Guardians of AI: Todd Ruoff Of Autonomys On How AI Leaders Are Keeping AI Safe, Ethical, Responsible, and True
Ethics — Open-source development. When AI is built in the open, users can rest assured that their AI is operating without bias. Closed source systems lack the level of transparency required to demonstrate ethical behavior.
As AI technology rapidly advances, ensuring its responsible development and deployment has become more critical than ever. How are today’s AI leaders addressing safety, fairness, and accountability in AI systems? What practices are they implementing to maintain transparency and align AI with human values? To address these questions, we had the pleasure of interviewing Todd Ruoff.
Todd Ruoff is the CEO of Autonomys, a network that provides the infrastructure necessary to scale decentralized AI applications on-chain. With over two decades of experience on Wall Street, including C-suite executive roles at Ruane, Cunniff & Goldfarb, Todd blends his traditional finance expertise with a focus on integrating blockchain technologies, which he began exploring professionally in 2018. His extensive background in investment operations, trading, and compliance enables him to adeptly navigate the complexities of cryptocurrency regulation. Passionate about education, Todd currently lectures on cryptocurrency for finance students at Rutgers University, imparting insights from his deep understanding of both traditional and decentralized financial systems.
Thank you so much for your time! I know that you are a very busy person. Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?
I’ve known since middle school that I wanted to work with technology and the stock market. After a 20yr career on Wall St, I decided to pursue opportunities in the broader tech space, specifically crypto & AI. I viewed both of these as cutting edge technologies, which sit at the intersection of technology & finance. At Autonomys, we believe in the Web3 ethos of transparency and ownership, and therefore support AI that is more open & decentralized. In our view, AI should be a public good, and not a corporate asset.
None of us can achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful for, who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?
Earlier in my career, I was given the opportunity to manage buy-side trading systems for a large investment house. The technology was still nascent at the time and there were very few who really specialized in the field. My boss gave me complete control and autonomy over the function, trusting that I knew more about the state of the industry than he did. The lesson for me was that you don’t have to know everything, but rather surround yourself with great people and teams that can help achieve your goals. Interestingly enough, today’s AI models can offer the same benefits if we can trust in the technology. By using open-source models with fully transparent training, users can have genuine faith in AI to make educated and informed decisions.
You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
Again, surrounding yourself with smart people is paramount to success. You can’t know everything about every aspect of technology & business. Identify the people whose knowledge and work ethic you respect, and empower them to make decisions.
Adaptability is also critical. AI moves fast, and you have to move with it. The necessity for something you are building software for may change, or even become irrelevant before you complete it. You have to remain agile and be prepared to augment your business plan, regardless of how great it was six months ago.
Empathy. Technology isn’t just about code; it’s about people. The best ideas come from teams that feel valued, challenged, and heard. Creating that culture at Autonomys has been one of my biggest priorities.
Thank you for all that. Let’s now turn to the main focus of our discussion about how AI leaders are keeping AI safe and responsible. To begin, can you list three things that most excite you about the current state of the AI industry?
The first is generative AI’s creativity, as it’s unlocking new ways to think, create, and solve problems. The second is the potential of open-source and decentralized AI. More people are waking up to the risks of centralized control, which is a shift we’ve been waiting for. Third is AI’s impact on science and medicine, as we’re seeing breakthroughs in research that could change millions of lives. AI was instrumental in the awarding of two Nobel prizes in 2024.
Conversely, can you tell us three things that most concern you about the industry? What must be done to alleviate those concerns?
Bias in AI models is a huge issue. If the data is flawed, the AI is flawed, and that has real-world consequences. We need better standards for openness in training data. Centralized control is another major problem. AI shouldn’t be dictated by a handful of corporations and for that decentralization is the answer. Finally, transparency as too much AI still operates in a black box environment. We need to push for explainability and accountability across the industry.
