# AI verification proposal

A proposal built with the Proposal Explorer of the AI Verification Tech Map (https://trustbutveri.fyi/), from its records of 2026-10-09. Interactive version: https://trustbutveri.fyi/explorer/?mechanisms=M-0016,M-0007&implementations=M-0007:I-0004

How to read it: a claim is something one party wants to verify about another's AI hardware or software. A mechanism is a general technique for verifying claims; it is "aimed at" a claim when that is its direct purpose, and "supporting" when it contributes without being aimed at it. A claim is addressed when a mechanism in the proposal is aimed at it and is not excluded by the filters; addressed does not mean verified, so check that mechanism's development status, security evidence and findings. Definitions: https://trustbutveri.fyi/about/methodology/ (roles, properties and findings) and https://trustbutveri.fyi/about/readiness/ (development status).

## Filters

Filters apply to mechanisms only and describe the setting the proposal is for.

None set. Every mechanism on the map was available.

## Overview

One row per mechanism, read from its record. Open failures: critical / significant / minor. The last three columns are the editors' reading of what the verifier sees. Findings are grouped as known failures, scope limitations and open questions. Only known failures count as failures. Counts are an inventory of published findings, not a risk score.

| Mechanism | Development | Security evidence | Prover | Attack testing | Hardware | Open failures | Weights | Inputs and outputs | Training data |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Timed challenge-response and memory-occupation challenges | Research demonstration | Published security analysis | Adversarial | Analysis | None | 0 / 1 / 0 | not involved | not involved | not involved |
| Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting / Pearl proof-of-useful-work blockchain | Operational use | Published security analysis | Adversarial | Analysis | None | 0 / 0 / 1 | unspecified | unspecified | unspecified |

## Claims

No claims chosen.

## Mechanisms

### Timed challenge-response and memory-occupation challenges

A verifier times answers to unpredictable questions designed so that answering correctly and in time requires holding specified data locally or dedicating specified resources. ([Timed challenge-response and memory-occupation challenges](https://trustbutveri.fyi/mechanisms/timed-challenge-response/))

- Assessment: mechanism family.
- Development: Research demonstration (legacy code R2), assessed for detecting whether a GPU is doing other work.
- Security evidence: Published security analysis. Independent evaluation: unassessed. Formal proof: unassessed. Deployment assurance: unassessed.
- Claims in this proposal: none of them.
- Threat model: adversarial prover. Hardware: none. Prover cooperation: required. Attack testing: analysis. Category: Cryptographic & computational.
- What the verifier sees: model weights not involved; inputs and outputs not involved; training data not involved. Uses verifier-chosen challenges; it does not handle model data.

### Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting

A blockchain whose mining is designed to be a by-product of GPU matrix multiplications in AI workloads, with public node and miner code. ([Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting](https://trustbutveri.fyi/mechanisms/proofs-of-useful-work/))

- Assessment: selected implementation [Pearl proof-of-useful-work blockchain](https://trustbutveri.fyi/implementations/pearl-proof-of-useful-work/).
- Development: Operational use (legacy code R3), assessed for checking matrix-multiplication work proofs for blockchain consensus.
- Security evidence: Published security analysis. Independent evaluation: unassessed. Formal proof: unassessed. Deployment assurance: unassessed.
- Claims in this proposal: none of them.
- Threat model: adversarial prover. Hardware: none. Prover cooperation: required. Attack testing: analysis. Category: Cryptographic & computational.
- What the verifier sees: model weights unspecified; inputs and outputs unspecified; training data unspecified. This Explorer has no asset-specific exposure assessment for this implementation. Check its source and deployment assumptions.


## Properties

**Operational use**

- Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting: Operational use (legacy code R3), assessed for checking matrix-multiplication work proofs for blockchain consensus

**Built for an adversarial prover**

- Timed challenge-response and memory-occupation challenges
- Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting

**No new hardware needed**

- Timed challenge-response and memory-occupation challenges
- Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting


## Attack testing

Attack testing records published testing for this use. It does not by itself show independent review, a formal proof or that a deployed system is secure.

**Testing history**

- Timed challenge-response and memory-occupation challenges: Analysis
- Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting / Pearl proof-of-useful-work blockchain: Analysis


## Limits

**Open significant failures**

- Remote memory narrows the timing margin (known failure, theoretical argument, in Timed challenge-response and memory-occupation challenges; https://trustbutveri.fyi/mechanisms/timed-challenge-response/evidence/flaws/2/) [1]. Data-centre remote memory access returns in about 1–2 µs, against about 70–200 ns for local DRAM. The MIRI overview says verification of memory saturation depends on ruling out remote access by latency or physical disconnection. It names pre-staging data into local memory as the remaining evasion and proposes an unpredictable, capacity-filling challenge to close it.

  Related mechanism: Bandwidth limits and compartmentalization (R2, not in the proposal). Physical disconnection is proposed to exclude remote memory between the separated groups during a challenge. It depends on the isolation boundary being enforced.

