Why did Covenant AI escape Bittensor

Original title: Statement from Covent AI
original by: @covent ai
Photo by Peggy Block Beats

The editor issued a statement by Covenant AI announcing his withdrawal from Bittensor and accusing his co-founder, Jacob Steeves (Const), of centralizing power in network governance, including suspending his sub-net emissions, withdrawing community authority, and exerting pressure through currency sales。

Previously, Covenant AI was responsible for the operation of several key subnets, covering the stages of pre-training, computing and fine-tuning, and had completed a large-scale, multi-skilled linguistic model on general hardware. This result has received industry attention and has been cited by practitioners like Jensen Huang and Jack Clark。

The dispute is not one-way. Some critics have pointed at the founder of Covent AI, Sam Dare, who claims to have sold some 37,000 TAO coins; there are also supporters who believe that the conflict could drive the network towards a more community-based model of governance。

AT THE MARKET LEVEL, THE DOLLAR TAO PRICE FELL FROM ABOUT $340 TO $286 DURING THE FERMENTATION OF THE EVENT AND THEN WENT BACK TO $291, WITH A MARKED INCREASE IN THE VOLUME OF TRANSACTIONS。

Discussions around governance structures, power boundaries and incentives continue。

The following is the original text:

The establishment of Covenant AI stems from a simple and firm belief that training in front-line AI models should not be controlled by any single entity。

Over the past two years, our team has been pursuing that vision. Covent-72B - a model with 72 billion parameters, with more than 70 independent contributors completing their training without permission on the basis of general hardware - has become the largest decentrized large model pre-training practice in history. It was endorsed by the British CEO, quoted by the co-founder of Anthropic, and contributed to the 90 per cent increase in the ecology that we were involved in building。

We have never deliberately sought attention. We just want to prove that go-to-centre training is feasible. And when the results themselves come true, the attention comes naturally。

We hope that the meaning of all this is sufficiently clear。

When a single actor can suspend emissions of a subnet, deprive a node owner of control over his/her community space, publicly "disappear" projects without a process, or even impose economic pressure on others to obey by selling coins – This is no longer centralization, but centralization control in the cloak of decentralisation。

Every participant in the ecology — miners, certifyers and investors — should be aware that this power exists and has been exercised by Jacob Steeves (Const). These acts are not motivated by the concern to preserve network health, but rather to regain control over a team that has become too independent and difficult to manage. A network owner who can build a community on his own, make independent decisions and operate without a permit is in itself a threat to those whose power is based on "all must rely on him"。

The issue of decentrization does not go beyond individual events。

Bittensor actually operates on a "three-headed structure" — the multi-signing authority required to manage network upgrades by three people together, and is packaged as "distributive governance". But that is not the case. This is more like a "go-to-centre" show. Jacob Steeves de facto controls this structure, refuses any substantial delegation of authority and, at any time he deems it appropriate, bypasses processes and consensus and deploys changes unilaterally. Others are more of a legal "backbrow" — they are held accountable and at risk of litigation, while the true controllers remain outside。

The network continues to talk about governance and decentrization, but never really does. Power never leaves the hands of an individual。

That is at the heart of the problem。

The fundamental commitment of Bittensor is also a key prerequisite for attracting developers, miners, certifiers and investors into this ecology, and it is not controlled by any single entity. But that promise is not true。

In such a reality, we cannot continue to build this network responsibly. Our basic statement to investors — that the infrastructure is decentralised and without permits — contradicts the actual way in which it is governed. We cannot finance, attract talent or ask communities to invest resources on a basis that could be shaken by a single will at any time. This risk we do not wish to pass on to those who trust us。

Therefore, despite our deep disappointment, we decided to announce that Covenant AI would withdraw from the Bittensor network。

Over the past few weeks, Jacob Steeves (or Const) has taken a series of measures against the operation of Covenant AI, which are totally incompatible with the stated principles of the network. These include a moratorium on emissions from our subnets, the denial of our authority to manage our own community channels, the unilateral declaration that our subnet infrastructure is "disappeared" and direct economic pressure through large-scale, open currency sales at critical times of operational conflict。

These are not governance decisions made through transparent, decentralised consensus, but rather punitive acts actually imposed by a person who has never really given up control and who claims to be out of control of the network。

The mission of Covenant AI has not changed. Decentralized, non-licensed AI training is not the exclusive feature of Bittensor, but a technical capability that we will continue to advance. Our research, teams, models and vision will continue together. We are already moving forward with a number of very important new projects, and we will be making progress to the public soon。

To our communities, to the miners, and to all those who have invested in the energy, time and faith of Covent-72B: You have proven something that was once considered impossible. This result does not belong to a Discord server or depend on the governance structure of a network. It exists in the research itself, in the model itself, and in this team. Wherever we proceed, we will continue to earn your trust。

Decentralizing is not a marketing narrative that can be arbitrarily overturned at an inconvenience. It is a commitment to every builder, miner and investor — a commitment that no one can do to others what we have experienced. Either it's really decentrizing or it's not pretending。

— Sam Dare Covent AI Founder

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