Convergence of AI and Blockchain: Increased Efficiency and Security

Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain both these technologies are contradicting in nature and they work on completely different paradigms but merging both of them sounds promising? Doesn’t it?

Today, companies are looking to develop real-world business applications that combine AI and Blockchain.

For instance:

JD.com — The Chinese e-commerce juggernaut launched a new accelerator called AI Catapult for artificial intelligence and blockchain start-ups to test real-world applications which can support its tech infrastructure.

Porsche — The Luxury car manufacturer is leveraging blockchain and artificial intelligence technologies by testing it in smart vehicles and is working on it for charging, parking etc.

Silicon Valley — Dr. Scott Zoldi, chief analytics officer at Silicon Valley analytic software Firm Fico, said: “Beyond its association with cryptocurrencies, blockchain technology will soon record ‘time chains of events,’ as applied to contracts, interactions and occurrences,” [ FICO Blog ].

Doesn’t the above instance sounds fascinating? But will this merger will actually help to take efficient business decisions or it is just an experiment?

Let’s find out.

In this blog, we will try and understand how Blockchain can compliment AI. But, before we dive into the topic, let us have a quick look as to how these technologies function and how they counter each other’s fundamental paradigms:

Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain

It is clearly visible that both these technologies are totally opposite but merging it would mark the beginning of an entirely new paradigm.

Blending Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain: Why do we care?

AI makes people understand and analyze the massive amount of data, but there is always a chance of data misuse or hacking. The Blockchain is unable to analyze data; but as it provides decentralized database, it can protect every data related to AI which results into enhanced security and faster & transparent operations.

Let’s say, you have face detecting system which serves as an authenticator to open the door just for you. What if the data in this system is lost, copied or stolen? You may try all the possible ways, different point authentication to recover the data but somehow you are not able to.
Nevertheless, to do this is quite a difficult task and this is where a distributed system like Blockchain comes to the scenario. If you include key encryption along with AI algorithms, you can make sure that data is safe and the door is opened just for you.

However, both these technologies are dependent on each-other and both of them possess the capabilities to solve each other’s problem.

What is a problem with AI? How Blockchain can overcome?

The problem with AI is in its own discretionary nature. Since it is a black box, even the owners of the AI don’t have complete control over their own creation. And since it is based on probability, there is a chance that the AI might make a mistake because of the faulty data fed to it that can result in a disaster.
So for the AI to grow to its full potential in the near future, it needs to have a certain level of transparency and ability to develop a secure way to gain access to authentic data and blockchain can overcome that

What is the problem with Blockchain? How AI can overcome?

According to Deloitte, the cost of validating and sharing blockchain transactions is around $600 million. The energy consumed of running this hardware results into high cost and wastage is another problem. Whenever any transaction occurs, multiple miners try to verify it which means tons of energy is wasted. AI has the potential to optimize this process and decrease the cost of mining.

Moreover, Blockchain keeps all information from the launch which results in the longer and heavier chain. In such scenario, AI can help blockchain to make a smarter decision about data storage and maintenance by utilizing machine learning algorithms.

Sounds cool?

Let’s further see what outcome this merger can bring?

Merger of AI and Blockchain: What is the result?

1) Secure accumulation of Data:

When AI is integrated with Blockchain, people will not hesitate to share their PII with the AI as they can be assured that the data is secured and cannot be penetrated by the hackers.

2) Transparency in AI:

With Blockchain integrated, AI proceedings can be monitored in the controlled way where the experts and data scientists can have access to the data being fed and processed in AI without the fear of interference or tampering in the data.

3) Decentralized AI marketplaces:

There are many successful AI operating in the market like the Watson from AI, Google’s AI, Luban from Alibaba and others! But, the problem currently is due to its centralized nature, the AIs cannot compete and compliment with each other!

The data is to be kept private and due to the privacy laws, it is not possible to share data in between the AIs. But, with Blockchain securing the data and ensuring its privacy, AI can have the capability to merge and interact as well as compete with each other opening doors to an immense number of possibilities!

