让智能体输出可验证,防主机篡改,实现真正自主
VET Your Agent: Towards Host-Independent Autonomy via Verifiable Execution Traces
- 用可验证执行轨迹框架,确保智能体在不可信主机上也能可信运行
- 黑箱API调用下,性能开销小于3倍;公开接口可用轻量级可信执行环境
- 适合金融、治理等高风险场景,需保障智能体行为可审计的开发者
大语言模型推动了新型自主智能体的发展,这些智能体能长期运行并代管用户敏感资源。然而,它们依赖由主机控制的基础设施,主机可能篡改模型、输入或输出,破坏自治性。为此,本文提出VET(可验证执行轨迹)框架,实现主机无关的智能体输出认证,迈向真正的主机无关自治。核心是智能体身份文档(AID),包含配置及验证所需的证明系统。VET支持多种证明机制:可信硬件、简洁密码学证明、以及经公证的TLS日志(Web Proofs)。我们在基于API的LLM智能体上实现VET,并在真实负载下评估。结果显示,在当前黑箱、携带秘密的API调用中,Web Proofs最为实用,开销通常低于直接调用的3倍;对于公开API,低开销的TEE代理已足够。案例研究中,我们部署了一个可验证交易智能体,对每项决策生成证明,并组合Web Proofs与TEE代理。结果表明,利用现有技术即可实现实用的主机无关认证,为未来全主机无关自治系统奠定基础。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Recent advances in large language models (LLMs) have enabled a new generation of autonomous agents that operate over sustained periods and manage sensitive resources on behalf of users. Trusted for their ability to act without direct oversight, such agents are increasingly considered in high-stakes domains including financial management, dispute resolution, and governance. Yet in practice, agents execute on infrastructure controlled by a host, who can tamper with models, inputs, or outputs, undermining any meaningful notion of autonomy. We address this gap by introducing VET (Verifiable Execution Traces), a formal framework that achieves host-independent authentication of agent outputs and takes a step toward host-independent autonomy. Central to VET is the Agent Identity Document (AID), which specifies an agent's configuration together with the proof systems required for verification. VET is compositional: it supports multiple proof mechanisms, including trusted hardware, succinct cryptographic proofs, and notarized TLS transcripts (Web Proofs). We implement VET for an API-based LLM agent and evaluate our instantiation on realistic workloads. We find that for today's black-box, secret-bearing API calls, Web Proofs appear to be the most practical choice, with overhead typically under 3$\times$ compared to direct API calls, while for public API calls, a lower-overhead TEE Proxy is often sufficient. As a case study, we deploy a verifiable trading agent that produces proofs for each decision and composes Web Proofs with a TEE Proxy. Our results demonstrate that practical, host-agnostic authentication is already possible with current technology, laying the foundation for future systems that achieve full host-independent autonomy.
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