AI (Artificial Intelligence) and machine learning are the top boys in the class of 2020 with literally hundreds of millions of dollars spent on research into this amazing technology. The reason is obvious, the team, company, individual that reaches the point of ‘singularity’ or the point of AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) will be the king of the world!
It is estimated that a computer that reaches AGI (meaning a program that can rewrite its own code or the equivalent) will advance humanity by 25,000 years in a single year.
Just take time to think about that. Think about the human race about 25,000 years ago, and then try to think how far we have come as a race in just say the past 25 years. It is almost inconceivable what advances an AGI program would provide us in just a single year.
There are many proponents of this technology all racing to beat the other and be first across the winning line reaping all of the rewards. But there are also just as many concerned citizens most famous of which are Elon Musk and Sam Harris who have their doubts about the potential dangers outweighing the potential benefits.
We can see why. The race for AGI is a hot potato. It has the potential to be more disrupting than the atomic bomb, but the difference being the atomic movement was coordinated in one single project; The Manhattan project. Why is this so important? Because you could gather all of the greatest minds under one single room and they could duke it out between each other without having to make unnecessary advancements that could possibly prove fatal. They didn’t need to cut corners. Whereas in the new AGI ‘arms race’ the motivation to succeed and be first could be too tempting to not cut corners.
Most people think of AGI as something out of Hollywood whereby a switch is flipped and suddenly you have ‘Skynet’ trying to destroy the human race, whereas in reality it will probably be small steps and gradual advancement in technology slowly providing changes to our lives. The concern is the developers in their haste to win, will not have fully contemplated every ‘what if’ eventuality.
Let’s take a simple example; you program the AGI computer to eradicate unhappiness and make everyone happy. If you have not defined the correct parameters, how will the program know what is correct? Step 1. Could be to tell a joke and make people laugh or smile because that’s what it has learnt happiness looks like in a human, but some people for whatever reason don’t find the joke funny and don’t laugh or smile. The next step the computer could take is to group the humans not smiling and inject them with botox to keep them smiling. Which would probably be useful if they are so miserable not to laugh at jokes in the first place.
Yes, of course, it’s a silly example and sounds like something from a Black Mirror episode, but you see my point. Every possible ‘What if’ eventuality needs to be considered and planned in, will that be done in this current AGI arms race?
The reality is, as we all can see with Facebook and Twitter when it comes to advances in technology over the past 15 years, we are mere children left alone in a sweet shop and we do not have the skills nor the discipline to handle the technology and advancements we have been given as tools and use it to benefit us. Imagine what will happen when we advance 25,000 years in a single year?
We have to consider the fact that AGI is inevitable no matter how far off into the future, so the next question is; Is there a system out there or a type of technology that could benefit humanity and keep AGI in check?
Yes, I believe there is and it’s already here. It’s called the Blockchain. Here we go another fanatical prophet of the Blockchain network, just hear me out.
Blockchain technology is so underrated and its potentials are massively overlooked in part to its own self-success in the realm of cryptocurrency to which most people just connect cryptocurrency with the 2016 Bitcoin bubble. That is literally just the tip of the iceberg. If people study exactly how the Blockchain works and how, if you are creative enough, it has the potential to benefit society as much if not more than AGI. That’s a big statement but think about it. Currently, politics and society are at odds with one another over capitalism on the right and socialism on the left. Both are irrelevant if you use the blockchain. How so? Capitalism provides many great benefits to our society but misses out on so many other issues that socialism could possibly fill. The problem is the indoctrination of both the right and the left leaving no room for a compromise and a belief that you can only use one of the other.
If we break down capitalism it uses a typical hierarchical system whereby at the top of the pyramid is the person with the ‘capital’ and the people at the bottom are the people who provide the skills, work and production for this capital in a feedback loop whereby the bottom rung of people receive a small portion of the capital as compensation for their efforts and time. They receive payment for whatever the market values their worth and the top people of the pyramid reap most of the benefits as they provided most of the capital. There are obvious glaring problems with this system as is why Karl Marx on the shoulders of others created ‘Das Capital’ as an opposing view to this form of capitalism aiming to create a different system that would be fairer and more equal to all. This idea, however, goes against human nature and so until now has never succeeded no matter how attractive it seems on paper.
In summary, socialism has no real hierarchy, therefore, providing much more in the form of equality for all. We could argue about the ‘yin and yang’ of ‘equality and freedom’ whereby they are both opposite on the spectrum to each other meaning that the more equality a society has the less freedom it has. Resulting in some members of society having to give up their freedoms in order to provide for everyone else, a simple fact of life.
Socialism also seems to remove or at the very least misalign the incentives of man that can therefore lead to corruption which is why throughout the world wherever true socialism has been adopted in populations it has not reached its idealistic potential.
Perhaps we should take a look at what exactly is a Blockchain network? It is a network of hundreds if not thousands of nodes (many people with computers) that all work to verify a transaction in the network between two separate parties. So, if I want to send digital funds to a friend or colleague over the net, I can do so without having to pay a large sum to a middle man for the privilege. All of the nodes in the network will work as the middle man and verify my transaction. Simple right? The beauty of this is, the nodes have no hierarchy, no one person in charge, no pyramid with a top man in charge, completely democratic. The nodes also have completely separate incentives to my transaction. Meaning their incentive is to be the first to verify my transaction and other people’s transactions ‘a block’ on the network and when they win this mini-competition they receive tokens generated from an algorithm – called proof of work*
*There are other systems which I will cover in later articles.
This allocation of wealth to the winning nodes in the form of tokens is called mining and is completely separate from my transaction. So, what we have here is a socialistic, decentralised, democratic, non-hierarchical network that also has its own incentive system to reward the network and keep it working, the perfect answer to both socialism and capitalism!
Every day in the mainstream media news and on social media you have people on the far left and people on the far right arguing over what is the best system, WTF?
Get over it, your arguments are now irrelevant because of technology namely Blockchain.
Use your mental energy to start creating a brand-new social economy instead of wasting on obtaining brownie points from your biased group of friends. Look beyond Bitcoin and Crypto, look beyond far-left politics and far-right politics, look beyond AGI and see how you can create a solution in our society using the Blockchain.
Here’s a thought experiment for you;
Is there a way in which we could give a greater value to nature so that it is more beneficial for companies and nations to not rape the natural world?
How does Fiat currency, the money in your wallet or in your phone get its value?
Simply because we all believe it has value. Take a brand-new £10 note out of your pocket, hold it up in the air for all to see in a busy shopping centre and shout out that you will give anyone this shiny new £10 in exchange for a £2 coin. How many people do you think will take you up on your offer? Go on, do it. And you’ll see that in fact, no one will take you up on your offer because they do not believe the money is real, it has to be a fake right?
I ask you again how does the money in your pocket get its value? Because we all believe it has value as is the same with Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, as long as you believe they have value, they will be valuable.
Using this same concept can we as an intelligent being give a value to the natural world that is far greater than what we currently give it by consensus? How much is the air we breathe? How much is the water that provides us life? How much are the forests that allow us to breathe? Let’s stop using all the worlds resources, let's stop saying we should all go back to living in caves and stupid ideas like stop eating meat, really?
Stop protesting in the streets. Stop studying dance and art. Stop worrying about left and right politics. Start thinking about how you can be the next Elon Musk. How can you use the Blockchain to save millions of peoples lives?
We at Fitchain are making a start. We are focusing all of our energies to creating a brand-new fitness and healthy economy that you all will become a part of. You will become the producers of this economy, not just the consumers wasting your money on unnecessary items. You all will become a part of the solution, by becoming Fitchaineans and joining us on this exciting journey.