4) Real-time flagging of Fraudulent transactions:

With AI accompanying Blockchain at the time of an e-contract, the data owners have the complete transparency of the proceedings and with AI monitoring the process, it can instantaneously notify and flag if there is a breach or fraud in the data inserted and processed.

5) AI bot networks:

Currently, the AI bots are assigned to carry out individual tasks. But with Blockchain’s decentralised nature, there is a possibility that Deep Learning algorithms can be deployed to combine different bots and can create a network working as a brain and functioning in sync.

While these might seem a bit fascinating, there are certain challenges too in merging these technologies.

Let’s discuss the couple of challenges that can hinder the merger of AI and Blockchain:

Challenges in merging AI and Blockchain:

-> The infrastructure of Blockchain is decentralised and the Blockchain nodes are heterogeneous in nature, hence if the Blockchain is public and open-sourced, it is almost impossible for Machine Learning outputs to come at as a single point.

-> Also, the data consumed by AI is enormous and the database that Blockchain forms is not scalable to consume that amount of data. Hence, it is not possible to integrate with Blockchain in its current state.

-> Also, there are many instances, where AI failed to show its power. For instance: Uber’s self-driving cars avoiding red lights. In such cases, if the AI is decentralised, it is very difficult to control the damage that it will cause!

Although with these challenges, Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain solution can enable enterprises to:

• Free up capital flows
• Enable lower transaction cost
• Speed up processes

Use Cases of BlockChain and AI: How industries can benefit?

-> Precision Medicine: Google DeepMind is using the combination of both techniques to let hospitals, NHS and even patients to track what happens with the data in real-time. They have developed verifiable data audit system to create to create a special digital ledger to track every transaction with patient’s data. Blockchain will enable the system to remain secure and AI will allow staff to obtain analytics on medical predictions drawn from patient’s profile.

-> Cyber Security: When AI and Blockchain are used together, it provides an extra guard against cyber attacks. AI can be trained to automate real-time theft detection while blockchains take care of vulnerabilities in decentralized databases.

-> Self-Driving Cars: While self-driving cars are becoming main-stream, not everyone will be able to afford an AI-driven car; Car leasing is one of the options. Blockchain technology can simplify the leasing process by lessening up a number of people involved, syncing data and providing audit trails.

Few human brains who have successfully achieved success in merging the two technologies; let us have a look at what are the applications of such mergers:

Some of the notable projects of AI and Blockchain merger:

SingularityNET: SingularityNET brings AI and Blockchain together to create a decentralized open market for AI. It enables anyone to monetize AI, enabling companies, organizations and developers to buy and sell AI algorithms at scale; thus increasing the capabilities of the AIs.

Sophia: The world’s most expressive robot is one of the first use cases; Hanson Robotics who developed the robot Sophia has to manually manage the information regarding what she knows and then determine her responses and interactions. SingualrityNET makes the use of blockchain and AI for data repository to pull the information and data that they need. Today, Sophia uses multiple AI modules to see, hear, and respond emphatically.

Namahe AI- Supply Chain: Generally, the products we buy have long value chains where tracking of the products and the workers involved can be quite challenging. This results into misuse. Namahe AI will be deployed in the Supply Chain mix and will monitor the process in real-time and reporting anomalies, delay and frauds in the system and flag such data for the review to the authorities. In the next phase, they will deploy Machine Learning and allow the AI to predict future markets and anomalies.

Namahe AI aims to bring in transparency and connect various elements of the value chains.

Numerai Hedge Funds: Unlike other Hedge funds who keep their AI a black box, they are using the Blockchain infrastructure to open the AI to the data scientists around the world allowing them to contribute to the machine learning algorithms helping the organizations to steer their hedge fund proceedings.

Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence: What is the future?

The synergy between Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain Technology is still in undiscovered phase. Although the intersection of both has received a fair share, it is in the experimental phase.

However, there are many such developments and deployments undertaking across the world currently! And this is not even the tip of the iceberg! With AI and Blockchain growing every day, we still have to witness how both of them will provide unlimited innovations and revolutions to our society.