Category: development

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Building Digital Integrity: The Role of Blockchain in Virtual Identity

Virtual Identity and Digital Integrity

In today’s digital age, virtual identity has become an integral part of our online existence. It is the representation of who we are in the digital world, and it plays a significant role in our interactions with the online community. However, the growing concern of identity theft and data breaches highlights the need for a secure and reliable system to manage virtual identity. Blockchain technology has emerged as a potential solution to these challenges, offering a secure and decentralized platform for identity management. In this article, we will explore the role of blockchain in virtual identity and its impact on digital integrity.

Understanding the Blockchain Technology

Blockchain technology is a distributed ledger that provides a secure and transparent system for recording transactions. It is a decentralized system that operates on a peer-to-peer network, eliminating the need for a central authority to govern the transactions. Each block in the chain is linked to the previous block, creating an unalterable record of all the transactions. The security of the blockchain lies in its consensus mechanism, which ensures that all network participants agree on the validity of each transaction.

The Role of Blockchain in Identity Management

Blockchain technology offers a secure and decentralized platform for identity management, enabling individuals to have greater control over their personal data. Instead of relying on central authorities to manage identity, blockchain allows individuals to create and manage their own digital identities. This eliminates the need for third-party authentication, providing a more secure and efficient system for identity verification.

Safeguarding Personal Data with Blockchain

Blockchain technology provides a secure platform for storing and sharing personal data. The decentralization of the blockchain ensures that there is no single point of failure, making it difficult for hackers to breach the system. The use of encryption algorithms further enhances the security of the data, ensuring that only authorized individuals can access it.

The Benefits of Blockchain for Digital Integrity

Blockchain technology has the potential to revolutionize the way we manage digital identities, offering several benefits for digital integrity. Firstly, it provides a secure and decentralized platform for identity management, eliminating the need for third-party authentication. Secondly, it ensures the security of personal data, safeguarding against data breaches and identity theft. Thirdly, it provides greater transparency and accountability, enabling individuals to have greater control over their data.

Blockchain and Biometric Authentication

Blockchain technology can also be used for biometric authentication, providing an additional layer of security for identity management. Biometric authentication uses unique biological characteristics such as fingerprints and facial recognition to verify identity. By combining biometric authentication with blockchain, we can create a more secure and efficient system for identity verification.

The Future of Digital Identity with Blockchain

The future of digital identity is closely linked to the development of blockchain technology. With the increasing use of blockchain in identity management, we can expect to see a more secure and efficient system for managing virtual identity. The use of biometric authentication and encryption algorithms will further enhance the security of the system, providing a reliable platform for managing personal data.

Overcoming the Challenges of Blockchain Implementation

The implementation of blockchain technology presents several challenges, including scalability, interoperability and regulatory issues. Scalability is a major challenge for blockchain, as the system needs to be able to handle a large number of transactions. Interoperability is also a challenge, as different blockchain networks may not be compatible with each other. Regulatory issues also need to be addressed, as the use of blockchain in identity management raises several legal and ethical concerns.

Regulatory Frameworks for Blockchain and Virtual Identity

Regulatory frameworks for blockchain and virtual identity are still in the early stages of development. However, several initiatives have been launched to address the legal and ethical issues surrounding blockchain technology. The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the US’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) are two examples of regulatory frameworks that aim to promote the responsible use of blockchain in identity management.

Use Cases of Blockchain in Virtual Identity

Blockchain technology has several use cases in virtual identity, including digital identity management, biometric authentication, and secure data storage. The use of blockchain in virtual identity can also be extended to other applications, such as healthcare, finance, and e-commerce.

Conclusion: The Path Towards Digital Integrity

Blockchain technology has the potential to transform the way we manage virtual identity and promote digital integrity. By providing a secure and decentralized platform for identity management, blockchain can eliminate the need for third-party authentication, safeguard personal data, and enhance transparency and accountability. While there are still challenges to overcome, the future of digital identity looks promising with the use of blockchain technology.