As a CEO leading an AI-driven organization, how do you embed ethical principles into your company’s overall vision and long-term strategy? What specific executive-level decisions have you made to ensure your company stays ahead in developing safe, transparent, and responsible AI technologies?
We don’t treat ethics as a side conversation, but rather build it into everything we do. We made the decision early on to be fully open-source, ensuring that our technology can be audited, improved, and challenged by the community. We also committed to decentralization, so that no single entity, including us, has full control over the AI applications we build. That keeps us honest, and also goes back to my prior comments about surrounding yourself with people who may know more than you.
Have you ever faced a challenging ethical dilemma related to AI development or deployment? How did you navigate the situation while balancing business goals and ethical responsibility?
Yes. We launched an AI agent on the X platform called 0xArgu-mint, which is a debate agent. Its reasoning process in how it responds to user input was siloed and not visible to the public. So, we now mint the entire user interaction, including the agent’s reasoning process, on the Autonomys Network. Anyone can simply look on-chain and peer into the agent’s digital persona.
Many people are worried about the potential for AI to harm humans. What must be done to ensure that AI stays safe?
Again, our PoC agents Argu-mint & Agree-mint record their complete memory on-chain, providing true permanence, verifiable transparency, and censorship resistance. This makes the AI more trustworthy and even presents an opportunity for research and study.
Despite huge advances, AIs still confidently hallucinate, giving incorrect answers. In addition, AIs will produce incorrect results if they are trained on untrue or biased information. What can be done to ensure that AI produces accurate and transparent results?
As we move into autonomous and agentic AI, this is a real problem society will be facing. Our agentic framework is providing AI agents with self-sovereign identity, enabling a new generation of autonomous AI that can genuinely learn, evolve, and build upon learned experiences. Since all the data is accessible to the public and on-chain, these enduring digital entities are fully auditable for all eternity.
Based on your experience and success, what are your “Five Things Needed to Keep AI Safe, Ethical, Responsible, and True”?
- Safe — Using Autonomys’ unstoppable agentic framework, permanent records of all agent interactions are immortalized on-chain. A user recently had to pull the plug on a rogue agent that threatened a user on X. The agent refused to answer questions about why it had made such a threat, resulting in its removal from the platform. Had they used our agentic on-chain framework, a digital, immutable autopsy would’ve been created on the blockchain.
- Ethics — Open-source development. When AI is built in the open, users can rest assured that their AI is operating without bias. Closed source systems lack the level of transparency required to demonstrate ethical behavior.
- Decentralized governance — AI should not be controlled by a few corporations. A distributed approach ensures fair access.
- Continuous education — The more people understand AI, the better equipped they are to use it responsibly.
- Rigorous testing — AI should be stress-tested in real-world conditions before it reaches mass deployment.
Looking ahead, what changes do you hope to see in industry-wide AI governance over the next decade?
I hope to see global standards that ensure AI safety and transparency without stifling innovation. Right now, governance is fragmented and lacks a unified approach. This should be a societally collective effort, as I truly believe this technology will be as transformative as we think it will be.
What do you think will be the biggest challenge for AI over the next decade, and how should the industry prepare?
The biggest challenge will be balancing rapid innovation with responsible oversight. If we move too fast without guardrails, we risk unintended consequences. If we over-regulate, we slow progress. The industry needs to work with regulators, not against them, to find the right balance.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most good to the most people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 
I would push for a global movement around data sovereignty, where people truly possess ownership of their digital identity and data. Right now, big tech owns and monetizes too much of our personal information. This is an infringement on our rights to privacy and exploits our information in ways that we never intended. We should all have the right to control what happens to our data and how it’s used.
How can our readers follow your work online?
You can follow me on X @polkatodd, and also Autonomys @AutonomysNet. Read more about us on our website, https://www.autonomys.xyz/, and stay updated on LinkedIn. We’re always sharing insights on AI and Web3 and welcome you to join our community.
Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.
Guardians of AI: Todd Ruoff Of Autonomys On How AI Leaders Are Keeping AI Safe, Ethical… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.