PANews reported on January 6 that Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin proposed in an article about the d/acc concept released today to set up a global "soft pause button" to replace the dangerous artificial general intelligence (AGI) competition. The function of this button is to "reduce the global available computing power by about 90%-99% at a critical moment for 1-2 years, giving humans more time to prepare."

In response, a user commented: “I strongly disagree with the views of Vitalik Buterin and d/acc. It is a naive proposal to suspend 90%-99% of the world’s computing power for 1-2 years without the use of military force to enforce it (which obviously won’t happen). The chances of a gentle slowdown are slim.”

Vitalik then responded: “Yes, I agree that this is a difficult task, but almost all proposals for dealing with strong AI are difficult to some extent. I think the key idea in this proposal is that it is less difficult than other halting ideas because it is enforced at the hardware level, so key decisions are made before the high-risk period begins, and ‘betrayal’ requires making new hardware (rather than just flipping a few switches in secret), which requires months of preparation time.”

Earlier today, Vitalik said that many cryptographic technologies can be used in the d/acc subject area .