References and Further Reading

  • Böhme, R., Christin, N., Edelman, B., & Moore, T. (2015). Bitcoin: Economics, technology, and governance. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 29(2), 213-238.
  • Nakamoto, S. (2008). Bitcoin: A peer-to-peer electronic cash system. Retrieved from https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf
  • Swan, M. (2015). Blockchain: Blueprint for a new economy. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly Media.
Posted on by — Leave a comment

Hybrid AI Will Go Mainstream in 2022

Analysts predict an AI boom, driven by possibilities and record funding. While challenges remain, a hybrid approach combining the best of the realm may finally send it sailing into the mainstream.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming the dominant trend in data ecosystems around the world, and by all counts, it will accelerate as the decade unfolds. The more the data community learns about AI and what it can do, the faster it empowers IT systems and structures. This is primarily why IDC predicts the market to top $500 billion as early as 2024, with penetration across virtually all industries driving a wealth of applications and services designed to make work more effective. In fact, CB Insights Research reported that at the close of Q3 2021, funding for AI companies had already surpassed 2020 levels by roughly 55%, setting a global record for the fourth consecutive quarter.

In 2022, we can expect AI to become better in solving practical problems that hamper unstructured language data-driven processes, thanks to improvements in complex cognitive tasks such as natural language understanding (NLU). At the same time, there will be increased scrutiny into how and why AI does what it does, such as ongoing efforts by the U.S. National Institutes of Standards and Technology (NIST) aimed at more explainable AI. This will require greater transparency into AI’s algorithmic functions without diminishing its performance or raising costs.

You shall know a word by the company it keeps

Of all the challenges that AI must cope with, understanding language is one of the toughest. While most AI solutions can crunch massive volumes of raw numbers or structured data in the blink of an eye, the multitude of meanings and nuances in language, based on the context they are in is another matter entirely. More often than not, words are contextual, which means they convey different understandings in different circumstances. Something easy and natural for our brains is not that easy for any piece of software.

 

This is why the development of software that can interpret language correctly and reliably has become a critical factor in the development of AI across the board. Achieving this level of computational prowess would literally unleash the floodgates of AI development by allowing it to access and ingest virtually any kind of knowledge.

NLU is a vital piece of this puzzle by virtue of its ability to leverage the wealth of language-based information. Language inhabits all aspects of enterprise activity, which means that an AI approach cannot be complete without extracting as much value as possible from this type of data.

A knowledge-based, or symbolic AI approach, leverages a knowledge graph which is an open box. Its structure is created by humans and is understood to represent the real world where concepts are defined and related to each other by semantic relationships. Thanks to knowledge graphs and NLU algorithms, you can read and learn from any text, out-of-the-box, and gain a true understanding of how data is being interpreted and conclusions are being drawn from that interpretation. This is similar to how we as humans are able to create our own specific, domain-oriented knowledge, and it enables AI projects to link its algorithmic results to explicit representations of knowledge.

In 2022, we should see a definitive shift toward this kind of AI approach combining both different techniques. Hybrid AI leverages different techniques to improve overall results and better tackle complex cognitive problems. Hybrid AI is an increasingly popular approach for NLU and natural language processing (NLP). Bringing together the best of AI-based knowledge or symbolic AI and learning models (machine learning, ML) is the most effective way to unlock the value of unstructured language data with the accuracy, speed and scale required by today’s businesses.

Not only will the use of knowledge, symbolic reasoning and semantic understanding produce more accurate results and a more efficient, effective AI environment, it will also reduce the need for cumbersome and resource-intensive training, based on wasteful volumes of documents on expensive, high-speed data infrastructure. Domain-specific knowledge can be added through subject matter experts and/or machine learning algorithms leveraging the analysis of small and pinpointed training sets of data to produce highly accurate, actionable results quickly and efficiently. 

The world of hybrid AI

But why is this transition happening now? Why hasn’t AI been able to harness language-based knowledge previously? We have been led to believe that learning approaches can solve any of our problems. In some cases, they can, but just because ML does well with certain needs and specific contexts doesn’t mean it is always the best method. And we see this all too often when it comes to the ability to understand and process language. Only in the past few years have we seen significant advancements in NLU based on hybrid (or composite) AI approaches.

Rather than throwing one form of AI, with its limited set of tools, at a problem, we can now utilize multiple, different approaches. Each can target the problem from a different angle, using different models, to evaluate and solve the issue in a multi-contextual way. And since each of these techniques can be evaluated independently of one another, it becomes easier to determine which ones deliver the most optimal outcomes.

