The Future of Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain ?

Artificial Intelligence is still in it's infancy

Blockchain is merely a decade old technology. While in 1998 my first real PC (a Pentium 2, 350mhz) with 512mb RAM and an 8gb hard drive, had continuous speech recognition which made it appear like magic, the real potential of A.I is taking longer to produce the kind of human results we want from it. However, in the areas of strategic thinking and long term prediction, like Chess and the weather reports supercomputers can act so much faster than ourselves that we appear like snails in comparison and AI is sneaking in everywhere we can't see (yet).

Sophia wants kids, I'm sure she will have them and they'll be as smart as the kid robot in the film A.I

Slow like Very Intelligent Snails

Our human, electro-chemical synapse to synapse way of thinking is fast, but it's a fraction of the speed of electricity. Our nerves can transmit signals at a wider range of speeds, depending on requirements; Muscle position is received quickly so we know where we are and is probably the fastest at 100+m per second, while actual thinking tops out around a snail's pace, 20-30m per second. Computers by their very digital nature can operate far, far faster than that, millions of times faster. However they haven't had millions of years of evolutionary programming to recognise patterns like we do. We are so good at it that computers can't really compete with us (yet). It's partly what gives rise to our creativity. We can tell good stories, produce fine art and the most infectious of philosophy. In fact, the only thing computers can't actually do yet with any finesse is that last one, but they will no doubt blow our socks off soon.. Actually maybe they already have... Watch this. Sophia from Hanson Robotics appears quite philosophical and only a step away from Ex-Machina's Ava, written into reality by Alex Garland. Sophia the philosophical, not quite singularity. A recent study teaching AI to dream produced the result of not quite electric sheep but a pink mug. It's a start. I sometimes have very mundane dreams, but when computers start to dream, they may come up with solutions, not even they thought were possible. Einstein had some of his best ideas while asleep.

A.I in the far future when people no longer exist

Skynet ? (A very popular reference at the moment)

AI will change the future in ways beyond measurement and blockchain will become like a permanent and inarguable form of memory for such systems. Skynet ? Perhaps not. James Cameron has long been an advocate of the cautionary principle where technology is concerned and like many sci-fi writers and producers before him, laid out stark and extreme versions of the future which may come to pass if we let corporate verbosity unleash technologies worst nightmares in pursuit of profit, control and a notion of progress.

The Singularity

what is it really ? A catch all term often confused, misused and appropriated for a range of causes, it's an interesting principle which proposes that there's a point where either a) the internet becomes self conscious.. and decides to shut us down ... aka Skynet) or is b) the point at which we cease to be able to predict what technology (and for that matter everything else) will produce. I think it's a false notion. Again, Sci fi writers have been predicting quite happily until the end of humanity for at least the last 100 odd years. The Time Machine by H.G Wells being a fine example which you can read for free HERE courtesy of the lovely people at project guttenberg.. However we digress.

What lies in the future when AI & Blockchain combine their Superpowers ?

ARNA Genomics shows us what's possible and it is both inspirational, quite easy to comprehend and potentially a life changing project for the ENTIRE Population of humanity. It is both bold and ambitious with a socially uplifting message.

A platform for emerging bio-tech companies and incubator for scientific innovators to bring their products to market, overcoming the huge obstacles laid down to innovation by big pharma. Very noble but the real story here is a simple blood test, a minimally invasive (and cost effective) procedure which will pick up early signs of breast cancer, an aggressive form of the disease which kills millions of women each year, but if caught early can be effectively treated. The test is $100 and can be administered on an annual basis. It is far more accurate than a mammogram and leads to a much lower false positive, which is stressful and life changing in itself. Nobody should needlessly undergo mastectomy, although Angelina Jolie's very brave and public adoption of the procedure as a person at very high risk of the disease shows that different approaches can yield similar outcomes.

Where's the AI ?

The clever part. Test results will be stored on a blockchain. This makes the results transparent, easy to research and difficult to argue with. An excellent use of blockchain and completely the opposite approach of corporate medical. AI algorithms will learn how to detect positive signals and make the test results even more accurate. Predicted to achieve over 96% accuracy from a current 90%+. That is the future of AI and blockchain and I can't underestimate it's importance. ARNA are also planning to bring a range of other similar tests to market in the near future for range of other aggressive and highly metastatic cancers.

This is just for starters, an example of the Blockchain revolution. In other more prosaic areas, chatbots are being developed for use by every business with the help of a blockchain ecosystem. It's a very neat idea and one that is already beginning to shape our customer service experience, often without us really being aware of it. AI chat bots can take a pizza order. ask all the right questions. (appear to be polite), never make mistakes, especially important when you don't like green peppers on your pizza that took 45 minutes to arrive and is now going cold on your unhappy lap. But again this is just for starters. There are a growing number of blockchain AI combinations cropping up an they will undoubtedly change the way we live.

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In the far future blockchain will be the ancestor to a form of blocknet technology, interlinked and cross functioning database of everything. AI will interrogate these systems with untold speed (cloud computing via blockchain will make this cheap and easy) and we as humans will plug ourselves into data streams which allow us information access which will appear like superhumans.. data will be transfered to you as if it's your own thoughts. Know the answer ? hell yeah.. 314th decimal of pi, it will be as if your very own. And after that, perhaps we will renege flesh and become synthetic superbeings, immortal and partly computerised. augmented and backed up indefinitely across the solar system and beyond. Iain M Banks, Culture Novels went way past the singularity for me. Inspiration is everywhere, not least in the wings of a blockchain butterfly, waiting to take to the skies of the future.

this post was originally designed as a comment for @crypto.piotr contest but became so unwieldy it became a post of it's own