The future of artificial intelligence (AI) encompasses risks and challenges.
The public perception of AI includes a fear that artificial intelligence might take away their job. And it’s true: AI is a tool people can use to operate business more efficiently. Of course some new jobs are created to support AI systems, but more people will lose jobs than new jobs are anticipated to be created.
Other risks for AI include data privacy concerns, government laws and regulations, and company stakeholders who don’t understand the technology.
AI is moving forward in spite of the challenges, but how smooth the transition will be for such an important shift in global technology and human labor is undetermined.
This NVIDIA video describes deep learning as the fastest-growing field in artificial intelligence, helping computers make sense of infinite amounts of data in the form of images, sound, and text.
Using multiple levels of neural networks, computers now have the capacity to see, learn, and react to complex situations as well or better than humans.
Specific real-world deep learning applications include the ability to analyze in one month, what used to take 10 years; voice-to-text technology; robotics; autonomous cars; and winning chess against a world champion.
Every industry will be impacted by deep learning, and many businesses are already delivering new products and services based on this new way of thinking about data and technology.
This video outlines a parallel between token economic models and business models. The central idea is that the way business models are designed is to provide value for customers while extracting value for shareholders. In a token model, the design is intended to create value in the token itself and therefore reward those supporting the business, including customers and shareholders.
However, part of the problem of a single-token model is the inherent tension between those who want the token to rise in value, like an investment, and those who simply want to pay for services, as with a currency that maintains a stable value.
Hence, the design of this two-token model is intended to satisfy the needs of two groups: customers and business supporters. This model is comprised of three key principles:
Reward value creators
Align actor incentives
Support business sustainability and expansion
Often blockchains are thought of as a way to disintermediate middlemen. However, some of them add value. Hence, this system is designed to reward all those who are adding value to the business, whether they are creators or traditional middlemen.
This specific 2-token system is designed for music blockchain Emanate. The two tokens are designated as MN8 and MNX.
MN8 is a governance token
MNX is a stable, internal cryptocurrency
Customers don’t care about MN8. They will swap money for MNX and use MNX to pay for services, just like traditional currency.
Different actors aligned with supporting the business will extract value from the system by receiving MNX as part of their provided services, according to pertinent smart contracts. They can then swap MNX for whatever currency they desire through an internal exchange.
However, they will need to stake some MN8 to participate in the system and earn MNX. Hence, they are buying into part ownership. Alternatively, they could be investing in the business itself.
All of the MN8 stakeholders can vote on the direction of the business. Those who own the most MN8 will have the most votes and the greatest vested interest in the success of the business and MN8 token. As the business becomes more successful, the MN8 tokens would be anticipated to rise in value, in the same way the value of stocks rise in a traditional, publicly traded corporation.
Security Token Academy Host, Amy Wan interviews Dr. Stephanie Hurder, partner and founding economist at Prysm Group about token economics and tokenizated assets.
Token economics, also known as crypto economics, is the study and design of economic systems based on blockchain technology.
Hurder express the importance of understanding the rights and governance of what a token provides.
There are two primary types of tokens:
1) Security tokens
2) Utility tokens
The major difference is the intended use and functionality of the tokens. Security tokens are created as investments. Users holding the security token also get ownership of the company.
Utility tokens, on the other hand, are not intended to give their holders the ability to control how decisions are made in a company. They merely enable users to interact with a company’s services.
However, both security and utility tokens can increase in value, hence some people may find it difficult to differentiate them.
Hurder talks about the tension inherent within a utility token when people are desiring that it go up in value, vs the stability required for its use of value exchange.
Token economics includes designing a token as a functioning part of an overall economic platform. In other words, ‘what’ do you tokenize so that everything works well together?
Every day, a large portion of the population is at the mercy of a rising technology, yet few actually understand what it is.
AI is designed so you don’t realize there’s a computer calling the shots. But that also makes understanding what AI is — and what it’s not — a little complicated.
In basic terms, AI is a broad area of computer science that makes machines seem like they have human intelligence.
It includes programming a computer to drive a car by obeying traffic signals.
The term “artificial intelligence” was first coined back in 1956 by Dartmouth professor John McCarthy. He called together a group of computer scientists and mathematicians to see if machines could learn like a young child does, using trial and error to develop formal reasoning. The project proposal says they’ll figure out how to make machines “use language, form abstractions and concepts, solve kinds of problems now reserved for humans, and improve themselves.”
But during the past few years, a couple of factors have led to AI becoming the next “big” thing: First, huge amounts of data are being created every minute. In fact, 90% of the world’s data has been generated in the past two years. And now thanks to advances in processing speeds, computers can actually make sense of all this information more quickly. Because of this, tech giants and venture capitalists have bought into AI and are infusing the market with cash and new applications.
When it comes to AI, a robot is nothing more than the shell concealing what’s actually used to power the technology.
Western Union is exploring the use of blockchain and cryptocurrency to help connect the cash and digital worlds.
They have access to over half a million retail locations as well over a billion bank accounts through the banks themselves. In that regard, they consider themselves as an on- and off-ramp for global money movement.
Western Union President, Odilon Almeida, discusses three things that need to be solved to establish a broadly accepted digital currency:
1) volatility 2) governance 3) compliance
They are running a pilot program with Ripple.