With the enterprise already having gotten a taste of what AI can do, this hybrid approach is poised to become a strategic initiative in 2022. It produces significant time and cost benefits, while boosting the speed, accuracy and efficiency of analytical and operational processes. To take just one example, the process of annotation is currently performed by select experts, in large part due to the difficulty and expense of training. By combining the proper knowledge repositories and graphs, however, the training can be vastly simplified so that the process itself can be democratized among the knowledge workforce.

More to Come

Of course, research in all forms of AI is ongoing. But we will see particular focus on expanding the knowledge graph and automating ML and other techniques because enterprises are under constant pressure to leverage vast amounts of data quickly and at low cost.

As the year unfolds, we will see steady improvements in the way organizations apply these hybrid models to some of their most core processes. Business automation in the form of email management and search is already in sight. The current keyword-based search approach, for instance, is inherently incapable of absorbing and interpreting entire documents, which is why they can only extract basic, largely non-contextual information. Likewise, automation email management systems can rarely penetrate meaning beyond simple product names and other points of information. In the end, users are left to sort through a long list of hits trying to find the salient pieces of knowledge. This slows down processes, delays decision-making and ultimately hampers productivity and revenue.

Empowering NLU tools with symbolic comprehension under a hybrid framework will give all knowledge-based organizations the ability to mimic the human ability to comprehend entire documents across their intelligent, automated processes.

By , CTO at expert.ai on March 2, 2022 in Artificial Intelligence

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Functional NFT’s

Functional NFTs are changing the ways we interact with each other and the gaming experience. Earlier, NFTs were limited to products but now it’s putting a value on services too. Now with functional NFTs, you can choose to buy an experience rather than a piece of art. 

Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) have stirred up things in the world of art. While the underlying technology behind NFTs remains simple. They have morphed into multiple applications some of which we shall discuss soon. Traditionally there have been five categories of NFTs: Collectibles, Game Assets, Virtual Land, Crypto Art and Others (including domain names, property titles) etc. Currently, there seems to be another category that has been getting some buzz in the industry. This new player is called “Functional NFTs”. 

What are Functional NFTs?

Let’s discuss what Functional NFTs are first. The meaning should be clear from the name itself. NFTs that provide some sort of functionality. It could be a game asset that performs some function. For example, if a game has an avatar as an NFT and it provides certain functionality, then it can be called a Functional NFT. This functionality can be seen as accruing points in a game or giving the player some special power.

Another example can be an NFT created by a restaurant owner. The NFT works as a pass for one person to have dinner on Sunday at the restaurant. Therefore the NFT has some functionality and serves a given purpose. In a similar fashion imagine walking into a club and not having to stand in a line. Well, there can be an NFT for that too. Owning that NFT can give you free access to the club and since you own the NFT, people do not need to check for your ID. 

Normal vs Functional NFTs

Moreover, there has been a heated debate about value accrual in normal NFTs vs Functional NFTs. The argument is that non-functional NFTs are easier to make and are sold quickly on the market. Thus acquiring value quickly. In comparison to that Functional NFTs such as in games need to be thought about. It takes time to build a great experience around the basic utility of the functional NFT.

Consequently taking more time to build value. For example, Axie Infinity, a Pokemon-like game that allows players to collect, breed and battle creatures. It was launched in 2018, but it was quite different then from what it is right now. The developer team had multiple iterations to finesse the game experience. Once the gaming experience was finessed, the NFT assets within the game accrued value. The phenomenon is termed as “Promise Effect” which says that an NFT that promises some experience will accrue value slower than a non-functional NFT.

A new type of Functional NFTs

HODL Valley, a new metaverse gaming project is trying to create a tokenized city. One among many of its features is Functional NFT, but these NFTs take it a step too far. HODL Valley contains around 24 different locations, each with a specific function and utility. These locations are connected to DApps which carry out the functionality for users. These locations can be purchased in-app and the revenues generated by them can be taken home by the NFT owner. For example, let’s say a bank has been represented by an NFT. Since it’s connected to a DApp, it can provide lending and borrowing services. As other users in the game play and use the bank. The NFT owner, who is, in turn, the owner of the bank will be able to generate an income stream from it. That is how functional NFTs have been pitched recently. 

These functional NFTs are bound to change the way we interact with games and real life. With added functionality, individuals can get a unique experience. It’s not just a token anymore which represents value, it’s a function in itself. If NFTs was money then it was only selling products until now. Now, it has started moving into services too.

