The seventh chapter of Alok Aggarwal’s new book, “The Fourth Industrial Revolution & 100 Years of AI (1950-2050)” discusses how Blockchain serves as the bedrock of the fourth industrial revolution, offering transparent, immutable, and auditable transactions, and it also explores how Data Science and AI are improving this invention further to provide superior results.
In 2008, the demise of the fourth-largest investment bank, Lehman Brothers, exposed the vulnerabilities of a system built on trust, plagued by corruption, fraud, and self-aggrandizement. The need for a decentralized financial system became glaringly apparent, paving the way for innovative solutions.
Coincidentally, in October 2008, just after Lehman Brothers’ collapse, an anonymous author, Satoshi Nakamoto, introduced a groundbreaking research article titled “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System.” This marked the beginning of Blockchain technology, a decentralized system using a peer-to-peer network for financial transactions.
Key takeaways from this chapter include:
Advantages of a decentralized system: An optimized decentralized system for financial and supply chain transactions has the following advantages – (a) disintermediation, (b) strengthening community inclusion, (c) immutability and auditability, (d) transparency, (e) potentially lower costs for transactions, (f) greater speed, and (g) lower friction, especially when compared to the current monolithic intermediaries.
Blockchain provides many advantages: Blockchain, which was originally introduced by Sakamoto in the form of Bitcoin and then expanded by Buterin by including Smart Contracts, is being exploited for creating extremely versatile decentralized systems. Immutability of Blockchain arises from the use of cryptographic hash functions, which ensure that even if several participants in the Blockchain collude against others, their collusion will be easily detected.
Combination of Blockchain, IoT, and AI are providing valuable results: Innovators are already using the combination of Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence for improving a plethora of use cases in several industries including those in health care, supply chain, utilities, banking, financial services, and insurance. Similarly, other innovators are combining Blockchain, AI, and Internet of Things (IoT) to improve scalability (i.e., bringing new devices online and removing older ones quickly), increasing trust with clients, and creating new business models.
Contemporary crypto coins are unlikely to displace traditional currencies: The precursor of Blockchain was Bitcoin, which led to the creation of the cryptocurrency industry. Although the future of approximately 4,000 different kinds of crypto coins is unclear, governments of some countries in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East are experimenting with potentially introducing Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs). Also, in 2021, El Salvador became the first country to adopt Bitcoin as a legal tender.
Overall, the book, “The Fourth Industrial Revolution & 100 Years of AI (1950-2050)” provides a concise yet comprehensive exploration of AI, covering its origins, evolutionary trajectory, and its potential ubiquity during the next 27 years. Beginning with an introduction to the fundamental concepts of AI, subsequent chapters delve into its transformative journey with an in-depth analysis of achievements of AI, with a special focus on the potential for job loss and gain. The latter portions of the book examine the limitations of AI, the pivotal role of data in enabling accurate AI systems, and the concept of “good” AI systems. It concludes by contemplating the future of AI, addressing the limitations of classical computing, and exploring alternative technologies (such as Quantum. Photonics, Graphene, and Neuromorphic computing) for ongoing advancements in the field. This book is now available in bookstores and online retailers in Kindle, paperback, and hard cover formats.