Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has identified limited human attention, not flawed technology, as the primary weakness in decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) governance. In a recent post, he argued that while AI should not replace human decision-makers, he proposed personal AI governance agents to help users process complex proposals. To ensure this model remains secure, Buterin emphasized the critical role of privacy-preserving technologies like zero-knowledge proofs.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has shifted the governance debate, arguing the core limitation for decentralized systems is human attention, not voter turnout. In a post dated February 21, he stated that DAOs face thousands of decisions, but “most of the participants do not have the time to research every decision.”
He cautioned that ceding total control to artificial intelligence would be dangerous, especially as systems grow stronger. Instead, Buterin believes AI should act as an assistant to human participants rather than a replacement for them.
The traditional model of vote delegation concentrates power in few representatives, diminishing democratic ideals in decentralized networks. To bridge this attention gap, Buterin proposed the use of personal large language models that serve as governance agents for individual users.
These AI agents would summarize public discourse to find common ground, transforming governance into a more interactive process. Another proposed concept involves “suggestion markets,” where agents place bets on tokens representing specific proposals or arguments.
For such a system to function securely, Buterin stated that privacy is a foundational requirement. He highlighted the importance of zero-knowledge solutions for anonymous voting and multi-party computation for handling secret data.
This approach allows multiple AI agents to analyze private information within secure environments, sharing only outcomes. The model aims to prevent centralizing power while enabling more informed, participatory decision-making.
