Whitepaper

Abstract:

YottaFlux (YTX) is a groundbreaking blockchain-centric platform designed to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) with human intellect, fostering the execution of ‘human-in-the-loop’ tasks, or Augmented AI tasks. YottaFlux leverages proven blockchain principles, founded on the technological breakthroughs of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Ravencoin to create a unique marketplace for task execution. Central to this is the universality of the platform; YTX implements the Task-Based Execution Protocol (TEBP) blockchain.  TEBP allows open, zero-trust execution of a broad class of tasks and provides strong guarantees via guaranteed payment proportional to the quality of the task execution. This trustless, secure, free-market ecosystem allows for open participation of workers that execute tasks, project owners that exchange value for task execution, and platform providers that facilitate interaction between the two parties, with the YTX token pivotal in facilitating interactions and transactions.

Introduction

Drawing from the decentralized frameworks of Bitcoin and Ethereum and the principles of open-source development, YottaFlux (YTX) envisions a zero-trust needed ecosystem where independent workers can engage with AI tasks securely and transparently.  By implementing the Task-Based Execution Protocol (TEBP), YTX aims to provide an open market for the execution of tasks in which free-market principles allow for substantial scalability and adoption.  Significantly, YTX embraces and embodies the philosophies that, for an ecosystem to truly be sustainable and scalable, it must be Open and Free.

What?

YottaFlux is a cryptographic coin and blockchain protocol that facilitates augmented AI, data annotation, and a large number of other “human in the loop” tasks.  

Why?

How open is Open?

Notably, many cryptographic platforms make claims of “openness” but use a very narrow interpretation of “open”.  The YottaFlux Foundation’s fundamental philosophy is that a free market cannot be considered open if it requires any centralized source of trust or places any restrictions on the ability of workers to offer services, project owners to request services, or platforms to facilitate these interactions.

How free is Free?

YottaFlux is building an ecosystem that can survive into the indefinite future.  Fostering the creation of projects at this scale requires dedicated effort by a team of experts; this is why it is commonly-accepted that projects similar to YTX require a “development fee” wherein a percentage of the economic activity is taxed in order to fund the foundation that is driving the development and adoption of the economy.  There is a strong argument to be made that, without such a foundation, a project is extremely unlikely to succeed.

However, should a single foundation benefit from taxation of an economy into the indefinite future?  No.  

Does the absence of a “development tax” for Bitcoin mean that it is doomed to fail due to a lack of a centralized foundation? No.

The YottaFlux Foundation’s philosophy is this:

A crypto-coin project that does not include an exit plan by which its Foundation becomes obsolete is a project intended for short-term profit of a select few.  A market and ecosystem cannot both be sustainable and owned by a single entity.

The ultimate item on the roadmap for YTX is that of protocol determination by democratic vote.  This is accomplished by the use of a formally-expressed protocol, versioned and hashed, and an implementation of the ability for a blockchain vote on the protocol to be used, with the ability to set a point in the future at which a new, agreed-upon protocol will be adopted.

This has the significant implication that, if the community decides to adopt a protocol version in which the YottaFlux Foundation is no longer funded, then the YottaFlux protocol itself will ensure that it is done.  If the Foundation is not contributing value to the ecosystem, as determined by the ecosystem, then there will no longer be any value that flows from the ecosystem to the YottaFlux Foundation.

The YottaFlux Foundation exists to bring this vision to life, not to profit from it indefinitely.

Cryptographic techniques ensure that customers only gain access to task outputs upon verification of payment from the escrow. Predominantly, this ecosystem promotes economic efficiency and equity while encouraging the democratization of AI technology.

Important note regarding “tasks”:

For this paper, we often refer to the very common augmented AI task of dataset annotation.  In particular, we will frequently use the example of needing to label a large number of pictures; this by no means implies any limitation on the scope of the activities that can be framed as a “task”.  See section XXX for the precise definition of a task and its required properties.

The YottaFlux Ecosystem

The YottaFlux ecosystem aims to democratize AI by creating a peer-to-peer market for augmented AI united within a broader framework of project owners (customers seeking task execution), labor producers (workers completing tasks), platforms (execution and communications facilitators), and miners (task reward calculators and block validators). This broad scope is inherently inclusive, welcoming and promoting collaborations within the AI community.

