Ask the world what the hottest technology trends are presently, and you will hear the world shout back the terms ‘Blockchain’ and ‘Artificial Intelligence’. Though there are a whole lot of differences between AI and Blockchain including the applications, and developing parties, researches are trying to explore what effect their combination can have on the world.
PwC states that AI will add up to around $15.7 trillion to the world economy by 2030 leading to nearly a 14% rise in global GDP. On the other hand, Gartner claims that the business value added by blockchain technology will increase to $3.1 trillion by 2030.
Also known as Machine Intelligence (MI), Artificial Intelligence in contrast to ‘Natural Intelligence’ seen in humans and animals is the brilliance exhibited by machines. The term artificial intelligence applies to situations where machines develop ‘cognitive’ functions like learning and solving problems which are typically demonstrated by human minds.
From recognizing speech patterns to self-driving cars, AI is disrupting the technological arena by learning and applying the knowledge extracted from data on machines to make them more intelligent.
Blockchain is an incorruptible, decentralized and distributed digital ledger that is used to store encrypted data. The encrypted data includes economic transactions which are not just records of the financial transaction but almost anything of value. Transparency, authentication, and security happen to be the most important feature of blockchain technology. All the data stored in blockchain are visible to the public and it is secure, incorruptible, and authentic. The data once stored cannot be altered afterwards.
Applications Of Blockchain And AI
As stated earlier, blockchain networks are decentralized, distributed, and transparent which can be accessed by almost anyone. Though cryptocurrencies are powered by blockchain technology, presently blockchain technology is also used to bring together decentralization in various other industries as well.
Combining blockchain and AI, smarter, decentralized AI Blockchain networks can be created to host diverse data sets. By building API’s on the blockchain, intercommunication of AI agents can be made possible. Therefore, diverse algorithms can be created on different data sets.
Monetization of data is yet another application that is made possible by the combination of blockchain and AI. For large companies monetizing collected date can act as a huge source of revenue.
Letting others decide how our data is being used is unsafe. Nevertheless, blockchain protects our data cryptographically and enable its usage in ways we find suitable for our security. Furthermore, this also allows us to monetize our data personally without having to compromise on our personal information.
In the case of AI programs that require our data, AI networks will have to directly go to data marketplaces to buy data from its creators. This will turn the process fairer than it actually is as tech giants will no longer be able to exploit their users.
Additionally, such data marketplaces opening AI specifically for smaller companies will be helpful as they will be able to access expensive and private data which they wouldn’t be able to otherwise.
Operating blockchain on a computer will require large amounts of processing power due to the presence of all the encrypted data. For instance, the hashing algorithms that are used to mine Bitcoins features a ‘brute force’ approach where each candidate is systematically enumerated for the solution and if they satisfy a problem statement before the transactions are verified.
AI helps overcome this hurdle by tackling tasks in a more effective and intelligent way. Once the AI is fed necessary training data, it can polish its skills in real-time.
