Alex Shevchenko says he’s excited about user-generated front ends and autonomous research agents, which he believes will drive unprecedented progress in drug development and materials creation.
Shevchenko: Autonomous AI agents and blockchain interoperability to reshape technology and science
While today’s large language models (LLMS) have become “extremely” proficient at language-related tasks, Alex Shevchenko, co-founder and CEO of Aurora Labs, said he is more “excited about the potential of helper agents for software, hardware and general engineering tasks.” While the technology is “not quite there yet,” a confident Shevchenko said he’s placing a “high bet on user-specific generated front ends.”
In his written responses to questions from Bitcoin.com News, the CEO of Aurora Labs stated that continued developments in the position of autonomous research agents lead him to believe that the world is on the verge of unprecedented progress in drug development and the creation of new materials . Additionally, Shevchenko, a blockchain and high-performance computing expert, said he envisions a future where personal artificial intelligence (AI) agents perform tasks and achieve complex goals without human supervision.
Meanwhile, the CEO of Aurora Labs acknowledges that blockchain’s early portrayal as an innovative technology that would ultimately disrupt traditional industries may have contributed to the resistance to the technology that persists today. However, he believes that the transparency of the technology – one of Blockchain’s core features – is a challenge for organizations and governments that are not used to being scrutinized, hence their continued opposition to the technology.
In the rest of his answers, Shevchenko also discussed the challenges associated with enabling interoperability between blockchains. Below are all his answers to the questions sent.
Bitcoin.com News (BCN): One of the reasons Blockchain technology initially gained traction was because it was seen as revolutionary, leaving traditional financial institutions feeling threatened. With the benefit of hindsight, do you think the early positioning of blockchain technology as disruptive and revolutionized Web2 companies view it in a negative light?
Alex Shevchenko (axis): Absolute. Not only this, but also the early applications of the technology – value transfers in dark markets. However, people quickly realized that Crypto is the worst possible way to transact anonymously because all information is publicly accessible. And this transparency also repelled non-financial institutions from the blockchain: the way government agencies, pharmaceutical companies, and many other businesses worked—was to keep everything closed behind many doors. Blockchain exposes all processes, often making stakeholders uncomfortable in such traditionally closed environments.
BCN: Enabling blockchain interoperability poses significant security challenges. Interoperability solutions have been vulnerable to hacking, with many cybercriminals exploiting weaknesses in protocols. What do you think contributes to these vulnerabilities, and how can the industry reduce them?
IF: We live in a multi-blockchain world and it is clear that this reality is not changing anytime soon. As new solutions emerge and others fade, significant value naturally flows between blockchains. Therefore, interoperability solutions usually contain huge amounts of assets. Rainbow Bridge, launched and successfully operated by Aurora Labs for 4 years without a single hack, held over $1.5 billion in highly liquid assets (Stables, ETH WBTC) on its contracts during the peak of the 2021 Bull market This is not something college grads are prepared for. And college degrees are the medium persona of the industry. Simply put, we’ve grown too much too fast, so security mismanagement is just the growth problem.
Our recipe is to introduce as many layers of security as possible, which exponentially reduces the chance of production numbers. These layers are: Security Best Practices Education for Engineers, Automated Test Agents, Rigorous Code Provisioning, Pre-Merge Codebase Access for Auditing Firms, Multi-Party Security Audits Before Major Releases, Beta Testing with Devs Integration, Gradual Features Role, Gradual Features Role, Constant Shortcomings monitoring, bug bounties and in some cases insurance.
BCN: Countless stories surround artificial intelligence (AI) today. What exciting developments in AI do you think deserve more attention?
IF: LLMs are extremely good at language-related tasks because they are built specifically for this purpose. So most ‘wow’ use cases revolve around text analysis and generation. However, other types of models are emerging and LLMS themselves are becoming more capable in areas outside of language. I’m very excited about the potential of helper agents for software, hardware, and general engineering tasks. We’re not quite there yet, but I’m placing a high bet on user-specific generated front-ends. In addition, there is a lot of development in the field of autonomous research agents – tools capable of creating new materials or drugs and optimizing processes and structures much faster than humans. These powerful cutting-edge tools can dramatically accelerate scientific progress.
BCN: Do you think AI agents (fully autonomous AI bots) can work together to achieve complex goals without human supervision?
IF: Sooner or later, yes. It’s easy for me to imagine a world where a personal assistant AI agent can tackle tasks like finding help to open a bank account and making a deal with another specialized AI agent for this piece work. The human input can be as simple as setting a goal like, “Make my life easier in this new country I just moved to.”
BCN: Aurora would be a network of virtual chains on the near protocol. Can you explain to our readers what these virtual chains are and how do you open the doors to a multichain world?
IF: Virtual Chains is a concept similar to L2S but with a twist. They can focus on each other and the infrastructure of the mother chain. This feature addresses the cold start problem typical of L2S – where a newly launched L2 lacks critical infrastructure. With virtual chains, all the infrastructure you need – like RPCs, indexers, custodians, oracles, bridges, message passing protocols, stableCoins, CEX integrations, defi ecosystem, launch pads, NFT marketplaces, explorations, explorations, cross -chain primitives, gas basis, gas consumptions, gas consumptions, gas basis, gas consumptions, gas basis, gas basis, gas consumptions, gas basis, gas consumptions, gas base, gas base, gas base, gas base, gas base and many -Many others -is available directly from the first block.
Where infrastructure setup for L2S often takes months (if not years) and costs tens of millions of US dollars in capex and millions per year in Opex; Virtual chains achieve this at zero cost. This dramatically lowers the barrier to new use cases, enabling projects that could not previously afford L2 or the even larger L1 costs. I expect many great ideas to be generated and tested rapidly in 2025 – hundreds, if not thousands.
BCN: Aurora has developed the Bitcoin Light Client and Relayer Service, allowing interactions between the Bitcoin network and near protocol. With growing developer activity in the Bitcoin Defi and Web3 ecosystem, what does Aurora’s efforts to connect Bitcoin and almost protocol mean for Web3 builders and users?
IF: Bitcoin has always been a cornerstone of the blockchain ecosystem and until now there have been no ways to incorporate this asset into Defi – simply because Bitcoin script is just too poor compared to the EVM capabilities. However, new technologies such as chain signatures, innovated by the Near Protocol, made it possible to build truly decentralized and permissionless solutions that bridge Bitcoin to other blockchain ecosystems.
With Bitcoin Light client we can expect two main types of projects nearby. The first is focused on using BTC value in DEFI projects (bridging and swapping, using BTC as collateral, etc.) and building next-generation L2-style solutions on top of Bitcoin. And because our technology stack is connected not only to Bitcoin, but also to other networks, Aurora and almost the possibilities of using BTC in all other ecosystems.
BCN: Given how the Internet has evolved, from Web1 to Web2, how long do you think it would take the majority of regular Internet users to become familiar with Web3?
IF: I believe that within the next five years, 80% of the world’s population will have some level of exposure (perhaps indirectly) to crypto assets. This does not mean that these people will have their seed senses – a remnant of the Techie past. But new forms of self-peddling (e.g. Passkeys) would lead to digital cash acceptance. We will forget the underlying infrastructure, such as whether an app runs on Solana or Aurora or close, in the same way that we don’t know which cloud provider is used by a given website. The focus will shift from infrastructure to the products themselves. And communities will form around products, not platforms. The blockchain is an unstoppable revolution.
Credit : cryptonews.net