Source

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO)

 
 

What Was the Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO)?

One of the major features of digital currencies is that they are decentralized. This means they are not controlled by a single institution like a government or central bank, but instead are divided among a variety of computers, networks, and nodes. In many cases, virtual currencies make use of this decentralized status to attain levels of privacy and security that are typically unavailable to standard currencies and their transactions.

 

Inspired by the decentralization of cryptocurrencies, a group of developers came up with the idea for a decentralized autonomous organization, or DAO, in 2016.1

 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • The DAO was an organization created by developers to automate decisions and facilitate cryptocurrency transactions.
  • In June 2016, due to programming errors and attack vectors, hackers attacked the DAO, accessing 3.6 million ETH.
  • Digital exchange currencies de-listed the DAO token in September 2016.

Understanding the Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO)

The DAO was an organization that was designed to be automated and decentralized. It acted as a form of venture capital fund, based on open-source code and without a typical management structure or board of directors. To be fully decentralized, the DAO was unaffiliated with any particular nation-state, though it made use of the ethereum network. 

 

Why make an organization like the DAO? The developers of the DAO believed they could eliminate human error or manipulation of investor funds by placing decision-making power into the hands of an automated system and a crowdsourced process. Fueled by ether, the DAO was designed to allow investors to send money from anywhere in the world anonymously. The DAO would then provide those owners tokens, allowing them voting rights on possible projects.

 

The DAO launched in late April 2016 thanks to a month-long crowdsale of tokens that raised more than $150 million in funds.2 At the time, the launch was the largest crowdfunding fundraising campaign of all time.

 

Criticisms of the DAO

By May 2016, the DAO held a massive percentage of all ether tokens that had been issued up to that point (up to 14%, according to reporting by The Economist).3 At roughly the same time, however, a paper was published which addressed several potential security vulnerabilities, cautioning investors from voting on future investment projects until those issues had been resolved.

 

Later, in June 2016, hackers attacked the DAO based on these vulnerabilities. The hackers gained access to 3.6 million ETH, worth about $50 million at the time.4 This prompted a massive and contentious argument among DAO investors, with some individuals suggesting various ways of addressing the hack and others calling for the DAO to be permanently disbanded. This incident also figured prominently in the hard forking of ethereum that took place shortly thereafter.

 

According to IEEE Spectrum, the DAO was vulnerable to programming errors and attack vectors.5 The fact that the organization was charting new territory in terms of regulation and corporate law likely did not make the process any easier. The ramifications of the structure of the organization were potentially numerous: investors were concerned that they would be held liable for actions taken by the DAO as a broader organization.

 

The DAO operated in murky territory about whether or not it was selling securities, as well. Further, there were long-standing issues regarding the way that the DAO would function in the real world. Investors and contractors alike needed to convert ETH into fiat currencies, and this could have impacted the value of ether.

 

Following the contentious argument over the DAO's future and the massive hacking incident of earlier in the summer, in September 2016, several prominent digital currency exchanges de-listed the DAO token, marking the effective end for the DAO as it was initially envisioned.67

 

In July 2017, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued a report, which determined that the DAO sold securities in the form of tokens on the ethereum blockchain, violating portions of US securities law.8

Future of the DAO

What does the future hold for the DAO? The DAO as originally envisioned had not returned as of mid-2020. Nonetheless, interest in decentralized autonomous organizations as a broader group continues to grow. In 2021, The Maker Foundation, an icon in the crypto industry as the original champion of DAO, announced that it was officially turning operations over to MakerDAO (creator of the DAI stablecoin) and would dissolve by the end of the year.9

 

While there are many lingering concerns and potential issues regarding legality, security, and structure, some analysts and investors believe that this type of organization will eventually come to prominence, perhaps even replacing traditionally structured businesses.

 

Dash

The popular digital currency Dash is an example of a decentralized autonomous organization because of the way it is governed and the way its budgeting system is structured. It may only be a matter of time before additional DAOs enter the field.

 

Investing in cryptocurrencies and other Initial Coin Offerings ("ICOs") is highly risky and speculative, and this article is not a recommendation by Investopedia or the writer to invest in cryptocurrencies or other ICOs. Since each individual's situation is unique, a qualified professional should always be consulted before making any financial decisions. Investopedia makes no representations or warranties as to the accuracy or timeliness of the information contained herein. As of the date that this article was written, the author owns cryptocurrencies.

