“Swarm Learning” ???

Recently, Gregorio has been pushing this for medical research. See “Swarm Learning, the Crypto-powered AI revolution that is kicking Cancer’s ass”.

As he defines it, this starts with Federating Learning. “an AI technique in which multiple AI models are trained independently on separate computers” and “Under FL, computers do not share any information with each other, being model weights the only known information shared, allowing for a delocalized treatment of data. However, a central coordinator monopolizes control and commercial exploitation by controlling the learning process of all models.”

He goes on to say “Thus, this is an entirely trust-based model where researchers, all of which are trying to make their particular breakthrough, have to collaborate while trusting all other actors will be fair, creating a skeptical-prone environment that disincentivizes collaboration between research teams . Now, get this federated model, put it on top of a blockchain, and you have the definitive collaboration method, Swarm Learning.”

This putting of the “federated model on top of a blockchain” is meaningless. He is using blockchain as a mantra, a chanting of a magic spell, without a deeper understanding. What he is saying is that research team A collaborates with team B where each team has its own patients and data and they somehow use a blockchain to mediate between them without sharing the underlying data. Team A would put some data on that blockchain. Team B uses that data. Team B puts some of its data on the blockchain and team…