Almeida says they consider it would be just an additional currency. They already operate with 130 currencies. He says it may simply represent one more option they offer customers.
A neural network is a computer system modeled on the human brain and nervous system and is trained to recognize patterns.
The patterns they recognize are numerical, but all real-world data, whether images, sound, text or time series, can be translated.
There are many neural network variants, but in this video introduction, a basic model is demonstrated.
When talking about neurons in a computer, it’s just something that holds a number.
A series of connected neurons comprise a layer.
And a neural network is a series of neuron layers.
Neural networks cluster and classify data.
They are used to group unlabeled data according to similarities among the example inputs, and they classify data when they have a labeled set of data for comparison.
In this video, the idea it to learn patterns from an image to read a hand-drawn number.
Much of machine learning comes down to having a good grasp of linear algebra.
In brief, this type of neural network is based upon different types of mathematical averages and biases that build upon recognizing parts of images to recognizing a complete image.
Blockchain is a new class of information technology which combines cryptography with distributed computing.
Those technologies have been around for decades.
in 2008 Satoshi Nakamoto combined them in a new ways to establish a model for a network of computers to collaborate towards maintaining a shared and secure database.
In simple terms, blockchain as a technology, is simply a distributed secure database.
This database consists of a string of blocks, each one a record of data that has been encrypted and given a unique identifier, called a hash.
Mining computers on the network validate transactions, add them to the block they’re building and then broadcast the completed block to other nodes so that all in the network have a copy of the database.
Because there is no central authority to verify the ongoing updated data, the blockchain relies upon a distributed consensus algorithm. In order to make an entry on to the blockchain database all the computers have to agree about its state so that no one computer can make an alteration without the consensus of others.
Once completed, a block of data gets put into the blockchain as a permanent record. Each time a block gets completed, a new one is generated. Hence, there is a countless string of blocks in a blockchain all connected to one another, like links in a chain, in proper, linear, chronological order.
The blockchain was designed so that transactions are immutable, meaning they are unchangeable and cannot be deleted.
Each block contains a hash value that is dependent upon the hash of the previous block. So they’re all linked together. If one is changed, then all the other blocks in the chain going forward will be altered, making any such change fully observable. This makes the data tamper-proof.
The previous info outlines what could be described as blockchain 1.0, which function largely as simply databases. But the technology continues to evolve.
The second generation already provides the capacity to execute any computer code on the blockchain. The system is evolving to become a globally distributed cloud-computing infrastructure.
It remains very much a work-in-progress.
DISTRIBUTED LEDGERS
As a permanent and secure database, blockchain serves as a suitable storage place for records or transactions that involve value or in some way needs to be a secure and trusted source of information.
These secure, distributed records, are called distributed ledgers.
A distributed ledger is a consensus of replicated, shared and synchronized digital data geographically dispersed across multiple sites.
Such ledgers can be used for any type of data storage, such as inventory or monetary transactions.
Distributed ledger technology enables the replacement of a multiplicity of private databases within each organization, with one shared database that is accessible and trusted by all parties involved.
Blockchain enables trust between parties that might not otherwise trust each other.
The result greatly strengthens collaboration between organizations or between individuals, peer-to-peer, without dependency on third party centralized institutions.
This greatly increases efficiencies between collaborating companies in a variety of industries.
SMART CONTRACTS
Second generation blockchains offer the opportunity to automate the workings of these networks through smart contracts.
Smart contracts are computer code stored inside a blockchain, which encode contractual agreements.
These smart contracts are self-executing contracts with the terms of the agreement or operation written into lines of code, which are stored and executed on the blockchain.
For example, a potential financial smart contract might automatically increase an amount of interest for some stored money, once it exceeds a certain value. Additionally, smart contracts can be used to automate many basic operations on the network, disintermediating the need for third-party institutions.
TOKEN ECONOMIES
Blockchain is a new organization paradigm for the discovery, validation and transfer of all discrete units of value and the development of distributed organizations via token market systems.
A token is a quantified unit of value that is recorded on the blockchain. This value may be of any kind. It might be “likes” on social media, it might be a currency, it might be the integrity of an ecosystem, or it might be an electrical unit.
Token networks are a network of independent nodes that act autonomously but through incentive structures and the signalling system of the market, self-organize to create emergent coordination and thus a distributed management system.
Blockchain is not just an information technology, it’s an institutional technology that enables us to design incentive structures in the form of token economies. In such a way this can convert centralized organizations into distributed markets via token economics.
This has the potential to organize human activity on a larger scale than has been previously possible.
the great design innovation of blockchain is its capacity to coordinate a network of autonomous nodes towards maintaining a shared infrastructure.
Though adding a layer of trust and value exchange to the internet, blockchain merges our newly developed information networks with the institutional structures that sit on top of them. This strengthens the networks as a new mode for organizing society and economy.
By merging technology and economics it enables us to redesign institutional structures and ultimately re-conceptualize how we organize every aspect of society, economy and even technology, based on networks or autonomous nodes that are incentivized to collaborate.
Much of what blockchain has to offer will only be possible with the parallel development of the Internet of Things and advanced analytics, all of which are combining to form the next generation of internet, of which the blockchain will be a critical infrastructure.
