When AI Meets Blockchain: The Power of Synergy

Artificial intelligence and blockchain are the two major technologies that lead the innovation and change almost every industry from automotive to healthcare. Eventually the question pops up: what happens in their intersection? Let’s explore the benefits of the synergy between AI and blockchain.

Artificial intelligence industry moves fast: according to PwC, it could contribute up to $15.7 trillion to the world economy in 2030. Global GDP will be up to 14% higher as a result of the accelerating development of AI. Meanwhile the blockchain technology, driving distributed immutable ledgers of economic transactions, is already widely applied in various spheres of businesses. According to Gartner prediction, “by 2030, the business value added by blockchain will grow to $3.1 trillion.”

There are already strong examples of AI and blockchain collaboration. SingularityNET, a blockchain-based marketplace, had ICO in December and raised $36M. Neuromation, a synthetic data platform for deep learning applications, recently closed a $50M token sale in 8 hours. Of course, there are more companies aimed to combine AI and blockchain technologies, like DeepSee media platform or doc.ai, a solution to get quantified biology and healthcare insights.

As a distributed ledger, blockchain enables safe collaboration among previously non-cooperative parties. It establishes a peer-to-peer network within one system, effectively eliminating intermediaries (and therefore costs and time) and the complexity of using disparate ledgers and processes throughout the transaction lifecycle.

Moving towards secure environment

The increase of security is one of the most important advantages that blockchain brings. If developers create AI solution in a centralized platform, they need to ensure the integrity and security of the data, accuracy of machine learning algorithms. They should also make sure that the interface provides a reliable representation of an AI output. In such a model the developers have to trust the platform blindly.

Meanwhile blockchain’s transparency and accessibility to all participants of a peer-to-peer network significantly pumps up the security. All the information (such as AI app/data ownership and/or platform earned tokens) cannot disappear from blockchain, while immutable and audited smart contracts guarantee safe and fair execution of transactions without the need for a trusted intermediary.

The progress made by machine learning in the past few years makes AI a great companion for the blockchain to guarantee a secure applications’ deployment.

No more borders

The blockchain helps to create a world without borders. AI solutions won’t work without well-analyzed datasets. The creation of these datasets, and therefore the AI development, depends not only on high-profile and high-paid engineers working for tech giants. It also relies on lower-paid workers, including unbanked people from developing countries, who mark up the data for machine learning.

For the latter, earning cryptocurrencies is an attractive option. In comparison with fiat payments which cause legal and bank difficulties, wages in crypto do not depend on local laws and therefore protect workers from a volatile exchange rates. On blockchain-based platforms, developers can simply request a task, set a price, and any available worker around the world can perform it to earn money.

A step to increase accessibility

Blockchain-AI integration simplifies the collaboration with crowdworkers. In many developing countries it is difficult to open a bank account, and making a fiat payment is not easy. Earning in cryptocurrencies becomes a solution. It takes only few minutes to register an Ethereum or Bitcoin wallet.

To sum up, blockchain can accelerate AI adoption in the real world by expanding its community, involving more workforce and making datasets accessible not only for tech giants, like Apple, Microsoft or Tesla, but also for smaller businesses. It holds a potential to break down current barriers of AI development that could lead to more efficiency and greater openness with lower costs.

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