Enhancing Trust in AI Marketplaces: Evaluating On-Chain Verification of Personalized AI models using zk-SNARKs

The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) has brought about sophisticated models capable of various tasks ranging from image recognition to natural language processing. As these models continue to grow in complexity, ensuring their trustworthiness and transparency becomes critical, particularly in decentralized environments where traditional trust mechanisms are absent. This paper addresses the challenge of verifying personalized AI models in such environments, focusing on their integrity and privacy. We propose a novel framework that integrates zero-knowledge succinct non-interactive arguments of knowledge (zk-SNARKs) with Chainlink decentralized oracles to verify AI model performance claims on blockchain platforms. Our key contribution lies in integrating zk-SNARKs with Chainlink oracles to securely fetch and verify external data to enable trustless verification of AI models on a blockchain. Our approach addresses the limitations of using unverified external data for AI verification on the blockchain while preserving sensitive information of AI models and enhancing transparency. We demonstrate our methodology with a linear regression model predicting Bitcoin prices using on-chain data verified on the Sepolia testnet. Our results indicate the framework's efficacy, with key metrics including proof generation taking an average of 233.63 seconds and verification time of 61.50 seconds. This research paves the way for transparent and trustless verification processes in blockchain-enabled AI ecosystems, addressing key challenges such as model integrity and model privacy protection. The proposed framework, while exemplified with linear regression, is designed for broader applicability across more complex AI models, setting the stage for future advancements in transparent AI verification.