Arweave推出的并行计算机方案AO有哪些值得关注的细节?
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2024-02-29 07:00
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AO实际上是一个开放和灵活的数据协议,用于在Arweave的协议上存储计算日志,它不是一个永久的账本,也不是一个网络本身。

The Arweave team, after much anticipation, finally announced the launch of a parallel computing solution called AO during the press conference. They have been working on it for a year, from conception to development, but its earliest history can be traced back to Arweave's SmartWeave, a permanent storage-based smart contract solution proposed four years ago. The choice of these technological solutions is quite different from Ethereum or other Ethereum-like networks: Ethereum started with a Turing-complete virtual machine and gradually expanded its territory, while Arweave started with a network that provides permanent storage and gradually added computing power.

There are too many technical topics worth comparing and exploring in detail, and the Arweave team is unlikely to explain all the technical highlights and ideas in just over an hour. After watching the press conference here, I have compiled these questions and topics worth paying attention to.

What is AO?

AO is a super parallel computer, a decentralized computing environment that allows for the simultaneous parallel execution of any number of processes. Compared to previous decentralized computing systems, AO not only enables large-scale computing but also verifiable computing. The core of AO lies in its ability to not only increase the number of verifiable computations but also achieve verifiable computations at any scale, by building three different subnetworks and using Arweave as the base layer, thus achieving high parallel processing power and scalability.

Why is it named AO?

It is named after the concept of "Actor Oriented," abbreviated as AO.

The Actor Model is a concurrency model in computer science used for designing and implementing distributed systems, where the basic unit is an "Actor". Actor-oriented design or programming refers to the use of the Actor model as a foundation for design or programming. This approach is suitable for building highly concurrent, distributed, and fault-tolerant systems.

Sam Williams, the founder of Arweave, believes that AO is a programming paradigm completely different from smart contract systems, and it is basically the best solution for all distributed systems and the Web2 era.

An example given by GPT 4: it can be likened to actors in a theatrical performance. In a play, each actor plays a role and acts independently, interacting with other actors through dialogue (messages). However, they do not share each other's internal states (private states). Each actor can only react by observing the behavior (received messages) of other actors.

Here's an interesting tidbit: The paper that proposed the Actor Model in 1973 was titled "A Universal Modular Actor Formalism for Artificial Intelligence". It was originally introduced for studying artificial intelligence.

What are the components of AO?

AO consists of three subnets, namely the Messenger Unit (MU), Scheduler Unit (SU), and Compute Unit (CU). MU is responsible for receiving and processing messages; SU is used for scheduling and ordering messages; CU is used for computation.

What is the relationship between AO and Arweave?

"AO is actually an open and flexible data protocol for storing computational logs on the Arweave protocol. It is not a permanent ledger or a network itself."

AO, as a decentralized computing environment, utilizes Arweave's scalable on-chain storage as its permanent host for storing data during runtime. AO allows for the execution of multiple parallel processes and coordination through message passing, similar to how computers in data centers and on the internet collaborate by sending data packets.

In short, AO is built on top of the foundational layer of Arweave, utilizing the on-chain storage provided by Arweave to meet the persistent storage needs of its decentralized computing environment.

What is the relationship between AOS and AO? What is Lua programming language?

AO is the architecture of a parallel computer, while AOS is a specific operating system based on this parallel computing scheme. Developers can use the Lua language to develop applications (write smart contracts) in AOS.

Lua is an easy-to-learn high-level programming language that is very concise and user-friendly. Interestingly, I wrote some scripts in Lua about 4 years ago, and it truly is a programming language that is easy to pick up. Although I had no prior experience with Lua at that time, I needed to use the automation tool HammerSpoon to implement some functions for retrieving prices and information. I was able to accomplish it in just a few days. It would be even easier with the help of GPT.

What are the applications of AO?

Currently, the community has developed two applications, a decentralized exchange called Bark and a decentralized stablecoin protocol called astro, which can be compared to Uniswap and MakerDAO. Bark has already launched on the testnet, while astro will be made public later.

Outprog, the founder of EverVision, also appeared at the event and was frequently mentioned by Sam. The decentralized trading platform they developed, Permaswap, was established much earlier than AO and will have the opportunity to further develop and expand under AO's architecture.

Will AO be updated quickly?

Sam stated that future updates will only require low-frequency, Bitcoin-style updates. Over time, the core functionality and rights of users will undergo minor upgrades while remaining unchanged. There is no "trust me, brother" roadmap here. Only a complete and transparent protocol that you can audit and decide whether to use it yourself.

Does AO have its own token?

This part of the information has not been made public yet.

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