Two of the major developments of this young century are no doubt- blockchain and AI. Many people are sanguine about the scope and positive role that both of these new technologies can play in order to change society.

Blockchain and AI in a Nutshell

The Blockchain technology makes the records immutable and decentralizes the system. Thus it eliminates centralized control. AI can learn on its own provided it has the required amount of data.  In short, we can say that Blockchain is a strong medium to eliminate corruption or misuse of authority as the decentralized system and immutable records mean maximum accuracy and transparency at all levels.  

Likewise, Google AI helps in enhancing productivity in different fields by minimizing clerical and repetitive tasks. However, its core benefit lies in independently evolving with time and “experience” that offer scalable efficiency.

While AI is not too complicated to be understood, the Blockchain needs one to go through some mental gymnastics. Let us know about the major characteristics of Blockchain:

The information is stored in Blocks that get hashed in a specific linear order to form a chain

The data gets duplicated over the entire network ecosystem apprising all the users of the updates. It prevents fraud or criminal destruction/mutation of data by unscrupulous elements or corrupt system officials. In order to avoid detection, they should change all the copies across distributed networked simultaneously. That is almost impossible!   

The consensus of the chain participants is important and they need to agree on a specific, singular format tip facilitate interoperability,

It is possible to get a specific program executed upon meeting a specific condition. This is called Smart Contacts in technical terms.

AI, BlockChain and Ethics

Though there are many expectations from Blockchain and AI it would also be interesting to know if and how the AI and Blockchain can align with the high levels of ethics. So let us evaluate the BlockChain and AI in the light of present context- Finding the common path on which the Blockchain, AI and ethics can walk together:

An ethical community is important

One thing to keep in mind is that Block Chain Technology relies on the community (as consensus on all levels is important) and thus the community should be ethically inclined and have solidarity on moral values. If this condition is not met the chances are that either intentionally or unintentionally any specific Blockchain products can fall short of the expectations. So it should be made mandatory to define the moral and practical aspects of ethics before developing any Blockchain project.

The same goes for AI. There have been instances when hackers used AI to develop smart hacking tools. So having a specific, well-defined policy to regulate the use of AI is imperative. If AI is used by malicious elements it can only maximize the harm.

The issue of mass adoption

Whether we talk about AI or Blockchain the real social impact of any technology is possible if they are adopted by the populace. Right now many top class people actively use AI or Blockchain but when we talk about the masses they are not yet fully aware, comfortable or convinced by Blockchain & AI.

Hence, if the large target group is not acquainted with the technology then it becomes also almost impossible to practically realize its social impact. So it is important to distribute the information across masses. Any negligence on this part can defeat the very objectives of Blockchain/AI and it may end up doing more harm than good.

However, at this point in time, the Block Chan or AI are not well defined and can prevent the masses from accepting the value.

Blockchain’s Immutability and AI’s Evolution

Immutable is the term used for Block Chain. However, the smart malicious elements can tweak the equations in such a way that it fails to deliver the designed information will need to be changed. So it is important to make sure that the internal ecosystem of different stakeholders should unite and decide the interoperability possibilities. While blockchain can allow in deciding the stability of systems and accuracy of data you also need to check them on a constant basis.

As opposed to BlockChain the benefit of AI lies in its ability to evolve or change with time. Hence, his malicious elements can easily train AI to maximize its destructive powers and capabilities and the worst thing is that it will also make it more difficult to find the human culprits

Regulating the Privacy

The BlockChain can be misuse if one gets the access your private keys and not all the vendors are careful enough provide the most secured Blockchain keys. So the smart hackers can crack the keys and do greater harm.

In the same manner, the privacy of AI also has some fundamental challenges to face. To be more precise, the privacy is closely associated with eh efficiency of the tool or medium. As the AI evolves with time its efficiency keeps ion maximizing and thus one needs to review the privacy policy frequently in order to evaluate the relevance f the previous privacy policy in the high of the latest efficiency level of the AI.

Conclusion

AI and Blockchain are two of the major groundbreaking technologies of this century. However, there are concerns about the ethics when we talk about mass usage. This article talks about ethical issues associated with AI and BlockChain.

Author Bio

Alisha is a content writer and director of operations. She writes for various industries like travel, wildlife, history, art, and of course technology! She works with B2B and B2C businesses providing digital marketing content that gains social media attention and increases their search engine visibility.