AO - The cornerstone of autonomous intelligent agent activities

What is this?

AO is a participant-oriented computing layer built on Arweave. In short, AO enables trust-minimized parallel computing.

Why is this important?

Blockchains are typically executed sequentially, meaning one execution thread must be processed before the next one. Users are in a global queue, waiting for block space determined by Gas.

Everyone shares the execution thread; when I occupy block space, I prevent others from using the execution thread. This is not only slow but also means that the size of block space is crucial… and the smaller, the better, because the demand for block space is high. The end result of limiting smart contract size is that smart contracts do not perform complex computations.

How is this different in AO?

AO uses a holographic state system: many computational processes run simultaneously without requiring every node to reach consensus on the current state, achieving infinite scalability!

The execution threads are not one but n threads determined by the amount of computation.

How does AO achieve this parallelization?

Like blockchains, AO is based on deterministic execution— the same input and function always produce the same output. But AO takes a different approach to achieve consensus.

Unlike blockchains where each node executes every transaction (poor scalability) to reach consensus on the global state, AO allows different nodes to execute different parts of the computation in parallel (good scalability) to collaboratively build the global state. How does it get away with this?

This is where Arweave comes into play. Every computational process on AO is stored as a permanent, verifiable log on the Arweave network. They only need to check if the recorded steps are valid, and each node does not need to execute every computation.

This allows for massive parallelization. Nodes can "divide and conquer" the computational work and use the permanent logs on Arweave for verification. There is no longer a limit on how many computations each node can execute!

With n execution threads, an infinite number of processes can be executed in parallel. AO is made possible by Arweave's permanent storage.

What excites us?

These unique features of AO—scalable parallel processing, permanent storage on Arweave, and the ability to support complex, long-running computations—can provide some truly powerful use cases for Autonomous AI Agents.

Imagine… Autonomous AI Agents powered by AO can continuously learn and adapt based on new data. They can handle large datasets, train models, fine-tune models, and then make decisions in a decentralized, trustless manner.

AO-powered Autonomous AI Agents could explode in the DeFi space—processing real-time data, scanning addresses for alpha, trading, assessing risks, and managing portfolios. The scalability of AO allows many agents to operate in parallel, with each Autonomous AI Agent focusing on a specific chain.

AO-powered Autonomous AI Agents can drive large-scale, permanently stored blockchain games—controlling NPCs, managing economic models, and adjusting environments based on player behavior. The scalability of AO enables rich, immersive, customized experiences.

Goodbye, expensive congested Gas; hello, computational liquidity.

For more information about the architecture, please visit: https://ao.arweave.dev/#/spec