The ball and chain of artificial intelligence – blockchain technology. Blockchain technology may well become the bedrock upon which artificial intelligence is based and controlled.

If you are interested in your business’s or organisation’s survival let alone your own, then no matter who you are or what you do you’re going to have to get to grips with that infectious nettle known as blockchain (or distributed database) technology. You may say well I am a lawyer, doctor, accountant, nurse, teacher or whatever so I can leave that claptrap to the IT gurus. How wrong can you get?

Firstly, in a matter of years blockchain technology could easily supplant the ways we record most data. However, more important than that, blockchain technology may well become the bedrock upon which artificial intelligence is controlled. One way or another the consequences of that are enormous for most of us.

Estimates vary, but a reasonable poll of polls would be that well over two billion of today’s jobs won’t exist by 2030 assuming World War III hasn’t trumped that prediction. By then governments will have had to work out how to tax robots and artificial intelligence applications to pay for their citizens’ living wages.

So, if you don’t know what blockchain technology is then it’s probably time you did: good straightforward places to start are at https://www.blockchain.com and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockchain_(database).

The technology kicked off with Bitcoins in Silk Road on Tor or the Dark Web where hoodies and terrorists dealt in narcotics and Kalashnikovs. Yet from those mean street beginnings the same technology could now take over maintaining databases on almost everything mankind keeps records of whether historical, live or forecast. For illustrative purposes, it’s worth bearing in mind that such databases would cover information on the weather, accounting, banking, legal, tax, medical, travel, scientific, social, telephonic, governmental and educational matters to name but a few topics.

Nevertheless, blockchain technology is not without its risks but if properly controlled its rewards far exceed those risks. There are many dissertations on the risks and rewards that can easily be accessed on the web by simply searching for “blockchain risks and rewards”. Notwithstanding the risks, the technology could easily supplant most traditional record keeping techniques within a decade or two. However, it has other applications too.

Blockchain technology can even be applied to warfare and that is not limited to cyberspace. It could become the handcuffs that facilitate real control over artificial intelligence and robotics. For the seemingly ever-increasing number of nations planning to destroy each other it might even help cut their defence budgets in half!

So, what should you do about it? Contact us initially by email and we’ll help you turn your perceived risks into rewards.

This article was first published on 7th March 2017.