Alex Shevchenko says he is excited about user-generated front ends and autonomous research agents, which he believes will deliver unprecedented advances in drug development and materials creation.
Shevchenko: Autonomous AI Agents and Blockchain Interoperability to Reshape Technology and Science
While today’s large language models (LLMs) have become “extremely” adept at language-related tasks, Alex Shevchenko, co-founder and CEO of Aurora Labs, said he is more “excited about the potential of helper agents for software, hardware and general engineering tasks.” Although the technology is “not quite there yet,” a confident Shevchenko said he is “highly betting on user-specific generated front-ends.”
In his written responses to questions from Bitcoin.com News, the CEO of Aurora Labs stated that the ongoing developments in the position of autonomous research agents lead him to believe that the world is on the verge of unprecedented advances in drug development and the creation of new materials. Additionally, Shevchenko, an expert in blockchain and high-performance computing, said he envisions a future where personal assistant artificial intelligence (AI) agents perform tasks and achieve complex goals without human supervision.
Meanwhile, the CEO of Aurora Labs acknowledges that the early portrayal of blockchain as an innovative technology that would ultimately disrupt traditional industries may have contributed to the backlash against the technology that continues today. However, he believes that the transparency of the technology – one of the key features of blockchain – poses a challenge for organizations and governments that are not used to scrutiny, hence their continued opposition to the technology.
In the rest of his answers, Shevchenko also discussed the challenges associated with enabling interoperability between blockchains. Below you will find all his answers to the questions sent.
Bitcoin.com News (BCN): One of the reasons blockchain technology initially gained momentum was because it was seen as revolutionary, causing traditional financial institutions to feel threatened. In retrospect, do you think the early positioning of blockchain technology as disruptive and revolutionary led Web2 companies to view it in a negative light?
Alex Shevchenko (AS): Absolute. Not only this, but also the early applications of the technology: value transfers in dark markets. However, people quickly realized that crypto is the worst possible way to transact anonymously because all information is publicly accessible. And this transparency also kept non-financial institutions off the blockchain: the way many government agencies, pharmaceutical companies, and many other businesses used to operate was to keep everything closed behind many doors. Blockchain exposes all processes, which often makes stakeholders in such traditionally closed environments feel uncomfortable.
BCN: Enabling blockchain interoperability poses significant security challenges. Interoperability solutions are vulnerable to hacking, with many cybercriminals exploiting weaknesses in protocols. What do you think contributes to these vulnerabilities, and how can the industry mitigate them?
IF: We live in a multi-blockchain world and it’s clear that this reality isn’t going to change anytime soon. As new solutions emerge and others disappear, significant value flows naturally between blockchains. That’s why interoperability solutions typically involve huge amounts of assets. For example, Rainbow Bridge, launched and successfully operated by Aurora Labs for four years without a single hack, had over $1.5 billion in highly liquid assets (stables, ETH WBTC) on its contracts during the peak of the bull market of 2021. This is not something college students are prepared for. And graduates are the medium persona of the industry. Simply put, we’ve grown too much, too fast, so security mismanagement is just the growth problem.
Our recipe is to introduce as many layers of security as possible, which exponentially reduces the chance of production accidents. These layers are: security best practices education for engineers, automated testing agents, rigorous code review, pre-merge access to the codebase for audit firms, multi-party security audits before major releases, beta testing with integration developers, gradual rollout of features, constant monitoring of shortcomings, bug bounties and in some cases insurance.
BCN: There are numerous stories floating around these days about artificial intelligence (AI) agents. What exciting developments in AI do you think deserve more attention?
IF: LLMs are extremely good at language-related tasks because they are built specifically for this purpose. So the majority of “wow” use cases revolve around text analysis and generation. However, other types of models are emerging, and LLMs themselves are becoming increasingly capable in areas beyond language. I’m really excited about the possibilities of helper agents for software, hardware, and general engineering tasks. We’re not quite there yet, but I’m investing a lot in user-specifically generated front-ends. In addition, there is a lot of development in the field of autonomous research agents – tools that can create new materials or medicines and optimize processes and structures much faster than humans. These powerful cutting-edge tools have the potential to dramatically accelerate scientific progress.
BCN: Do you think AI agents (fully autonomous AI bots) will be able to work together to achieve complex goals without human supervision?
IF: Sooner or later, yes. I can easily imagine a world where a personal assistant AI agent could perform tasks such as finding help in opening a bank account and closing a deal with another specialized AI agent for this work. The human input can be as simple as setting a goal like: “Make my life easier in this new country I just moved to.”
BCN: Aurora would be a network of virtual chains on the Near Protocol. Can you explain to our readers what these virtual chains are and how they open the doors to a multichain world?
IF: Virtual Chains is a concept similar to L2s, but with a twist. They can intersect with each other and the parent chain infrastructure. This feature addresses the cold start problem typical of L2s – where a newly launched L2 lacks critical infrastructure. With Virtual Chains you have all the infrastructure you need, such as RPCs, indexers, custodians, oracles, bridges, message passing protocols, stablecoins, CEX integrations, the DeFi ecosystem, launch pads, NFT marketplaces, explorers, cross-chain primitives, gas abstraction and much more. -many others-is available from the first block.
Where setting up infrastructure for L2s often takes months (if not years) and costs tens of millions of US dollars in CapEx and millions per year in OpEx; Virtual chains achieve this at no cost. This dramatically lowers the barrier for new use cases, enabling projects that previously couldn’t afford L2 or the even higher L1 costs. I expect many great ideas will be generated and tested rapidly in 2025 – hundreds, if not thousands.
BCN: Aurora developed the Bitcoin Light Client and Relayer service, which enables interactions between the Bitcoin network and the NEAR protocol. As developer activity in the Bitcoin DeFi and Web3 ecosystem increases, what does Aurora’s efforts to connect Bitcoin and NEAR Protocol mean for Web3 builders and users?
IF: Bitcoin has always been a cornerstone of the blockchain ecosystem and until now there have been no ways to incorporate this asset into DeFi – simply because the Bitcoin script is just too poor compared to the EVM capabilities. However, new technologies such as Chain Signatures, innovated by the Near Protocol, made it possible to build truly decentralized and permissionless solutions that bridge Bitcoin to other blockchain ecosystems.
With Bitcoin Light Client we can expect two major types of projects on Near. The first is aimed at harnessing the value of BTC in DeFi projects (bridging and swapping, using BTC as collateral, etc.) and building next-generation L2-like solutions on top of Bitcoin. And since our technology stack is connected not only to Bitcoin but also to other networks, Aurora and Near become the enablers of BTC usage in all other ecosystems.
BCN: Considering how the Internet has evolved, from Web1 to Web2, how long do you think it would take for the majority of regular Internet users to become familiar with Web3?
IF: I believe that within the next five years, 80% of the world’s population will have some level of exposure (perhaps indirectly) to crypto assets. This does not mean that these people will have their basic sentences – a relic of the technical past. But new forms of self-custody (keys for example) would result in the adoption of digital cash. We’ll forget the underlying infrastructure, such as whether an app runs on Solana, Aurora, or Near, just as we won’t know which cloud provider is used by a given website. The focus will shift from infrastructure to the products themselves. And communities will emerge around products, not platforms. The blockchain is an unstoppable revolution.