AI-assisted hackers are now outpacing traditional code review in speed; NEAR co-founder advocates for formal verification

Odaily Planet Daily News: NEAR Protocol co-founder Illia Polosukhin stated that AI is significantly accelerating hackers' ability to discover software vulnerabilities, making traditional code review models increasingly inadequate. He pointed out that the Balancer incident last October marked the beginning of AI-assisted hacking, and the old model relying on manual review is no longer sustainable in the AI era. Polosukhin advocates for formal verification, using mathematical proofs to ensure code behavior aligns perfectly with specifications. AI can generate most of the proofs, which are then verified by humans for correctness, drastically reducing proof generation time. He believes formal verification should be extended beyond smart contracts to cover critical internet and network software. NEAR also released an upgrade on the same day, allowing users to switch to quantum-resistant account keys, while the network can automatically scale capacity as activity grows.