**Family finding context**

- Context for Pearl proof-of-useful-work blockchain. Findings from the mechanism family appear here as context. They apply to an implementation only when its own record lists them, under the conditions stated there. Proves that work was done, not that no capacity remains (scope limitation, theoretical argument, in Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting; https://trustbutveri.fyi/mechanisms/proofs-of-useful-work/evidence/flaws/1/) [16]. Proof-of-work accounting bounds unmonitored compute only relative to an estimate of what the actor has. Attestable states that the verifier "needs a credible estimate of the compute available" to the actor, and that a proof "cannot discover a datacenter that was never declared".

  Related mechanism: Chip registries and manufacturing records (R1, not in the proposal). A registry of chips is one basis for the estimate of available compute that the flaw's source says the verifier needs.

  Related mechanism: Remote detection of data centres (R1, not in the proposal). Looks for data centres that were never declared, which a proof cannot discover.
- Context for Pearl proof-of-useful-work blockchain. Findings from the mechanism family appear here as context. They apply to an implementation only when its own record lists them, under the conditions stated there. Security rests on new hardness assumptions (open question, open question, in Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting; https://trustbutveri.fyi/mechanisms/proofs-of-useful-work/evidence/flaws/2/) [12][14]. Komargodski and Weinstein base security on hardness assumptions about batches of low-rank random linear equations, and list PoUW "from more standard or well-studied assumptions" as an open problem. Pearl's floating-point variant introduces a further "quantized-subspace hardness" assumption.
- Context for Pearl proof-of-useful-work blockchain. Findings from the mechanism family appear here as context. They apply to an implementation only when its own record lists them, under the conditions stated there. Known shortcuts let a miner claim somewhat more work than it did (known failure, theoretical argument, in Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting; https://trustbutveri.fyi/mechanisms/proofs-of-useful-work/evidence/flaws/3/) [12]. Pearl's specification lists known mining speedups: crafted inputs, precision shortcuts, seed grinding, work reuse, and faster kernels or hardware. A policy check caps the summands a miner may skip at one-sixteenth of those in a tile. For capacity bounding, any gap between work proven and work possible leaves spare capacity.

**Open minor failures**

- Known mining speedups reduce work per proof (known failure, theoretical argument, in Pearl proof-of-useful-work blockchain; https://trustbutveri.fyi/implementations/pearl-proof-of-useful-work/evidence/flaws/1/) [12]. Pearl lists known speedups: crafted inputs, precision shortcuts, seed or commitment grinding, work reuse, and faster kernels or hardware. Its jackpot policy checks limit crafted inputs, and a policy check caps skippable summands at one-sixteenth of those in a tile. Pearl describes faster honest kernels or hardware as "not an attack on the protocol".

**Scope limitations**

- Verification does not check that mined matrices come from AI workloads (scope limitation, theoretical argument, in Pearl proof-of-useful-work blockchain; https://trustbutveri.fyi/implementations/pearl-proof-of-useful-work/evidence/flaws/3/) [14][15]. Miners choose their own matrices. Basu reports that Pearl's verification "does not check whether the matrices originate from an AI model", that random matrices pass it, and that Pearl's reference mining code generates uniformly random matrices, with vLLM inference as an option. String analysis suggests that the dominant third-party mining software contains no inference code. Basu also finds that a naive fixed-threshold check of matrix kurtosis is defeated, at negligible cost, by sampling clipped Gaussian matrices. Basu calls the gap "a design property" rather than a vulnerability. It does not affect the claim that work was performed, but it means the "useful" part of the work is not verified.

**Open questions**

- Error rates not quantified (open question, open question, in Timed challenge-response and memory-occupation challenges; https://trustbutveri.fyi/mechanisms/timed-challenge-response/evidence/flaws/3/) [3]. Monfared et al. show separable timing distributions. Their acceptance rule passes a GPU when its mean time per round stays at or below a chosen maximum, and an appendix outlines statistical tests for the proof-of-work puzzle. They leave hardware-specific threshold values to future work and report no false-positive or false-negative rates.
- Security rests on a new, informal hardness assumption (open question, open question, in Pearl proof-of-useful-work blockchain; https://trustbutveri.fyi/implementations/pearl-proof-of-useful-work/evidence/flaws/2/) [12][14]. The FP8 scheme relies on "Assumption 1 (Informal quantized-subspace hardness)": quantised products of noised matrices are assumed not to be substantially easier than generic ones. The integer construction it extends lists PoUW from more standard assumptions as an open problem.


## Possible additions

Mechanisms on the map, not in the proposal, that the records connect to an unaddressed or partly addressed claim, an open failure or a dependency. Pointers, not recommendations: each brings its own readiness level and findings, and none is claimed to close a failure.

- **Bandwidth limits and compartmentalization** (Research demonstration (legacy code R2), assessed for monitoring inter-node traffic with operator-run software on four GPUs)
  - Bears on the open significant failure "Remote memory narrows the timing margin" in Timed challenge-response and memory-occupation challenges. Physical disconnection is proposed to exclude remote memory between the separated groups during a challenge. It depends on the isolation boundary being enforced.
  - Timed challenge-response and memory-occupation challenges waits on it: Outside help, such as remote memory, must be excluded during challenges.
- **Deterministic and bit-exact inference** (Operational use (legacy code R3), assessed for reproducing open-model inference from receipts in Gensyn's information-market service)
  - Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting depends on it.


