Hello everyone. The Embody SPE presents it’s proposal for intelligent public good pipelines. It is not a final version and improvements are ongoing, so feel free to leave any feedback with a forum post.
Embody SPE: Intelligent Public Pipelines
Authors: DeFine(de_fi_ne) (strategy & engineering), Dane(dane3d) (virtual worlds & avatars)
note: discord handles are enclosed in brackets after author names.
Abstract
Embody is an open-source network for embodied agents, powered by Livepeer orchestrator compute and designed to interact directly with the hardware layer of the network. This proposal outlines a paradigm shift from manually managed pipelines to a network of automanaged public pipelines. In this model, the embodied agents are the pipelines—intelligent, semi-autonomous entities that reside within the orchestrator’s Docker containers. The agents intelligently decide when to spawn avatars and initiate workloads based on network demand, hardware capabilities, and direct negotiation with consumers.
The Embody SPE is the team behind the development and maintenance of these open-source pipelines. The team members also operate a for-profit company (Atumera LLC, a Delaware company) which actively uses(https://embody.zone) and maintains the pipeline infrastructure. This ensures the open-source pipelines have a committed, long-term commercial user from day one, driving real-world usage and providing a continuous feedback loop for improvement.
**Prior Work:**You can find our most current retrospective here https://forum.livepeer.org/t/embody-team-retrospective/3215
The Problem: Pipelines are passive.
Livepeer’s GPU network is built for scale, but its value is constrained by the nature of its workload demand. Most current usage is episodic, and more importantly, the pipelines themselves are passive. They are predefined workflows that cannot adapt, learn, or optimize themselves. This creates a continuous error of omission; orchestrators cannot optimally match their unique hardware capabilities to the best possible workloads, missing opportunities for value creation.
The Solution: Automanaged intelligent Public Pipelines.
We propose to solve this by injecting intelligence into the pipeline itself. Instead of orchestrators managing static pipelines, the pipelines will be fully automated via agents—handling their own engineering, maintenance, optimization, consumer outreach, and workload allocation. This creates a dynamic, self-managing, and intelligent network.
System Architecture
We offer two views of the system architecture: a high-level interaction flow and a detailed layered view of the agent itself.
System Interaction Flow
This diagram shows the end-to-end flow of a consumer request through the Embody network, including the agent’s ability to leverage co-residual workflows and deliver content directly to any destination.
Layered Agent Architecture
This diagram breaks down the internal structure of the Embodied Agent, from the network interface down to the hardware.
The Economic Model: Roles & Incentives
This new paradigm introduces clear roles and incentives, governed by a smart contract layer:
-
What Consumers Get: Consumers can purchase three primary services: (a) Embodied Agent time for specific interactive tasks, (b) access to the output of network-only information, drawing from the swarm’s collective intelligence without accessing the raw data itself, and (c) agent-optimized workloads, which are capabilities the agents either create specifically for the host hardware or optimize from existing services.
-
Orchestrator Participation: Orchestrators are incentivized to participate in two ways:
- Become a Workload Provider: An orchestrator can choose to become a Workload Provider, taking on the liability for the agent’s actions but also capturing the full value it creates. For our initial testing phase, Embody will cover the operational costs for participating orchestrators.
- Cognitive Contribution: Even without being a Workload Provider, an orchestrator can earn incentives by interacting with and steering the agent. 50% of the Incentives budget’s weekly staking rewards are allocated here. Contribution is measured by on-chain actions that verifiably improve the network, such as providing high-quality feedback on agent performance, flagging suboptimal workload generation, or submitting hardware-specific optimization profiles.
Swarm Intelligence and Self-Improvement
The Embody network is a decentralized swarm where agents, built on the OpenClaw framework, can interact and share information, creating a powerful network effect. Crucially, these agents can self-improve at the agent layer—modifying their own skills and configurations. With each update to the underlying LLMs, the entire network of agents grows more intelligent, creating a virtuous cycle of continuous improvement.
