The 4hr Marathon Pace of AI: How Decentralized Networks Are Racing Against Centralized Monopolies

The artificial intelligence industry is moving at breakneck speed—what the Liberman brothers, legendary Silicon Valley entrepreneurs behind Gonka.ai, call a “4hr marathon pace.” Unlike traditional software development cycles measured in quarters, AI infrastructure battles are being won and lost at velocities that would have seemed impossible just years ago. In this hyper-accelerated landscape, the question isn’t merely about technological superiority—it’s about who controls the computing power that will shape humanity’s future, and whether that power remains accessible to the many or becomes locked away in the vaults of the few.

The Liberman brothers’ stark warning centers on a transformative moment: the imminent arrival of 10 billion robotic agents—digital and physical doppelgangers that will multiply human productivity exponentially. But this productivity explosion also creates an existential fork in the road. Without urgent decentralization of AI infrastructure, this era could crystallize into digital servitude, where a handful of tech monopolies dictate every line of code, every creative output, and ultimately, every thought.

The Paradox of Exponential Productivity: When Four Decades of Growth Happens in Four Hours

David Liberman points to a sobering historical fact: “Over the past century, human productivity roughly quadrupled every 30 years.” That pattern is about to collapse. With embodied AI reaching maturity, that 30-year cycle will compress dramatically—hence the 4hr marathon pace metaphor. The world will soon host approximately 10 billion robots, meaning each human will possess an AI-powered physical twin working tirelessly around the clock.

Imagine a software engineer with a robotic counterpart executing code 24/7, perfectly synchronized with their logic. Or a designer whose creative output is instantly multiplied by autonomous agents implementing every vision in real-time. This isn’t incremental innovation; it’s a fundamental restructuring of what “productivity” means as a species.

Yet this seemingly utopian scenario harbors a hidden catastrophe. Existing economic systems—wage distribution, labor markets, social security frameworks—were designed for scarcity, not this kind of extreme overproduction. When every person commands multiple productive entities, traditional value theories crumble. The Liberman brothers frame this not as mere technological progress, but as an existential crisis requiring immediate institutional adaptation.

The Monopoly Trap: Centralized AI’s Path to Digital Feudalism

The 4hr marathon pace means decisions made today will echo for decades. The tech giants—OpenAI, Google’s Gemini division, Meta, xAI, and Anthropic—are locked in a race to achieve what the Liberman brothers call “generative monopolies.” This is far more dangerous than previous tech dominance because AI doesn’t just distribute apps; it generates reality itself.

The Death of Choice: Traditional app stores will become obsolete. When AI can generate fully functional applications from user prompts in milliseconds, users won’t download apps—they’ll request services directly from AI systems. The giants controlling the most advanced models will completely sever connections between independent developers and end users. This isn’t competition; it’s enclosure.

The Concentration of Logic: Humanity faces a “five-way power structure” where five companies control the fundamental digital logic flowing through civilization. If these firms can define what code you execute, what information you receive, and ultimately what thoughts you can express, they become architects of human consciousness itself. This is a level of power concentration unprecedented in human history.

Capital’s Hidden Hand: Institutions like BlackRock don’t just invest in AI companies; they consolidate control across multiple infrastructure layers. The rhetoric around “open source” and “financial inclusion” becomes mere theater when capital-intensive AI infrastructure is controlled by a few mega-backed entities.

Gonka’s Counter-Narrative: Building the Highway Instead of the Skyscraper

Rather than theorize about alternatives, the Liberman brothers built one. Gonka.ai represents a fundamentally different philosophy: instead of constructing centralized “skyscrapers” of computational power, build distributed “highways” that anyone can access.

Gonka’s breakthrough lies in recognizing that the Bitcoin network possesses vast computing capacity currently “wasted” on proof-of-work hashing. Through a novel Proof of Compute consensus mechanism, this computational power can be redirected toward AI inference—radically reducing costs and democratizing access.

The Mechanics of Revolution: Miners no longer need to maintain expensive GPU operations running 24/7. Instead, they complete AI inference proofs in compressed timeframes and earn token rewards. This cost structure is orders of magnitude cheaper than centralized cloud providers like AWS. The result: GPU computing rental costs drop from premium to commodity.