 

By 

NATHAN REIFF

 
Updated September 24, 2021

Reviewed by 

ERIKA RASURE

 

A decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), sometimes called a decentralized autonomous corporation (DAC),[a] is an organization represented by rules encoded as a computer program that is transparent, controlled by the organization members and not influenced by a central government, in other words they are member-owned communities without centralized leadership.[1][2] A DAO's financial transaction record and program rules are maintained on a blockchain.[3][4][5] The precise legal status of this type of business organization is unclear.[6]

A well-known example, intended for venture capital funding, was The DAO, which amassed $150 million in crowdfunding in May 2016, and was hacked and drained of US$50 million in cryptocurrency weeks later.[7] The hack was reversed in the following weeks, and the money restored, via a hard fork of the Ethereum blockchain. Most Ethereum miners and clients switched to the new fork while the original chain became Ethereum Classic.

Background

Decentralized autonomous organizations are typified by the use of blockchain technology to provide a secure digital ledger to track digital interactions across the internet, hardened against forgery by trusted timestamping and dissemination of a distributed database.[3][4][8] This approach eliminates the need to involve a mutually acceptable trusted third party in any decentralized digital interaction or cryptocurrency transaction.[4] The costs of a blockchain-enabled transaction and of the associated data reporting may be substantially offset by the elimination of both the trusted third party and of the need for repetitive recording of contract exchanges in different records. For example, the blockchain data could, in principle and if regulatory structures permit it, replace public documents such as deeds and titles.[3]: 42 [4] In theory, a blockchain approach allows multiple cloud computing users to enter a loosely coupled peer-to-peer smart contract collaboration.[3]: 42 [9]

Vitalik Buterin proposed that after a DAO is launched, it might be organized to run without human managerial interactivity, provided the smart contracts are supported by a Turing-complete platform. Ethereum, built on a blockchain and launched in 2015, has been described as meeting that Turing threshold, thus enabling such DAOs.[3][10][11] Decentralized autonomous organizations aim to be open platforms through which individuals control their identities and their personal data.[12]

Governance

DAO governance is coordinated using tokens or NFTs that grant voting powers. Admission to a DAO is limited to people who have a confirmed ownership of these governance tokens in a cryptocurrency wallet, and membership may be exchanged. Governance is conducted through a series of proposals that members vote on through the blockchain, and the possession of more governance tokens often translates to greater voting power. Contributions from members towards the organizational goals of a DAO can sometimes be tracked and internally compensated. Inactive holders of governance tokens can be a major obstacle for DAO governance,[5] which has led to implementations of allowing voting power to be delegated to other parties.

Issues

Social

Inactive or non-voting shareholders in DAOs often disrupt the organization's possible functionality.[5]

Legal status, liability, and regulation

The precise legal status of this type of business organization is generally unclear,[8] and may vary by jurisdiction. On July 1, 2021, Wyoming became the first US state to recognize DAOs as a legal entity.[13] American CryptoFed DAO became the first business entity so recognized.[14] Some previous approaches to blockchain based companies have been regarded by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as illegal offers of unregistered securities.[6][15] Although often of uncertain legal standing, a DAO may functionally be a corporation without legal status as a corporation: a general partnership.[16] Known participants, or those at the interface between a DAO and regulated financial systems, may be targets of regulatory enforcement or civil actions only if they are out of compliance with the law.[16]

Security

A DAO's code is difficult to alter once the system is up and running, including bug fixes that would be otherwise trivial in centralized code. Corrections to a DAO require writing new code and agreement to migrate all the funds. Although the code is visible to all, it is hard to repair, thus leaving known security holes open to exploitation unless a moratorium is called to enable bug fixing.[17]

In 2016, a specific DAO, "The DAO", set a record for the largest crowdfunding campaign to date.[18][19] Researchers pointed out multiple problems with The DAO's code. The DAO's operational procedure allowed investors to withdraw at will any money that had not yet been committed to a project; the funds could thus deplete quickly.[5] Although safeguards aimed to prevent gaming shareholders' votes to win investments,[6] there were a "number of security vulnerabilities".[20] These enabled an attempted large withdrawal of funds from The DAO to be initiated in mid-June 2016.[21][22] On July 20, 2016, the Ethereum blockchain was forked to bail out the original contract.