The Task Execution Blockchain Protocol (TEBP)

Serving as the heartbeat of YottaFlux, the Task Execution Blockchain Protocol (TEBP) incorporates task-specific smart contracts, fair task allocation algorithms, and a secure logging system. The KAPOW algorithm is used for block discovery, with peer-to-peer block validation used to enforce adherence to TEBP contracts. 

Core requirements satisfied by TEBP:

• Decentralization and autonomy: There are no centralized, trusted parties.  
• Value Assurance: Tasks cannot be published to the blockchain without the YTX payment being transferred to a dedicated project escrow account.  Project owners cannot view the results of a task until reward payment is calculated and transferred to workers.  Workers are not paid for a task until and unless they meet the consensus requirements for validation of work accuracy.
• Platform autonomy: Platforms may be operated by anyone and enforce any level of worker validation or verification.  Because platforms are entirely autonomous, TEBP supports the full spectrum of project owner trust requirements, allowing the operation of a wide range of platforms: those requiring explicit verification of worker identity; those requiring validation of worker knowledge or capability;  or those that allow for guaranteed worker anonymity. 
• Zero-trust consensus: TEBP is a proof of work protocol, but the work performed is not arbitrary.  This is discussed in section XXX.

Tasks

The task-execution blockchain protocol (TEBP) supports the notion of a “task” in a very broad sense.  There are very few required properties of a task:

• • Tasks may be combined into a set of tasks called a project.  
  • A project can define global restrictions or enforced properties on its tasks, but a single task may be requested even if it does not belong to a project.  Essentially, a project is nothing more than (1) a group of tasks and (2) a set of properties to be inherited by that group.  
    • For the purposes of this paper, we discuss the properties of a task and do not distinguish between a task and a project unless a task property must be unique to that task and not duplicated within a project (e.g. identifiers, index numbers).
    • A good example of this: 
      • Typically, a project will have an execution deadline, after which time the tasks still remaining unclaimed cannot be claimed.  
      • A single task may also have a deadline.
      • A task within a project is allowed to override the parent’s value for that property.  
      • A project may explicitly declare that a property is to be considered final and cannot be overridden.
  • A task is some unit of work that must be completed.  The specifics of exactly what this work is and how it is to be completed is defined by the platform on which it is being executed.
    • See section XXX for explicit definitions for and requirements of the roles supported by TEBP.
  • Tasks may (and probably will) involve the submission of a response.  
    • Tasks that do not require submissions of a response fit in this framework by allowing a default submission with a special value indicating task completion.  This default submission will always be considered 100% correct.
  • Tasks may (and probably will) support a distance metric which defines how different one response is from another.  This metric is how consensus among submissions is calculated.
    • Typically, a project would define this distance metric as a final property and thus each task would be required to use the same metric.
    • Example: if the task is to label an image, the distance between any two submissions might be

• 0 in any case where the submitted labels agree (e.g. two people labeled an image as “cat”).

• 1 in any case where the submitted labels disagree (e.g. “cat” and “dog”).

• Important note: the distance metric supported by a task is likely to be restricted to those that are supported on a given platform; platforms do not have to have consistent distance metrics even if the tasks are identical.

• For example, two different data annotation platforms may have different distance metrics even if they both support the identical task of “assign one label to this image”.

• • • One platform might use the naive distance metric given in the earlier example, while another platform may calculate the differences between labels using a more sophisticated method (e.g. comparing the distance between embeddings of the word such that “feline” and “cat” are considered very similar even though they are not equal).
• Tasks also may define metadata properties that are explicitly enumerated in the current protocol definition document (e.g. payment rates, execution deadline, task name, worker requirements).
• Tasks shall belong to a platform, which will facilitate the execution of this task.  Task identifiers are only required to be relevant to the platform; there is no required format or content for an identifier.
• Tasks shall be created by a project owner.
• Tasks shall have a reward for completion, defined as a non-zero, positive amount of YTX, which has already been moved into escrow as part of the task creation protocol.

For example, if the task is to label a number of images for AI training, a project would be a dataset composed of many images.  The labeling of any one image would be a task. 

If there were only one image to be labeled, there would be a task without a project.  

Platforms

A platform is an entity which facilitates the execution of a task.  Typically, a platform will be a web application within which a worker might perform tasks.  For example, consider data annotation.  A platform might consist of an application that allows the viewing of an image and the selection of its label.

Note: task submissions are submitted by and signed by workers.  The platform may be responsible for preparing the submission (e.g. creating a JSON containing the selected label), but payment for the submission will always be sent to the wallet address that has claimed the task and submitted the solution.

