Liberman Brothers on the Coming Revolution in AI: From Centralized Monopolies to a Sovereign Future

Serial entrepreneurs the Liberman brothers, famous for selling Snapchat for $64 million, have returned to the forefront of the tech battle with an unexpected warning. Amid massive investments in OpenAI and other AI giants, the Libermans take a radical stance: without decentralizing computing power, humanity risks becoming “digital serfs” within algorithmic monopolies. Their startup Gonka—a decentralized AI computing network—embodies this philosophy in reality.

The Productivity Paradox: When Everyone Gets a Digital Twin

The Libermans’ central forecast sounds almost apocalyptic: Earth will host 10 billion robots. This isn’t just an increase in production capacity—it’s a fundamental transformation of the nature of work.

“Over the last century, human productivity has doubled approximately every 30 years,” notes one of the brothers. But with the development of embodied AI, this growth curve will break. In the future, each person will not just have an assistant but a full digital twin working 24/7 without fatigue.

For programmers, this means a robot synchronized with their thinking logic capable of coding in real time. For designers, an instrument that instantly continues their creative vision. For scientists, a researcher working simultaneously on multiple hypotheses. This isn’t just a technological breakthrough but a four- or even tenfold multiplication of humanity as a productive unit.

The consequences are radical: existing wage systems, social security, and resource distribution will face hyperproduction. Classical theories of value will collapse in an era where each individual has the equivalent of 10 workers.

A New Form of Digital Dependency: How Giants Control Access to AI

However, the Libermans are less concerned with productivity itself than with ownership over it. They remember well how iOS and Android captured distribution through the App Store during the mobile internet era. Today, the ambitions of tech giants stretch far beyond.

The scenario envisioned by the Libermans is a “generative monopoly”:

The death of the traditional App Store. When AI can create fully functional applications in milliseconds in response to user requests, app stores will become obsolete. Instead, users will directly access AI services. This means companies like OpenAI and Google will sever all ties between independent developers and end-users.

Concentration of power among five players. OpenAI, xAI, Gemini, Meta, and Anthropic—these five are seen by the Libermans as controlling the logic of the digital world. If these companies determine every line of code a user sees, it effectively grants them divine authority in the digital space.

Shadow influence of capital. Behind these giants stand mega-investors like BlackRock. When capital-intensive infrastructure is controlled by a few companies backed by financial conglomerates, discussions of “open source” and “financial inclusion” become mere marketing.

Gonka: From Centralized Skyscrapers to Open Computing Highways

Faced with the prospect of algorithmic totalitarianism, the Libermans chose to build an alternative rather than criticize. The result is Gonka—a project rethinking the architecture of AI infrastructure itself.

“Centralized AI builds impressive skyscrapers, but the world needs roads,” explains one of the brothers. The key idea: equal access for all to computing power.

Gonka offers a technical approach to reimagining existing resources. Bitcoin has enormous computational power, but most of it is used for “useless hashing.” Gonka’s decentralized protocol transforms this power into useful AI computations.

The innovation lies in a new consensus mechanism—Proof of Compute. Instead of idling in standby, miners perform AI tasks and are rewarded for correctly completing computations in minimal time. The effect: the cost of renting GPU power like H100 drops by orders of magnitude compared to cloud services like AWS.

Gonka’s growth rate is impressive: in 100 days, computational capacity at the H100 level increased from 60 blocks to 10,000. This demonstrates the accumulated “computational hunger” of the blockchain ecosystem. Bitfury’s $50 million investment in Gonka further confirms that future AI infrastructure will inevitably be distributed, open, and globally accessible.

When the Bubble Bursts: Intellectual Infrastructure as Heritage

On the popular question of an “AI bubble,” the Libermans offer an original answer. They believe the current price disparity is driven by crazy premiums placed by giants on “future superprofits from monopoly.” When decentralized networks like Gonka significantly reduce computation costs, these premiums will vanish.

However, the parallel with the dot-com bubble burst in 2000 teaches an important lesson. After the crash, a network of fiber optic cables across the planet remained. According to the Libermans, even if the AI bubble bursts, the “intellectual infrastructure” it leaves behind will fuel the next leap of civilization.

Pioneers of decentralized computing channels will be those who first break through the ashes and rise on the wave of new growth.

Three Elements of Human Survival in the Robot Era

If robots become the main producers, what purpose remains for humanity? The Libermans, not only entrepreneurs but also applied philosophers, suggest two practical strategies.

First: abandon narrow specialization, master a unique combination of skills. A pure programmer will be easily replaced by AI. But a developer who is fluent in Russian literature, understands quantum physics, and has legal education will be invulnerable. Despite AI’s knowledge, it struggles to simulate truly interdisciplinary understanding born from human life experience and cultural heritage. This unique triad not only protects against replacement but also shapes the quality of questions you can ask AI (the essence of Prompt Engineering) and creates barriers to creative output.

Second: take on the role of “responsible person.” AI can compute but cannot bear responsibility for decisions. In future social contracts, execution will be a cheap good, while decision-making and approval will be costly. Those willing to assume responsibility for AI outputs will become central nodes in future collaborative systems.

Small Countries and Geostrategic Opportunities: How to Bypass Chip Sanctions

For regions outside US and China influence, the Libermans see a strategic opportunity for geostrategic reformatting. Participation in open protocols like Gonka offers small countries an alternative path to dependence on chip sanctions by major powers.

Localized deployment of computing power. Thanks to cheap electricity and their own ASIC chips, small countries can connect to the global decentralized network, becoming full participants rather than mere consumers.

Building a reputation for AI talent. Encouraging local developers to contribute to open licenses, developing ecosystems for AI services at a “national sovereignty” level—this is a way to create real value.

“The small countries don’t need to compete with the giants in the height of their skyscrapers; they just need to ensure that an open AI highway stretches right at their doorstep,” conclude the Libermans.

Conclusion: The Final Battle for Computing Sovereignty

The Libermans are not just running a commercial project—they are conducting a large-scale social experiment. Their conviction is simple: closed architecture and the monopolistic nature of current AI lead to a “digital Middle Ages” with new feudal lords and serfs. Decentralized AI, exemplified by projects like Gonka, is the last historic moment for ordinary people to preserve their sovereignty.

The story of 10 billion robots is just beginning. Just as Bitcoin proved the possibility of sovereign money without a central bank, the Libermans aim to demonstrate that the most powerful human productivity tools should not be locked away in corporate skyscraper basements. They should flow freely to the fingertips of every person who retains the will for freedom.

Disclaimer: This material is based on recent interviews with the Libermans and their key positions regarding the Gonka protocol and is not investment advice. As an evolving infrastructure, Gonka faces risks related to technological iteration and market volatility; participants are advised to maintain critical thinking.