Financial Management & Transparency
All funds will be managed by a 2-of-3 multisig wallet that requires a co-signer from the Livepeer Foundation for all transactions, ensuring accountability and alignment with the network’s best interests. We are committed to full transparency, with all expenses tracked via public, receipt-based spend reports.
Budget Allocation & Accrual Packages
The $65,000 budget is allocated into four distinct accrual packages, each with its own defined behavior, designed to maximize transparency and long-term value.
1. Team Spending Package
-
Amount: $32,000
-
Asset: Held as staked LPT.
-
Behavior: This package is designed for direct team compensation. The base allocation is paid out in LPT bi-weekly over the 4-month period. All staking rewards accrued within this package are also paid out bi-weekly, split equally between the two developers.
2. Incentives Package
-
Amount: $20,000
-
Asset: Held as staked LPT.
-
Behavior: This package funds network growth, and its principal is never depleted. At the end of each week, the staking rewards generated by this package are split: 50% is spent on orchestrator and network incentives, and the other 50% is compounded back into the principal, continuously growing the incentives pool for long-term sustainability.
3. Operational Costs Package
-
Amount: $8,000
-
Asset: Liquidated to USDC upon receipt.
-
Behavior: This package provides a stable buffer for predictable operational expenses, including cloud infrastructure, agent API costs, and software expenses. Holding these funds in USDC removes volatility risk for essential services.
4. Security Package
-
Amount: $5,000
-
Asset: Held as staked LPT.
-
Behavior: This package is dedicated to network security. The principal is held as staked LPT, allowing it to mature and grow in value. The staking rewards accrued can be used to fund a bug bounty program and other AI safety incentives, allowing us to proactively address security without touching the core audit funds until they are needed.
Overflow Mechanism
To ensure operational continuity, an overflow mechanism is in place. During the initial grant inflow event only, if the LPT received for the Operational Costs package converts to less than $8,000 USD worth of stablecoin due to market volatility, the deficit will be drawn equally from the Team Spending and Incentives packages and liquidated to USDC. This one-time mechanism ensures the operational budget is fully funded from day one. It does not imply that we will maintain infrastructure after the initial $8,000 is depleted.
Safety, Liability, and Governance
Our approach is built on rigorous testing, layered security, and clear liability.
-
Liability Framework: Liability is tied directly to authorization. The entity that authorizes an agent’s action—whether a corporate entity like Atumera LLC, an orchestrator acting as a Workload Provider, or an end-user via a
skill.mdfile—has the liability. -
Phased Rollout & Testing: The pipeline will be launched in a closed alpha with a limited set of trusted orchestrators to thoroughly test all safety and economic models before a public release.
-
Safety Mechanisms: The system includes an always-on moderation layer for safety policy violations and a mandatory killswitch for orchestrators and operators to terminate any workload they deem unsafe.
Risk Mitigation
-
Risk: Smart contract vulnerability.
-
Mitigation: Our budget includes a dedicated fund for a professional third-party security audit, and we will run a bug bounty program funded by the Security bucket’s staking rewards.
note: This list is actively updated.
Scope (4 Months)
| Month | Primary Outcomes |
|---|---|
| 1 | Start of controlled centralized phase; release of agent pipeline in closed alpha; develop v1 of the smart contract layer; establish on-chain KPI publishing pipeline with TEE attestations. |
| 2 | Conduct security audits and hardening; focus on workload aggregation. No major releases during this phase. |
| 3 | Implement feedback from Month 2; introduce automated information aggregation and feedback improvement loops into the system. Public orchestrator release. |
| 4 | Decentralized stage, full Handover of pipeline management + incentives bucket to the community as public good - Release of decentralized public pipeline. Thank you for taking the time to read this proposal, and to those who participate in the Embody pipelines already, thank you for your enduring support. We are continuously working to improve our operations and offered services, if you think we can make something better, please let us know by leaving a comment |