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I think computer benchmarks should compute something useful, like mersenne prime verification. Million of benchmarks are run every day mostly on newer device wi
by hutrdvnj 5y ago
I think computer benchmarks should compute something useful, like mersenne prime verification. Million of benchmarks are run every day mostly on newer device with decent computing power. This amounts to a large amount of currently unused cycles.
Maybe it would be possible to create a block-chain technology in which their participants calculate something scientifically meaningful.
- VMG 5y agoThis is a common misconception. In order for a Proof-of-Work algorithm to be useful, there must be an opportunity cost (penalty) to mining on the wrong chain. If the mining algorithm pays off anyway it cannot be used.
- rytill 5y agoWhat if it’s a public good that we generally believe everyone benefits from, like mathematics research? No individual would pay for it, but it’s still more valuable than random noise.
- rsj_hn 5y agoPatents allow mathematical research to be excludable and thus not a public good. Now one can argue that mathematical patents provide more costs than benefits, which is a line of debate I am certainly open to. End that, and math research would be a public good. But in the system we have now, a huge amount of mathematical research has generated a significant amount of money for very many people, from the RSA algorithm to Penrose patenting his tilings (and getting money from toilet paper makers that used his aperiodic tilings to make their TP more fluffy [1]) What I think you mean to say is that the market consistently undervalues mathematical research. Unfortunately it's not so easy to actually demonstrate, because given the huge amount of math research produced, only a very small amount of that ends up being useful in the future and often the original discoverer is long dead. This is similar to the situation with other arts and sciences. A small number of people drive the field forward and the vast majority of scientific publications are basically filler. Certainly the world would be better with more effective funding mechanisms that we have on offer, which is basically a game of capture-the-grant. [1]https://apnews.com/article/59354892d1875c277c91afd3fb5ca516 https://apnews.com/article/59354892d1875c277c91afd3fb5ca516
- yissp 5y agoUnless the miners themselves benefit from the work, there would still be an opportunity cost to them, no? If it happens to be useful to someone else that shouldn't matter, right?
- hutrdvnj 5y agoThe penalty is still there you pay the electric bill and it consumes time, but you would donate some cycles for useful scientific computational tasks without any benefit for yourself. If such an algorithm exist, then I don't see why this couldn't be used as Proof-of-Work algorithm.
- lordnacho 5y agoPoW works because showing a correctly mined block, ie one with a nonce that satisfies the many-initial-zeroes hash, proves that you on average (you can be short term lucky) have a used a certain amount of computing power. It proves it because with the selected algorithm, there's no known shortcut to just doing a load of hashes, so if you found one it means you did a lot of hashing. What problem would you insert instead that had the same properties? We should also not forget that it gets harder and harder for the same benefit. Any amount of energy can be poured into a PoW system. Invent fusion, use it all in crypto.
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- needanon 5y ago"Rent computational resource" could work with a verification of resource(s) step at the end of a set duration (block) and all of the computations performed using fully homomorphic encryption. If after the beginning of a block a random start time up to some max (~10 min) was selected for which the proving nodes would perform an operation to verify the resources were available and calculate the block hash instead of continuously burning, then at that starting time and for a set proving duration the verification algo would run and at the end the block would be distributed. Given the FHE was either running a paying program utilizing rented resources or the verification algo continuously, then it should not be possible to tell when the verification algo starts and stops. The non-FHE "gas" alternative that incentivizes performing program results to include in the hash has to have enough of an expected value that it would be prioritized over using the time to further calculate a minimal hash and the associated expected value for finding it without those gas incentivized transactions. The question is the FHE option more efficient than gas?
- fogof 5y agoWhether or not there's an opportunity cost does matter, but why should this mean that the mining algorithm "paying off anyway" mean it can't be used? If the mining algorithm has an independent payoff whether or not you mine on the main chain, then there's still the same opportunity cost of the mining rewards.
- VMG 5y agoNo, it is not the same opportunity cost. With a PoW that has "external rewards", the cost of attacking the chain falls in proportion to the external reward. You are correct that it does not fall to zero.
- shakna 5y agoOne of the first I heard of was Primecoin [0], which still seems to be going along steadily. They've actually uncovered a number of world records [1] looking for Cunningham Chains. [0] https://primecoin.io/ https://primecoin.io/ [1] https://primes.zone/#records https://primes.zone/#records
- em3rgent0rdr 5y agoStarted in 2013 as a fork from bitcoin. Current market capitalization is $4.4 million USD.
- david-gpu 5y agoA benchmark must always perform the exact same computation for the same reason that all tape measures must be the exact same length.
- hutrdvnj 5y agoMaybe it would be possible to design the scientifical computational tasks so that they are very similar in terms of stress for the CPU, but not completely even. You could then state that the benchmark offers comparable results with a statistical error of something like 2% +-0.5. You can also average the error by running the benchmark multiple times before you compare the score with other devices.
- kadoban 5y agoBy that point aren't you wasting as much computation time as you're trying to "save" by making it useful.
- hutrdvnj 5y agoI don't think so, because every single benchmark/computation would be scientifically useful, even if you run it multiple times.
- jsnell 5y agoIs Mersenne prime verification really scientifically useful? At this point, getting one more number verified seems about as useful as stamp collecting.
- mattashii 5y agoMersenne prime verification is useful for the science field of mathematics, where the results can be used to (in)validate theories and predictions of (Mersenne) Prime Numbers. Sure, it is a niche with little contact area with the rest of thr world, but so were Elliptic Curves (used in cryptography), Set Theory and Relational Algebra (both heavily used in relational DB technology).
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- Zababa 5y agoThese are not unused cycles, these are cycles used to benchmark devices. If you benchmark with mersenne prime verification, you'll know how fast mersenne prime verification is and that's it. Most people don't use their devices for mersenne prime verification.
- foobarbecue 5y agoThere has been a lot of work on "proof of useful work" coins. https://gridcoin.us/ https://gridcoin.us/ is the popular one. The benchmark idea doesn't work for the reasons other commenters raise.
- aaaaaaaaaaab 5y agoHow is Mersenne prime verification useful? It’s in the same league as calculating pi to ever more enormous numbers of decimals…
- fsflover 5y agoBoth of which are useful for verifying mathematical predictions.
- gweinberg 5y agoLike that the digits of pi look a lot like the output of a random number generator? I don't think that prediction is seriously in dispute.
- gjhiggins 5y agoIn case it’s of interest - Gapcoin’s [1] Proof of Work function arguably does useful work by searching for large prime gaps of record merit ... “As of December 2017, the largest known merit value and first with merit over 40, as discovered by the Gapcoin network, is 41.93878373 with the 87-digit prime 293703234068022590158723766104419463425709075574811762098588798217895728858676728143227. The prime gap between it and the next prime is 8350” [2] [1] https://gapcoin-project.github.io/ https://gapcoin-project.github.io/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_gap https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_gap
- toast0 5y agoBenchmarking really does need repeated inputs and outputs. Otherwise you can't make a meaningful comparison between the systems that ran the test. You can use these distributed computing projects for burn-in testing though. When you just want to run your computer hard to make sure it can manage N hours at 100%, and don't necessarily need to know how it compares to others, distributed computing can work (although, there's some risk of wrong results and therefore more work for the organizers if you're testing your system in extreme conditions, sometimes those lead to miscalculations)