It's Just Technology
In this short video from Qualcomm, artificial intelligence is defined as “techniques that help machines and computers mimic human behavior.”
Artificial intelligence, machine learning and deep learning are differentiated and depicted as making our devices more useful than just utilities.
Examples applicable to smartphones, healthcare and autonomous cars are presented to show how AI can be used for improving life.
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 TECHNOLOGY
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.
This video introduces a curriculum for gaining a working understanding of the blockchain and its implications to various sectors of society.
For developers, blockchain is a set of protocols and encryption technologies for securely storing data on a distributed network.
For business and finance, blockchain is a distributed ledger and the technology underlying the explosion of new digital currencies.
For technologists, blockchain is the driving force behind the next generation of the internet.
For others, blockchain is a tool for reshaping society and the global economy, leading us to a more decentralized world.
Malta is one of the smallest countries in the world, with a population of less than 500,000. The island is a speck in the Mediterranean Sea, between Europe and Africa.
Malta gained its national independence from Great Britain in 1964.
As a small country with limited natural resources, they have the willingness and ability to move quickly to adopt new opportunities that can grow their economy.
Malta has made itself very welcoming to blockchain and cryptocurrency companies by establishing friendly regulation and low taxes for such businesses.
Hence, capital, start-ups and talent are leaving less friendly jurisdictions to set up shop in Malta.
So far, the welcoming hand has benefited Malta with a new influx of revenue for the country.
The above video includes interviews with the Finance Minister of Malta, Edward Scicluna; Changpeng Zhao (Binance); John McAfee; Tim Byun (OKEX ); Alexandre Dreyfus (chiliZ); and Marc Taverner (Bitfury).
Richard R. Brooks, from Clemson University, speaks at the Industrial Cybersecurity Conference 2019, about blockchain and smart contracts.
Brooks notes that true blockchains are distributed, decentralized, trustless and theoretically immutable.
Following are additional notes.
Blockchain security is partly based upon its systemic decentralization, as opposed to central authority.
In Etherium, smart contracts are embedded in the money.
Hyperledger is a modular styled blockchain.
Scrybe: a blockchain ledger for clinical trials
Some of the open problems he discusses re blockchain include:
Brooks describes the blockchain audit application as a particularly good idea.
He states that smart contracts are a good way to remove single-point of failure in a system.
Side chains are a way to make blockchains more efficient.
Science fiction has been depicting the good and bad of artificial intelligence for years. Artificial intelligence is everywhere and becoming a critical part of our everyday lives.
If intelligence is the use of data to make predictions, then artificial intelligence systems are primed to take over thousands of jobs and change every aspect of society.
But new jobs, like repairing robots and the ever-increasing need for software programmers are also on the rise.
Regardless, the future is uncertain on the ultimate applications and benefits of AI.