Bylines, paper authorship, correspondence addresses and the founder blurb under
each post named an individual. They name the organisation that published the
work instead: the brand on posts and pages, the research byline on papers, and
research@ in place of a personal address. Both are what these repositories
already used elsewhere — nothing new was coined.
Co-authors are untouched. Where a paper named someone else alongside, they stay
named; only the one byline changed. Bibliography entries, running heads,
PDF metadata and affiliations move with it, so a citation still resolves to
whoever the cited paper names.
Sample and fixture data uses the placeholder name these tests already use
elsewhere, so no assertion changed meaning.
Co-authored-by: Hanzo Dev <[email protected]>
This proposal specifies the Decentralized Semantic Optimization (DSO) protocol, the distributed counterpart to ASO (ZIP-0409). DSO enables geographically dispersed nodes to collaboratively improve shared AI models by exchanging semantic gradients -- compressed, privacy-protected representations of local learning signals -- rather than raw data or full parameter updates. The protocol guarantees differential privacy at configurable (epsilon, delta) budgets, employs Byzantine-robust aggregation, and records all training contributions on an immutable ledger for provenance and royalty distribution. DSO is the foundational training protocol for all Zoo AI systems.
Motivation
ASO (ZIP-0409) optimizes what a model learns; DSO optimizes how multiple parties collaborate on learning without compromising data privacy. This is critical because:
Privacy: Conservation organizations cannot share sensitive wildlife data (endangered species locations, poaching coordinates) without risking exposure
Data sovereignty: Data collected on indigenous lands or within national parks is subject to legal restrictions prohibiting export
Compute democratization: DSO enables small conservation groups to contribute to model training using their own hardware (ZIP-0407)
Attribution: Every training contribution is recorded on-chain, enabling fair credit and royalty distribution
Specification
System Architecture
+------------------+ +------------------+ +------------------+
| DSO Node A | | DSO Node B | | DSO Node C |
| (Camera Traps) | | (Acoustic Data) | | (Satellite Imgs) |
| | | | | |
| Local Data Store | | Local Data Store | | Local Data Store |
| Local Trainer | | Local Trainer | | Local Trainer |
| Gradient Encoder | | Gradient Encoder | | Gradient Encoder |
+--------+---------+ +--------+---------+ +--------+---------+
| | |
| Semantic Gradients | Semantic Gradients |
| (encrypted, compressed) | (encrypted, compressed) |
v v v
+------------------------------------------------------------------+
| DSO Aggregation Layer |
| Byzantine-robust aggregation + differential privacy enforcement |
+------------------------------------------------------------------+
|
v
+------------------+
| Updated Model |
| (IPFS checkpoint)|
| (on-chain CID) |
+------------------+
Semantic Gradient Protocol
Local training: Each node trains on its local data for K steps
Gradient encoding: Full gradients are compressed into semantic gradients via:
Low-rank decomposition (rank r << model dimension)
Quantization to 4-bit representation
Differential privacy noise injection (calibrated to target epsilon)
Transmission: Encoded gradients are sent to the aggregation layer
Aggregation: Geometric median aggregation (Byzantine-robust)
Model update: Aggregated gradient applied to global model
Privacy Guarantees
Each round satisfies (epsilon, delta)-differential privacy
Privacy budget is tracked cumulatively across rounds
Nodes can set their own privacy level (stricter = more noise = less contribution weight)
Composition theorem bounds total privacy loss over T rounds
Contribution Tracking
Every gradient submission is recorded on-chain:
ContributionRecord {
node_id: DID
round: uint64
gradient_cid: CID // IPFS hash of semantic gradient
data_summary: Hash // commitment to local data statistics
compute_proof: Proof // verifiable compute attestation
privacy_budget_used: float
timestamp: uint64
}