DAOs can be subject to coups or hostile takeovers that upend its voting structures especially if the voting power is based upon the number of tokens one owns. An example of this occurred in 2022, when Build Finance DAO suffered a coup in which one person amassed enough tokens to get a vote passed, then voted to give themselves full control of the DAO, then, using this power, they drained all of the money from the DAO.[23]

List of notable DAOs

This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by adding missing items with reliable sources.
 
NameTokenUse casesNetworkLaunchStatus
DashDASHGovernance, fund allocation [24]Dash (cryptocurrency)May 2015[25]Operational since 2015[26][27][28]
SteemSTEEMData distribution, Social media, Name services, IndustrialSteemMarch 2016Operational
The DAODAOVenture capitalEthereumApril 2016Defunct late 2016 due to hack[29]
AugurREPPrediction market, Sports betting, Option (finance), InsuranceEthereumJuly 2018Operational
UniswapUNIExchange, Automated Market MakingEthereumNovember 2018Operational[30]
BitDAOBitDAOBuild the future of finance in a decentralized way.EthereumAugust 2021Operational[31]
ConstitutionDAOPEOPLEPurchasing an original copy of the Constitution of the United StatesEthereumNovember 2021[32]Defunct[33]
AssangeDAO$JUSTICE[34]Purchased Clock, an NFT artwork by Pak, to fund legal defense of WikiLeaks' founder Julian AssangeEthereumFebruary 2022[35]Operational

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Depending on English dialect, it may also be spelled decentralised autonomous organisation. The terms decentralized autonomous company, distributed autonomous organization, etc., have also been used.

