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Blockchain & Artificial Intelligence: Money of the Future?

Brian Yim | Mar 25, 2017 | 08:00

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Both artificial intelligence and blockchain technology have made major advances in the past few years. Could they be combined to bring us the money of the future?

Artificial Intelligence

Recently, many advances have been made in the field of artificial intelligence. In the past few years, we saw artificial intelligence beat one of the world’s best players at Go, save drivers from car crashes, and predict the outcome of the US Presidential Election.

Many companies, both established market leaders and new startups, have started to incorporate artificial intelligence into mainstream products. AI technology can be found in voice and home assistants, such as Siri, Google Home/Assistant, and the Amazon Echo. These companies use artificial intelligence in different ways, including making predictions, voice recognition and image recognition.

AI in Finance

More and more, financial firms are turning to machines to replace humans at jobs that they have done for decades. Many wealth management firms already employ robots and artificial intelligence software to trade and invest for their customers. This is because computers are much quicker than humans at competing in a market where nanoseconds count. A slight delay could mean an entirely different outcome.

This type of trading activity isn’t just limited to traditional financial markets. Artificial intelligence is also starting to be used in bitcoin and altcoin markets. This is extremely prevalent in altcoin markets wheremany bots and AI trading software are used to take advantage of price fluctuations.

However, this isn’t the only use case for artificial intelligence technology in financial and bitcoin applications.

Mobile Banking for the Unbanked

One new platform called Humaniq aims to bring banking services to those who lack access, especially for people in developing countries.

The platform is built on top of the Ethereum blockchain as a variety of smart contracts; but with a twist. Instead of requiring ID/Passport Verification like most Bitcoin exchanges, the aim is to simply verify a user’s identity using artificial intelligence.

Users will be prompted to verify their identity when they start using the Humaniq system. However, only simple tasks need to be completed for this. Identity Verification would only consist of doing something very simple, such as taking a quick picture of themselves, or by reading a short piece of text. Voice and Image Recognition technology powered by artificial intelligence would then be able to quickly confirm their identity without any hassle or delay.

This could potentially be a huge step forward for citizens in developing countries integrating themselves into the global economy. Seeing that it’s currently estimated that there are more than 2.5 billion unbanked in the world, many stand to benefit from such a platform.

[Disclaimer: This is a sponsored article] 

Could Humaniq’s implementation be a real game-changer? Let us know your thoughts below!

Images courtesy of PC Magazine, Shutterstock