Why Ai Makes Blockchain More Important

In this article, I explore a thought I’ve had about a potential philosophical divide between two innovations of the computer age: Artificial Intelligence (Ai) as left-wing technology and blockchain (aka cryptocurrency) as right-wing technology. Whilst these philosophical positions aren’t explicitly acknowledged, I think that they are implicit in the roots and applications of these technologies. I also think that politics is an inescapable part of human nature. As these technologies become an inescapable part of human society, their philosophical differences may manifest similar to the dichotomy we see between political parties: a left-wing ideology and a right wing one.

My (fleetingly constructed) thesis is that Ai is left wing technology and blockchain is right wing technology. If this thesis is correct, then blockchain is technology that is philosophically and politically the opposite of Ai and an inescapable law of human systems is that the more entrenched one side becomes, the more important the opposition.

Ai is left wing technology and blockchain is right wing technology

Firstly, a fleeting generalisation of the political divide between the left and the right. The left encourages larger government, focussing on helping society as a whole and valuing community as paramount. The right encourages smaller government, focussing on facilitation of the individual and valuing freedom as paramount.

Secondly, a fleeting summary of the philosophical/political divide between Ai and blockchain. Technology is applied science, and, as Karl Popper says, science is simply the identification of problems. Ai solves problems of human labour, whilst blockchain solve problems of human coordination. In solving these respective problems, Ai seems to apply to society as a whole giving greater control to those in charge (creators of Ai) whilst blockchain seems to apply only to the individuals that choose to participate (capturing the value of liberty). Ai automates that which humans in the masses of society do e.g. customer service provided by chatbots and shelves stacked by robots. And blockchain automates what the government usually does, i.e. providing a consensus mechanism that decides whether something is correct (e.g. Bitcoin: a consensus mechanism dictating the validity of currency). Thus, Ai promotes community as a whole since it automates the work of wider society; whilst blockchain promotes the individual as it automates authority.

Is blockchain important technology?

On the surface, Ai seems to be much more important as a technology than blockchain. Chat-GPT, the leading manifestation of AI, has seen a massive rate of adoption (over 100m in a few months), much faster than the adoption of bitcoin. Moreover, highly respected individuals with vast experience (e.g. Bill Gates and Paul Graham) are recognising this technology as ground breaking. A similar phenomenon did not occur with blockchain. Bitcoin, the leading manifestation of blockchain, was spearheaded by anonymous cyber-punk activists and the only substantial impact has been facilitating illegal payments and the acceleration of gambling [https://musaddik.co.uk/is-cryptocurrency-just-a-craze]. Thus, the question is, is blockchain anywhere near as important as Ai?

Well, technology is as important as humans deem it to be [https://musaddik.co.uk/why-are-we-scared-of-ai]. Whilst current opinion finds Ai to be vastly superior in importance, if the thesis of this article is correct then the value of blockchain might be accelerated by the emergence of Ai.

Why might blockchain become more important in the Age of Ai?

Firstly, blockchain might simply provide an alternative philosophical bulwark to that provided by Ai. Every view has an opposition. For the left to exist, the right must persist. This is a timeless fact of human politics and may extend to technology too. In an age where computers and digital technology serve as the meta of human reality; blockchain may serve as necessary technological opposition.

When we look at present day impact of these technologies; this philosophical division seems emotionally manifest. Blockchain is technology that thrives only because of the involvement of lots of individuals. It has been the ability of blockchain innovations to capture people’s excitement that has created its success, for it was the involvement of the laymen that led to the frenzied valuation of Shiba and Dogecoin. In contrast, Ai technology required billions in cooperate funding and creates a sense of fear amongst the masses (“what will happen to our jobs”).

Blockchain might also become more important for practical reasons. Blockchain was created as trust-less technology: a tool that facilitates trusting strangers without third party intermediaries (specifically, verifying the validity of money without banks). In an age dominated by AI, blockchain may serve an authority mechanism to verify that work was produced by a human being and not by a machine. Indeed, it was the “proof of work” authority mechanism that served as the ground-breaking technology of bitcoin and some sort of “proof of humanity” mechanism may be a practical opposition to Ai. However, this presents a plethora of technical challenges far beyond the scope of this rushed piece.

Finally, blockchain might be important to AI’s themselves. This takes the assumption that the dreams/nightmares of an Artificial “General” Intelligence has materialised, and AI has gained some sense of consciousness and now needs to organise an AI society. In such a situation, AIs might deliberate on how to share resources. Blockchain, as an algorithmic consensus mechanism, seems like the ideal way to do this. In fact, bitcoin has never made sense as human money because only computation is sacrificed for the establishment of digital coins (whilst human life has been sacrificed for fiat money, cf the wars that established governments). But for sentient machine beings, bitcoin is the only currency that does make sense.