The Trinity of AI — CrowdSource, OpenSource, & BlockChain
The fourth industrial revolution has started and while AI is at the forefront of that revolution, we must note that there are some fundamental blocks which are necessary for this revolution to thrive, sustain and drive the world economy and businesses.
We must look at these fundamental blocks closely to realise and comprehend what lies ahead and align our professions and businesses to ensure relevance. These fundamental blocks are Crowdsource, OpenSource and BlockChain and these are the very fabric of the 4th Industrial Revolution.
I don’t think that we would have seen the massive AI and Tech development we have seen over the last decade had OpenSource not existed and had companies not embraced it to further advance their knowhow and development.
OpenSource opened the gates for Crowdsourcing and somehow these two are very deeply linked, however they are different developments. With the help of Crowdsourcing, it became possible to harness the expertise of the crowd, from any remote location and from any time zone
Then came Blockchain which essentially is another form of Crowdsource or OpenSource because BlockChain is DLT (Distributed Ledger Technology) which is based on a decentralised consensus based system that does not allow a central authority to dictate. I see a lot of elements of OpenSource and CrowdSource in BlockChain.
It is now possible to harness the power of individual expertise, create powerful teams without hiring them, deliver results much faster though efficient selection of human resources, enable sharing and on demand work and delivery,
Benefits derived from OpenSource (Open source is freedom to use, study, modify and distribute Software, IP or any other Object or knowledge for any purpose, provided it comes under the OpenSource licence.)
- Knowledge Sharing has become increasingly possible and rewarding. No need to code or learn from scratch when you can get a jump start from OpenSource libraries.
- Debugging has become very easy.
- Contributions are recognised and rewarded.
- Fosters innovation and reduces the cost of innovation.
- Creates a level playing field and helps technological progress.
- Creates competition and therefore leads to advancement.
Benefits derived from CrowdSource (Crowdsourcing leverages the power of the crowd or teams of people either in their free time or for specific assignments to complete tasks in a much more economical way.)
- Leverage the power of teams from anywhere and anytime.
- Massive economic benefits both to the people and the organisations involved.
- Tapping into crowd intelligence can solve problems faster and drive better results.
- Diverse experience delivers better and more sustainable results / solutions.
- Likelihood of better robustness for products / solutions delivered through crowdsourcing.
- Creativity gets a massive boost.
- Gives 100s of options and choices and usually results in the best solutions.
Benefits derived from BlockChain (A consensus driven, append only, distributed or decentralised ledger technology that is further secured through cryptographic hash functions and is just the right platform for exchange of money, ideas, digital goods etc in the gig economy.)
- Most secure transactional platform.
- Decentralised and therefore trust-less system.
- Ensures anonymity and traceability.
- Reduces the cost of transactions and eliminates payment middlemen.
- Auto Executable contracts ensure better efficacy of business transactions.
- Best payment platform for the gig economy.
- Unification of global trade and payments is possible though blockchain.
All three — Crowdsource, OpenSource and BlockChain are the fundamental fabric of the 4th revolution. They are the means through which humanity will progress towards a better degree of equality, hopefully.
