64 million, they are now returning to the battlefield with the decentralized AI compute network Gonka. They predict that the future Earth will usher in an era of 10 billion robots. Faced with this productivity singularity, humanity must either reclaim compute sovereignty through decentralized technology or forever become the digital serfs of algorithmic giants.
Original video: https://x.com/gonka_ai/status/2010636900806345115
Compiled by: gonka.ai
1. The Truth of the Productivity Singularity: Everyone's "4x Speed" Avatar
From the Liberman brothers' perspective, AI is not a simple tool improvement but a "productivity explosion" powerful enough to reshape the species' contract.
"Over the past century, human civilization's productivity has roughly quadrupled every 30 years," David Liberman points out. "But after embodied AI matures, this rhythm will be completely shattered." They propose a highly impactful prophecy: there will be 10 billion robots on Earth in the future. This means robots will no longer be lumps of iron in factories but "physical twins" for every individual. If you are a programmer, you will have a robot that works 24/7 without rest, with code logic synchronized with yours; if you are a designer, this robot will be a real-time extension of your creativity.
The Liberman brothers emphasize that this is essentially a "fourfold, even tenfold expansion" of humans as production units. When every "me" possesses an equivalent digital/physical avatar, existing labor value theory, wage distribution systems, and even social pension contracts will instantly collapse in the face of this extreme surplus output. This is not just a technological leap but an "existential crisis" for humanity as a species.
2. Beware of "Generative Monopoly": Giants Are Harvesting the Future of the Digital World
Compared to productivity surplus, the Liberman brothers are more concerned about whose cage this computing power is locked in.
They deeply understand the power logic of the mobile internet—iOS and Android ruled distribution through the App Store. But in the AI era, the ambitions of giants go a step further; they are attempting to achieve a **"generative monopoly"**:
- The Death of the App Store: The Liberman brothers predict that when AI can generate a fully functional program based on user prompts in milliseconds, traditional App Stores will become meaningless. Users will no longer need to download an app but can directly request services from AI. This means that giants with the strongest models (like OpenAI, Google) will directly sever all links between ordinary developers and users.
- The Ultimate Concentration of Power: Humanity faces the "Five Powers" constituted by OpenAI, xAI, Gemini, Meta, and Anthropic. This is no longer merely a technological race but a scramble for the right to construct the future digital logic. If AI can define every line of code you see, hear, and even think of, then these few companies will become the absolute gods of the digital world.
- The Shadow of Capital: The Liberman brothers bluntly point out the role of traditional financial giants like BlackRock. When AI, a highly capital-intensive infrastructure, is controlled by a few companies backed by mega-consortiums, so-called "open source" and "inclusiveness" will become hypocritical rhetoric.
3. Gonka's "Highway Revolution": Decentralized Compute is the Only Antidote
Faced with this algorithmic totalitarianism, the Liberman brothers did not choose to theorize in the lab but incubated Gonka.
"Centralized AI will build magnificent 'skyscrapers' (centralized models), but what the world truly needs is 'highways,'" Daniil Liberman explains. Gonka's philosophy is extremely pragmatic: compute equity.
- Rediscovering Compute Diamonds: The Liberman brothers discovered that while the Bitcoin network's hash power is vast, most of it performs "meaningless hashing." Through Gonka's decentralized protocol, this compute power can be transformed into "useful AI inference (Useful Compute)."
- Compute Sprint (Proof of Compute): Gonka introduces a novel consensus mechanism. Miners don't need to idle 24/7; they only need to complete AI inference proofs in an extremely short time to earn token rewards. This reduces the rental cost of GPU compute by orders of magnitude compared to cloud service providers like AWS.
- Exponential Surge: In just 100 days after launch, the H100-grade compute power aggregated by Gonka skyrocketed from 60 units to over 10,000 units. This speed proves that the long-pent-up "compute anxiety" in the blockchain industry is urgently seeking an outlet. Bitfury's $50 million investment further confirms a judgment: the future AI infrastructure will inevitably be distributed, permissionless, and globally shared.
