A Sentient Blockchain? When Blockchains Work Without Human Effort
Bringing the Next Phase in the Digital World
The technology sector has seen unrivaled development in recent years, tech stocks have been excellent holds in the last decade, and thriving new industries have been carved out of nothing.
Ironically, the 2008 crash gave surviving businesses a unique opportunity to revamp and automate operations, with streamlined technology giants making user experiences and services faster and personal, in many cases making previous industry leaders obsolete (Blockbuster and Netflix).
The Internet has reformatted business, communication, and information forever. Looking at the future, we now stand at the beginning of yet another explosion of innovation and computer science, and this time it is an extension of what we have already adopted.
Some of these technologies include blockchain and artificial intelligence, which are now advancing rapidly and will likely push us into the Internet 2.0.
Humans Achieving Consensus
Bitcoin’s blockchain is, by far, the most decentralized as of yet. A unique, yet mostly balanced relationship exists within its ecosystem.
All participants on the blockchain must agree for any changes in the system. If one segment of the community does not agree, they split from the ecosystem, come to a compromise, or simply yield and carry on.
Example: Bitcoin Cash was the result of the Bitcoin community having two strong and conflicting visions for the future of the network. Both eventually went their own respective ways, splitting into BTC and BCH.
A decentralized system is made up of multiple smaller points of failure. If one point of failure is compromised, others simply pick up the slack or a replacement is introduced.
This is one of the key strengths of Bitcoin and the blockchain. It does not rely on one vulnerable server (like e-Gold), person, company, or authority. Every human being using the network can stop operations at any given time and not cause a disruption.
Blockchains Built by A.I. and Enhancing Their Own Efficiency
A blockchain can be built for decentralized or centralized purposes. Artificial intelligence through the blockchain could bring scalable applications outside of the influence of corporations such as Google or Facebook.
Blockchains can provide the perfect environments for machine learning. In time, the technology could be fully independent from human intervention.
They could work as self-learning ledgers while providing and obtaining valuable information in their blocks and performing efficient updates in their software without the need for long-winded, ego-driven debates.
Smart technology could solve time-consuming problems the blockchain and cryptocurrency sectors face today. Energy-intensive mining could be made more efficient, block confirmations could be faster, and the integration of protocol updates to merchants and users could be smoother and with less friction.
Political, egotistical, and financial agendas or viewpoints would be irrelevant to A.I. So far, it cannot understand emotional intelligence, meaning it would only seek the most logical and efficient course of action.
Artificial intelligence could use smart contracts to build an Internet 2.0, learn from mistakes, and utilize the key strengths of decentralization.
Enhancing its own network hashing power and ability to process blocks, it would be harder to compromise or shut down, strengthening security and reducing the chances of a 51% attack or data becoming corrupted. Every attack on its network would enable it to learn and ultimately battle-harden its protocol.
A.I. will very likely create its own ecosystem or Internet of Things (IoT) for use, with the benefits that the current flagship blockchains boast.
A way to imagine this scenario ever happening is to imagine Bitcoin being run by a global digital intelligence, with mining, software development, and nodes being managed by A.I. Other technologies being developed involve brain-to-computer interfaces and quantum computers, and there are almost unlimited scenarios of where technology will take us and how we use and interact with it in the future.
Disclaimer: This is not investment advice, but rather theory and speculation. The technologies mentioned are complex and emerging, with no real guarantees.