## Dependencies

**Missing prerequisites**

- Deterministic and bit-exact inference (Operational use (legacy code R3), assessed for reproducing open-model inference from receipts in Gensyn's information-market service), needed by Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting

**Blockers**

- Timed challenge-response and memory-occupation challenges: No network-level memory challenge across data-centre servers has been demonstrated. (adversarial validation) [1]
- Timed challenge-response and memory-occupation challenges: Challenges that fill memory displace workloads; filling a pod's volatile memory takes tens of minutes and SSDs take hours. (performance & compatibility) [1][3]
- Timed challenge-response and memory-occupation challenges: Outside help, such as remote memory, must be excluded during challenges. (coverage & hidden compute; waits on Bandwidth limits and compartmentalization) [1]
- Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting: Built for consensus rather than capacity bounding; verifying that declared hardware has no spare capacity would also need a credible compute estimate. (capacity bounds) [16]
- Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting: Performance figures are provider-reported, and the benchmark reports no baseline of the certified model without mining. (adversarial validation) [13]
- Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting: Bit-exact verification depends on reproducing GPU arithmetic deterministically. (performance & compatibility) [12]


## What the verifier sees

- Model weights: shown by none; depends on the design for none; hidden by none; not involved in Timed challenge-response and memory-occupation challenges; unspecified for Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting.
- Inputs and outputs: shown by none; depends on the design for none; hidden by none; not involved in Timed challenge-response and memory-occupation challenges; unspecified for Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting.
- Training data: shown by none; depends on the design for none; hidden by none; not involved in Timed challenge-response and memory-occupation challenges; unspecified for Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting.

## Implementations

- Timed challenge-response and memory-occupation challenges: [Data-centre memory challenging](https://trustbutveri.fyi/implementations/data-centre-memory-challenging/) (R1, proposed architecture); [GPU contention probes](https://trustbutveri.fyi/implementations/gpu-contention-probes/) (R2, research prototype); [Low-trust AI compute verification system overview](https://trustbutveri.fyi/implementations/low-trust-compute-verification-system-overview/) (R1, proposed architecture); [SAGE](https://trustbutveri.fyi/implementations/sage-gpu-attestation/) (R2, research prototype); [VRAM-residency challenge](https://trustbutveri.fyi/implementations/vram-residency-challenge/) (R2, research prototype)
- Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting: [Pearl proof-of-useful-work blockchain](https://trustbutveri.fyi/implementations/pearl-proof-of-useful-work/) (R3, open-source project)

## Sources

1. A System Overview for Near-Term, Low-Trust AI Compute Verification, N. Cankaya (2026). https://intelligence.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/A-system-overview-for-near-term-low-trust-AI-compute-verification.pdf
2. Verification Plan, R. Dean (2026). https://ai-2040.com/supplements/verification-plan
3. Timing and Memory Telemetry on GPUs for AI Governance, S. K. Monfared et al. (2026). https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.09369
4. SAGE: Software-based Attestation for GPU Execution, A. Ivanov et al. (2023). https://www.usenix.org/conference/atc23/presentation/ivanov
5. SWATT: SoftWare-based ATTestation for Embedded Devices, A. Seshadri et al. (2004). https://netsec.ethz.ch/publications/papers/swatt.pdf
6. Proofs of Space, S. Dziembowski et al. (2015). https://eprint.iacr.org/2013/796
7. Secure Code Update for Embedded Devices via Proofs of Secure Erasure, D. Perito & G. Tsudik (2010). https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-642-15497-3_39
8. Software-Based Memory Erasure with Relaxed Isolation Requirements, S. Bursuc et al. (2024). https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10664348/
9. On the Difficulty of Software-Based Attestation of Embedded Devices, C. Castelluccia et al. (2009). https://s3.eurecom.fr/docs/ccs09_Castelluccia.pdf
10. Refutation of "On the Difficulty of Software-Based Attestation of Embedded Devices", A. Perrig & L. van Doorn (2010). https://netsec.ethz.ch/publications/papers/perrig-ccs-refutation.pdf
11. pearl: Monorepo for the Pearl network, Pearl Research Labs (2026). https://github.com/pearl-research-labs/pearl
12. Pearl Floating Point Scheme Specification, Pearl Research Team (2026). https://pearlresearch.ai/Pearl_Whitepaper.pdf
13. Pearl INT Whitepaper, Pearl Research Labs (2026). https://pearlresearch.ai/research/int-whitepaper
14. Proofs of Useful Work from Arbitrary Matrix Multiplication, I. Komargodski & O. Weinstein (2025). https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.09971
15. The Usefulness Gap in Proof-of-Useful-Work: An Empirical Study of Pearl's cuPOW Protocol, A. Basu (2026). https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.04819
16. Pacing AI Requires Proof, Attestable (2026). https://attestable.com/blog/pacing-ai-requires-proof