The future of work and how we use the Internet is being redefined by two technologies: the blockchain and artificial intelligence (AI).
Blockchain technology was introduced to the world with the emergence of the first cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, in 2008. To track currency exchanges, the blockchain provided a digital ledger owned by no one, with every transaction linked by a linear and chronologically ordered sequence or chain.
Blockchains could manage almost any type of transaction, accounting for numbers, votes, contracts, payments, research, personnel, and more. Every fact, record, or transaction in the blockchain is held in a decentralized ledger. This ledger distributes data across networks rather than central servers, is immutable and auditable, and reduces fraud, the threat of cyberattacks, and increases trust.
Blockchains can change how and where we work. Decentralization and the lack of a single authority make this technology the ultimate expression of digital democratization. With blockchain, workers anywhere can collaborate, manage their work week and operate with a large degree of autonomy. This is leading to new kinds of business models, described as decentralized, distributed organizations. Even how workers get paid can change using blockchains. Instead of the currency they have been receiving in the past, payments can be cryptocurrency, non-fungible tokens and other digital assets.
Blockchain adoption will change the face of jobs. New roles are emerging to handle blockchain-based smart contracts and blockchain application development. Global hiring practices will broaden the talent pool because blockchains will make finding the best fit for roles much easier.
Personally, blockchains will give their users greater autonomy and control of their data presence. Blockchains are bastions of privacy where your personal information can be securely stored and verified. It will be a useful tool for hospitals in a chain to be given permission by patients to access personal electronic health records.
For the Internet, blockchain is seen as the Web’s next evolutionary step. We continue to live in a Web 2.0 world, where platforms are often proprietary to the businesses that create content. With blockchain, users will be in control of Web 3.0, owning digital assets, utilizing decentralized financial instruments, transacting business without intermediaries, and creating and collecting value through monetary and non-monetary payments. The integration of Internet of Things (IoT) devices into a blockchain-driven Web 3.0 will enhance automated and autonomous systems. Smart IoT will increase the security of blockchains. Enhanced blockchains using IoT will help eliminate the single points of failure endemic to centralized and proprietary online systems and will provide much better protection against cyberattacks.
Add AI to blockchains and what have you got? The two technologies are complementary.
AI brings intelligent data analysis and decision-making to online interactions. AI will add considerable value in managing smart contracts, catching errors and omissions, executing and policing agreements and double-checking for human errors.
The same will be true where blockchains are used in supply chain management. When combined with AI, supply chain blockchains will automate supplier verification, provide real-time transaction validation, add predictive capacity to data analysis, and ensure that nothing gets overlooked for compliance with regulations in an increasingly complex world. For many businesses, just keeping up with the changing tariff machinations of Donald Trump, needless to say, will require an AI.
Are there concerns about using blockchain and AI together? Yes, many, including the following:
- Integrating AI and Blockchain lacks agreed-upon standards – Currently, no internationally recognized standard exists for integrating AI with blockchain technology. The industry needs to address this.
- Real Latency Performance Issues – Both blockchains and AI are resource-intensive. Blockchain networks require proof-of-work verification and use more computing resources than centralized systems. As a result, transaction rates can be slower. That’s because a blockchain transaction gets replicated across all the computing resources on the chain. That makes blockchain transactions more resource-intensive and creates the potential for latency issues per transaction. Add AI and its energy and data processing hogging requirements, and latency issues get magnified leading to the potential for bottlenecks.
- Privacy and security – AI is trained on large datasets, many in the public domain. The very opposite is true for blockchains. This difference has to be reconciled. The regulatory environment also needs to be updated to ensure compliance standards meet government and industry standards.
- Energy and the Environment – We have already noted that both blockchain and AI are energy-intensive. The combination will raise energy demand even further, with potential negative environmental impacts.
- Integration with Legacy Systems – Can legacy proprietary and centralized systems be integrated as the Web moves to a blockchain world with AI? For the banking and financial sector and supply chains, there will likely be significant conversion pain both in terms of cost and migration complexity, let alone establishing interoperability with these prior-use, centralized databases and other legacy applications.
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AI can be manipulated – While blockchain enhances data integrity, AI can be tricked if trained on data previously manipulated by malicious third parties. AI can perpetuate data biases. AI can hallucinate. All of these represent security risks.