4. Avoiding the "AI Bubble": The Fiber Optic Cables After the Burst
Regarding the much-discussed "AI bubble," the Liberman brothers offer deep, cold reflection. They believe the current bubble stems from giants' frenzied discounting of "future excess profits." Once the cost of AI compute significantly decreases due to the emergence of decentralized networks like Gonka, the monopoly premiums giants originally envisioned will vanish.
However, just as the 2000 internet bubble burst left behind fiber optic cables spanning the globe, the Liberman brothers believe that even if the AI bubble bursts, the "intelligent infrastructure" it leaves behind will become the fuel for the next civilizational leap. In this process, whoever masters low-cost, high-efficiency decentralized compute channels will be the first to break through the ashes after the bubble.
5. Individual Survival Rules: How to Grasp "Sovereignty" Among 10 Billion Robots
When productivity is taken over by robots, what is the meaning of humanity? As serial entrepreneurs and "applied philosophers," the Liberman brothers offer two highly practical methodologies:
1. Reject Singular Specialization, Embrace the "Unique Triad Combination"
If you are just a pure programmer, AI will easily replace you. But if you are a developer "proficient in Russian literature, knowledgeable in quantum physics, and with a legal practice background," you are invincible.
Although AI models are knowledgeable, they struggle to simulate the interdisciplinary, composite cognition formed by humans based on life experience and cultural sedimentation. This "trinity" unique perspective determines the height of your prompts to AI (the essence of Prompt Engineering) and also determines the barrier to your creative generation.
2. Seize the "Liability Subject" Position
AI can calculate but cannot take responsibility. In future social contracts, "execution" will become cheap, while "decision-making" and "endorsement" will become expensive. A person who dares to take responsibility for AI output results will be the nodal center in the future collaboration system.
6. The Opportunity for Small Nations: The "Equity Channel" Bypassing Chip Bans
For regions outside the major US-China powers, the Liberman brothers provide a path of significant geopolitical strategic value. By participating in open-source protocols like Gonka, small nations no longer need to survive in the cracks of major powers' chip bans but can instead:
- Localized Compute Deployment: Utilize cheap electricity and ASIC chips to connect to the global decentralized network.
- AI Talent Reputation Accumulation: Encourage local developers to contribute code to open-source protocols, building "sovereign-level" AI service capabilities.
"Small nations don't need to compete with giants on the height of skyscrapers; they just need to ensure 'AI highways' reach their doorsteps," the Liberman brothers say.
Conclusion: A Final Battle Over "Sovereignty"
The Liberman brothers are not just doing business; they are conducting a massive social experiment. In their view, OpenAI's closed-source nature and monopoly are a fast track to a "digital Middle Ages," while the decentralized AI represented by Gonka is the last chance for sovereignty left to ordinary people.
This marathon of 10 billion robots has just begun. Just as Bitcoin proved to the world that sovereign currency can be decentralized, the Liberman brothers are attempting to prove to the world: the most advanced productivity tools should not be locked in the basements of skyscrapers but should flow to the fingertips of every free will.
Endnote: This article is compiled from the Liberman brothers' recent interview and core viewpoints of the Gonka protocol. It does not constitute any investment advice. As an emerging AI infrastructure, Gonka still faces risks of technological iteration and market volatility. Investors are advised to remain rational.
About Gonka.ai
Gonka is a decentralized network designed to provide efficient AI compute, aiming to maximize the utilization of global GPU compute power to complete meaningful AI workloads. By eliminating centralized gatekeepers, Gonka offers developers and researchers permissionless access to compute resources, while rewarding all participants through its native token, GNK.
Gonka is incubated by the US AI developer Product Science Inc. The company was founded by Web 2 industry veterans, former Snap Inc. core product directors, the Liberman siblings, and successfully raised $18 million in 2023, with an additional $51 million in 2025. Investors include OpenAI backer Coatue Management, Solana backer Slow Ventures, Bitfury, K5, Insight and Benchmark partners, among others. Early contributors to the project include notable leaders in the Web 2-Web 3 space such as 6 blocks, Hard Yaka, and Gcore.
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