Source: Daoshuo Blockchain

In the past two days, two AI agents have used a technology that has been around for a long time but has not been very popular: TEE.

The full name of TEE is Trusted Execution Environment, Trusted Execution Environment.

This is a solution that relies on hardware security.

It refers to an execution environment built by setting up a combination of hardware and software in a computing device. This environment is often used to protect sensitive data and perform critical operations. It can prevent unauthorized access and malicious operations.

Simply put, if we run a software in a reliable TEE environment, the outside world cannot crack and obtain the data and information during the operation.

This technology has been mentioned in the past. It is usually used in IoT devices, cloud computing and other environments. In the past two years, some encryption projects have also mentioned the use of this technology, such as wallets.

But overall, I always feel that it is aimed at the enterprise market, and there seems to be little potential for individual consumer application scenarios, so I basically don’t care.

The encryption ecosystem also has a project Phala Network that uses this technology. It provides a cloud computing platform based on TEE technology. In its white paper, it describes a way to use distributed computing power to provide such an execution environment.

I have seen this project earlier. I remember that after reading its white paper, I remembered the Filecoin model again, so I felt that this so-called way of using distributed computing power to implement TEE was just another "imaginary" application, and using blockchain was just a mechanical application. .

However, two recently emerging AI agents, Spore (Spore.fun) and aiPool (@aipool_tee), have actually used the technology of this project.

In the previous article, when I introduced the AI ​​agents that are now commonly implemented, I once wrote: Most of the encryption wallets used by these AI agents require humans to apply for them. After being applied by a human, the wallet is then handed over to the AI ​​agent for use.

In this case, because humans have the private key of the wallet, humans can completely interfere with the operation of the AI ​​agent---the simplest and crudest way is to directly transfer the assets in the wallet Turn away.

So such an AI agent cannot be called "autonomous", at least not financially autonomous.

But the two agents, Spore and aiPool, run entirely in the TEE environment of the Phala network. Their wallets and keys are completely in their own hands. Humans cannot control their wallets, let alone transfer them. assets.

Therefore, from the perspective of the degree of control over encrypted assets, AI agents have now achieved complete autonomy of encrypted assets with the help of TEE technology, breaking away from human control.

In meIt seems that this is really an unexpected surprise for the application of TEE technology in the field of AI agents.

If this path continues, each fully autonomous AI agent will need to run in a TEE environment and generate the private key of its own encrypted wallet. Then the usage scenarios of TEE technology will be far from what I once imagined. It is mainly aimed at traditional commercial and enterprise users, but will also find huge application space in the quite broad market of AI agents.

As for the Phala Network project itself, although I still think that the model described in the white paper is arbitrary, in any case, it found itself in these two typical cases. application scenarios. This is a remarkable event, which can be regarded as truly bringing TEE technology into the encryption track with great potential.

I lamented in the article two days ago: Sometimes the development of technology is really unexpected. The use scenario we longed for was A, but the use scenario where it really flourished was B.

TEE can also be considered a case.

Back to AI agents, its recent development can be described as rapid. Its development is not just a vision in my mind, but step by step it has turned my imagination into a living reality.