It is a valid use of TEBP for one entity to play multiple roles.  For example, the operator of a labeling platform might also create wallets for each project owner and worker.  

It is strongly recommended that one wallet address not play multiple roles, but there is nothing restricting that.  An example would be a platform that intends to pay a worker in a different currency than YTX.  Reward payments might be made to the same address registered as a platform with the intent that the platform then distributes a different payment through exterior channels; this is not a good idea, but it is not worth the cycles required to check and enforce this restriction.  Even if this was the desired use case, a platform operator would be strongly encouraged to use unique addresses for each of its worker accounts.

Tasks are required to be issued by a wallet that has previously funded the escrow account for payment and to reference a valid, registered platform.

Project Owner

• Has YTX and wishes to use this to complete one task with many sub-tasks.  
• Registers a project or task with a positive amount of completion reward specified.
• The reward for the project (defined as the sum of the reward of some maximum number of tasks to be issued for that project) or for the task must be sent to a dedicated task escrow address at the time the project or task is created.
• An escrow address must be a unique address to be used only by this project.  It typically will be one that is created and controlled by the project owner.  Currently, there is no valid message that can be issued by an escrow address; coins can only be transferred out of escrow as part of the task lifecycle.

Worker

The role of worker is played by a wallet address that will receive the reward for completing an assigned task.  

Value Assurance

For Workers

Task payments are fully backed by escrow

Project owners cannot steal labor 

For Project Owners

Accurate task completion is required for payment

Deliverable quality ensured by zero-trust consensus

Guaranteed enforcement of budgets and deadlines

For Platforms

Guaranteed autonomy

For Miners

Guaranteed payment

**The YottaFlux Marketplace:**

The YottaFlux Marketplace functions as a decentralized hub for the listing, claiming, and completion of tasks. The Marketplace adheres strictly to a zero-trust consensus, where miners validate workers’ answers using a global reputation score indicating the quality of work. In turn, this approach shields deliverables, ensuring customers only gain access upon completion of escrow payments. 

**The YottaFlux Economic Model:**

YottaFlux anchors its economic model and interactions upon the YTX token. Early adopters and continuous contributors are rewarded within this model, fostering a sense of community engagement and growth. The transparency of this model encourages free-market economics to govern the distribution of project costs to platforms, workers, and miners.

**Transition to an Augmented AI Work Framework:**

YottaFlux reshapes the concept of computational value crystallizing a transition from a conventional Proof of Work (PoW) model to an Augmented AI Work Framework. This shift encourages miners to evolve into independent workers performing real-world AI-augmented tasks and validating them, thus elevating the overall integrity of the network.

**Governance and Community Participation:**

The YottaFlux network champions decentralized governance that promotes transparent decision making. By involving the YTX holders in a responsive proposal and voting system, the pathway to a dynamic and resilient platform is paved.

**Task Validation:**

To ensure the authenticity and quality of services, YottaFlux utilizes advanced validation systems merging token staking and decentralized consensus. The result is a marketplace that fosters collaborative symbiosis between independent workers, customers, and AI task platforms.

**Future Directions and Potential Applications:**

Anticipating the potential of the Yottaflux model, there is a substantial emphasis on expanding capabilities to include support for a broad range of AI workloads. By actively developing partnerships with AI communities, promoting workshops, and encouraging community participation, the potential for future growth is promising.

**Security and Fraud Prevention Mechanisms:**

YottaFlux prioritizes user trust and deploys multiple strategies to ensure the mitigation of fraud and security breaches. Top-grade cryptographic techniques ensure that each transaction remains secure, safeguarding the notion of a ‘trustless’ and reliable marketplace.

**Conclusion:**

YottaFlux (YTX) heralds a new paradigm in human-AI collaboration, thriving in a transparent, secure, and efficient labor economy for the digital age. Advocating for individual control, transactional privacy, and user freedom, YottaFlux unleashes an unprecedented wave of innovation in the AI marketplace. This platform invites participation from AI enthusiasts, independent workers, visionaries, and developers, setting the stage for a revolutionary leap in productivity and shared growth.

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**References & Further Reading:**

– YottaFlux’s Official Documentation

– Blockchain and Smart Contracts in Workforce Management

– Decentralized Autonomous Organizations

– Augmented Intelligence: The next frontier in AI research

Please note that additional comprehensive technical specifications, theoretical frameworks and conceptual underpinnings are accessible within the official YottaFlux Documentation.