Early Validation: In just 100 days after launch, Gonka’s H100-equivalent computing capacity surged from 60 units to over 10,000. This exponential growth—itself moving at something like a 4hr marathon pace—demonstrates that the blockchain industry’s long-suppressed “computing power anxiety” has found its release valve. Bitfury’s $50 million investment isn’t just capital; it’s institutional validation that distributed AI infrastructure is inevitable.

When the Bubble Bursts: Infrastructure as the Lasting Legacy

The current AI bubble—driven by giants discounting “future monopoly profits”—will eventually deflate. When decentralized networks like Gonka reduce AI computing costs by 50%, 70%, or 90%, the premium monopoly pricing models vanish overnight. The stock valuations built on scarcity assumptions will correct violently.

But here’s the brothers’ crucial insight: the burst won’t be apocalyptic. Just as the 2000 dot-com collapse left behind a global network of fiber optic cables that powered the next two decades of innovation, the AI bubble will leave behind distributed computing infrastructure. Whoever masters low-cost, globally-distributed AI compute channels first will emerge as the true winners when the fog clears.

Individual Sovereignty in an Age of Robots: Two Survival Strategies

If robots handle execution, what remains distinctly human? The Liberman brothers, who’ve built multiple companies at startup velocity, offer two survival strategies:

Strategy 1: Cultivate Irreplaceable Combinations. A pure programmer is easily replaced by AI. But a developer who speaks Russian literature fluently, understands quantum physics, and has deep legal expertise becomes uniquely valuable. AI models excel at narrow domains but struggle with the interdisciplinary cognition humans develop through lived experience and cultural immersion. This unique “trinity” determines the quality of questions you ask AI (the essence of advanced prompt engineering) and creates barriers to replicating your creative output.

Strategy 2: Own Decision-Making and Accountability. AI can execute brilliantly but cannot take responsibility. In future economic systems, “execution” becomes cheap commodity, while “decision-making” and “endorsement” become precious. Those willing to sign their name to AI outputs—accepting accountability for results—become central nodes in collaborative networks. They become the true value creators.

The Geopolitical Escape Hatch: Small Nations and the Decentralized Future

For nations outside the US-China axis facing chip export restrictions, Gonka and similar protocols offer an unexpected escape route. Rather than competing on the height of technological “skyscrapers,” smaller countries can:

• Deploy Localized Compute: Using abundant cheap electricity and accessible hardware, tap into global decentralized networks without requiring permission from any superpower.
• Build AI Talent Sovereignty: Encourage local developers to contribute code to open-source protocols, building indigenous AI capabilities and reducing dependency on foreign platforms.

As the Liberman brothers frame it: “Small nations don’t need skyscrapers; they need highways at their doorstep.” Decentralized protocols like Gonka provide exactly that—a toll-free, permission-less pathway to global AI infrastructure.

The Final Sprint: Sovereignty as the Last Battleground

The Liberman brothers frame this moment as a final marathon sprint for human sovereignty. The 4hr marathon pace isn’t just metaphorical—it describes the actual velocity of competitive iteration in AI. What gets decided in these next years will crystallize into decades of institutional structure.

OpenAI’s closed-source, heavily centralized model represents a fast-track to what the brothers call a “digital Middle Ages”—periods of technological capability locked behind aristocratic gates, ordinary people relegated to digital serfs. Decentralized AI, embodied by protocols like Gonka, is the last realistic chance for individuals and small nations to maintain autonomy.

Bitcoin proved that sovereign currency could be decentralized. The Liberman brothers are attempting to prove something more transformative: that humanity’s most advanced productivity tools should never be concentrated in basement server rooms, but should flow freely to every person’s fingertips. As 10 billion robots emerge and the 4hr marathon pace continues accelerating, that choice becomes increasingly urgent.

Disclaimer: This analysis draws from recent interviews with Liberman brothers and their core Gonka protocol perspectives, and does not constitute investment advice. Gonka, as emerging AI infrastructure, carries inherent risks from technological iteration and market volatility. Participants should maintain rational assessment of both opportunities and risks.