Leveraging blockchain to make machine learning models more accessible - Microsoft Research

Significant advances are being made in artificial intelligence, but accessing and taking advantage of the machine learning systems making these developments possible can be challenging, especially for those with limited resources. These systems tend to be highly centralized, their predictions are often sold on a per-query basis, and the datasets required to train them are generally proprietary and expensive to create on their own. Additionally, published models run the risk of becoming outdated if new data isn't regularly provided to retrain them. We envision a slightly different paradigm, one in which people will be able to easily and cost-effectively run machine learning models with technology they already have, such as browsers and apps on their phones and other devices. Through this new framework, participants can collaboratively and continually train and maintain models, as well as build datasets, on public blockchains, where models are generally free to use for evaluating predictions.