Blockchain

Blockchain Could Be Crucial for Moving AI Tech Forward

Julio Gil-Pulgar · @gil_pulgar | Oct 23, 2018 | 16:00

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Many startups are attracting capital and developing products to make artificial intelligence (AI) more accessible, as well as better protecting personal data via blockchain tech.

Blockchain to Decentralize Artificial Intelligence

Venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, and academics are rushing to embrace the awesome synergy resulting from the application of Bitcoin’s (BTC) 00 blockchain technology and artificial intelligence (AI).

Dr. Ben Goertzel, CEO of SingularityNet and chief scientist at Hanson Robotics, affirms that blockchain might help make AI more accessible for small and mid-size companies. Indeed, he’s asserted that AI could be ‘democratized’ through the use of blockchain technology.

According to The New York Times, Dr. Goertzel and Dr. Dawn Song, a computer science professor at the University of California, propose that:

The blockchain could be a crucial way to push back against some of the most worrying trends facing the field of artificial intelligence.

NY Times writes about How the Blockchain Could Break Big Tech’s Hold on A.I. @singularity_net https://t.co/oZA9C5Z1sL

— Ben Goertzel (@bengoertzel) October 20, 2018

Likewise, DeepBrain’s management believes that blockchain can help small-size companies that do not have the necessary funding to break into the expensive AI industry. A company press release says:

DeepBrain Chain is the world’s first AI computing platform powered by blockchain. It uses blockchain technology to help AI companies save up to 70% of computing power costs while protecting data privacy in AI training.

Blockchain Key for Data Protection in the AI Environment

One of the primary virtues of a centralized blockchain is that it eliminates intermediaries and any central authority. Decentralization is essential to allowing AI networks to exchange vast amounts of data without a singular authority in place controlling the data or the algorithms.

Nathaniel Popper of The New York Times writes that several startups are already setting up blockchain-based marketplaces for trading data. For example, Popper refers to Ocean Protocol, which is a decentralized data exchange protocol for sharing data and services through the use of blockchain. According to the company website, Ocean is designed to unlock data for AI allowing sharing and selling in a secure environment.

In this regard, many entrepreneurs concur with Dr. Song and Dr. Goertzel that blockchain has the power to facilitate a far-reaching distribution of data and algorithms. Therefore, blockchain is likely to play a key role in determining how AI will continue to develop.

As a result, Song and Goertzel, in an interview with The New York Times, highlighted the importance of ensuring that machine learning capabilities should be under the control of the data owner rather than big companies.

For example, people are concerned about the fact that Google and Facebook have immense power to obtain and store personal data. But to counteract this problem, Professor Song is now developing Oasis, a blockchain-based technique to protect the data being sold, “so that no one — not even the company using the data — will get a copy of it.”

What are your thoughts on combining the power of blockchain and AI technologies? Let us know in the comments below.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock, Twitter (@bengoertzel, @nathanielpopper).