Vitalik Buterin - Co-founder of Ethereum, co-founder of Bitcoin Magazine
Vitalik Buterin - Co-founder of Ethereum, co-founder of Bitcoin Magazine

Vitalik Buterin, the Canadian programmer who co-founded Ethereum, is singing praises for Shiba Inu and Shib Army for making "fellowships possible."

The Shiba Inu community, also known as the Shib Army, responded to Buterin's message of gratitude with Shytoshi Kusama acknowledging the tweet, saying the crypto legend was "quite welcome." The Shiba Inu lead developer even called him a "fren" -- a Shiba Inu term for a friend -- in his tweet.

Buterin was referring to the fellowship of Artificial Intelligence Existential Safety, which physics professor Max Tegmark tweeted. The tweet tagged Buterin and asked the Ethereum co-founder to "collaborate with them to ensure that AI becomes the best rather than worst thing to happen to humanity!"

img

Photo: Vitalik Buterin

Responding to the tweet, Buterin noted that the fellowship would not have been possible with SHIB and Shib Army. "Big thanks to the Shiba Inu community, whose cryptocurrency made these fellowships possible," the tweet read.

Introduced by Buterin, the AI Existential Safety is a fellowship that aims to provide funds to help PH.D. students studying Artificial Intelligence (AI) existential safety. The fund intends to support these studies for the duration of five years, with students from the U.S, Canada and the U.K. entitled to up to a $40,000 scholarship grant.

"The Vitalik Buterin Ph.D. Fellowship in AI Existential Safety is for students starting Ph.D. programs in 2022 who plan to work on AI existential safety research or for existing Ph.D. students who would not otherwise have funding to work on AI existential safety research. It will fund students for five years of their Ph.D., with extension funding possible," the site read. "We are working to build a global community of AI Safety researchers who are keen to ensure that AI remains safe and beneficial to humanity," it noted.

Buterin seems to have a good relationship with the Shiba Inu community; this is not the first time he has mentioned the token. Last year, he revealed that he burned 90% of SHIB tokens sent to him and noted that the undertaking was never easy and that it required him to buy a new laptop.