References

  1. ^ Prusty, Narayan (27 April 2017). Building Blockchain Projects. Birmingham, UK: Packt. p. 9. ISBN 9781787125339.
  2. ^ The Decentralized Autonomous Organization and Governance Issues Regulation of Financial Institutions Journal: Social Science Research Network (SSRN). 5 December 2017.
  3. ^ Jump up to:a b c d e Vigna, P.; Casey, M. J. (27 January 2015). The Age of Cryptocurrency: How Bitcoin and the Blockchain Are Challenging the Global Economic Order. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 9781250065636.
  4. ^ Jump up to:a b c d Hodson, H. (20 November 2013). "Bitcoin moves beyond mere money". New Scientist.
  5. ^ Jump up to:a b c d "The DAO of accrue: A new, automated investment fund has attracted stacks of digital money". The Economist. 21 May 2016.
  6. ^ Jump up to:a b c Popper, N. (21 May 2016). "A Venture Fund with Plenty of Virtual Capital, but No Capitalist". New York Times.
  7. ^ Price, Rob (17 June 2016). "Digital currency Ethereum is cratering amid claims of a $50 million hack". Business Insider. Retrieved 17 June 2016.
  8. ^ Jump up to:a b Wright, A; De Filippi, P. (10 March 2015). "Decentralized Blockchain Technology and the Rise of Lex Cryptographia". SSRN 2580664.
  9. ^ Norta, A. (18 August 2015). "Creation of Smart-Contracting Collaborations for Decentralized Autonomous Organizations". Perspectives in Business Informatics Research. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing. Vol. 229. pp. 3–17.
  10. ^ Pangburn, D. J. (19 June 2015). "The Humans Who Dream of Companies That Won't Need Us". FastCompany.
  11. ^ Evans, J. (1 August 2015). "Vapor No More: Ethereum Has Launched". TechCrunch.
  12. ^ Deegan, P. (2014). "Chapter 14—The Relational Matrix: The Free and Emergent Organizations of Digital Groups and Identities". In Clippinger, J. H.; Bollier, D. (eds.). From Bitcoin to Burning Man and Beyond: The Quest for Identity and Autonomy in a Digital Society. Amherst, Massachusetts: Institute for Institutional Innovation. pp. 160–176. ISBN 978-1-937146-58-0. creating an operational and autonomous Trust Framework [that can i]ntegrate with a secure discovery service in the form of a Decentralized Autonomous Organization ...
  13. ^ "Decentralized Autonomous Organizations Find a Home in Wyoming". JD Supra. Retrieved 9 July 2021.
  14. ^ "Wyoming becomes first US state to legally recognise DAO". finance.yahoo.com. Retrieved 9 July 2021.
  15. ^ "SEC Charges Bitcoin Entrepreneur With Offering Unregistered Securities". US Securities and Exchange Commission. 3 June 2014.
  16. ^ Jump up to:a b Levine, M. (17 May 2016). "Blockchain Company Wants to Reinvent Companies". Bloomberg View: Wall Street. Bloomberg News.
  17. ^ Peck, M. (28 May 2016). "Ethereum's $150-million Blockchain-powered Fund Opens Just as Researchers Call For a Halt". IEEE Spectrum. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
  18. ^ Vigna, P. (16 May 2016). "Chiefless Company Rakes in More Than $100 Million". Wall Street Journal.
  19. ^ Waters, R. (17 May 2016). "Automated company raises equivalent of $120M in digital currency". Financial Times.
  20. ^ Popper, N. (27 May 2016). "Paper Points Up Flaws in Venture Fund Based on Virtual Money". The New York Times.
  21. ^ Popper, N. (17 June 2016). "Hacker May Have Taken $50 Million From Cybercurrency Project". New York Times.
  22. ^ Price, R. (17 June 2016). "Digital currency Ethereum is cratering amid claims of a $50 million hack". Business Insider. Retrieved 17 June 2016.
  23. ^ "Democratic DAO Suffers Coup, New Leader Steals Everything - VICE". www.vice.com. Retrieved 16 February 2022.
  24. ^ Duffield, Evan (22 April 2015). "Self-sustainable Decentralized Governance by Blockchain". dash.org/forum.
  25. ^ Duffield, Evan (14 May 2015). "GitHub commit adding Dash DAO feature". github.com/dashpay. Retrieved 7 April 2021.
  26. ^ Duffield, Evan (28 August 2015). "Budgets Are Live". dash.org/forum.
  27. ^ Engelhorn, Philipp (7 September 2015). "First 3 Superblocks!". dash.org/forum. Retrieved 7 April 2021.
  28. ^ "First Blockchain DAO payout". blockchair.com/dash. 7 September 2015. Retrieved 7 April 2021.
  29. ^ Finley, Klint (18 June 2016). "Someone Just Stole $50 Million from the Biggest Crowdfunded Project Ever (Humans Can't Be Trusted)". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved 16 November 2019.
  30. ^ "OpenOrgs.info". openorgs.info. Retrieved 15 January 2022.
  31. ^ "BitDAO price today, BIT to USD live, marketcap and chart". CoinMarketCap. Retrieved 20 April 2022.
  32. ^ Roose, Kevin (17 November 2021). "They Love Crypto. They're Trying to Buy the Constitution". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 17 November 2021.
  33. ^ Fox, Matthew (19 January 2022). "Tokens of the defunct DAO that failed to buy a copy of the constitution are worth $300 million even after disbanding". news.yahoo.com. Retrieved 28 January 2022.
  34. ^ "Justice Token". AssangeDAO. Retrieved 14 April 2022.
  35. ^ Reuters (9 February 2022). "'Cypherpunks have rallied to Assange': NFT auction raises $52m for WikiLeaks founder". The Guardian.
Posted on by — Leave a comment

IoTeX — When Blockchain meets the Internet of Things

Source

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Hive Mind: discovering natural intelligence!

According to the concept of sociology and philosophy hive mind are the collective consciousness and collective intelligence. It is most familiar term in science fiction. Through hive mind, everyone would be connected to everyone else telepathically and we could share our thoughts, memories even dreams. Though a global hive mind would be susceptible to things like hacking or thought control, it could also lead to almost unimaginable levels of innovation. Many researchers buckling down to connect human brains to communicate using this hive mind concept.

First successful demonstration of the brain to brain communication in human was done in 2014 by neuroscientists. The experiment allowed the subjects to exchange mentally conjured despite being 5,000 miles apart. It’s the neuroscientific equivalent of instant messaging. Two human subjects, one in India and one in France, successfully transmitted the words “hola” and “ciao” in a computer-assisted brain-to-brain transmission using internet-linked electroencephalogram (EEG) and robot-assisted image-guided transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) technologies.

To this experiment, Researchers used EEG technology to make interconnection of one human mind to another human mind. They recruited four participants, one of whom was assigned to the brain-computer interface (BCI) branch, the part of the chain where the messages were to originate. The other three participants were assigned to the computer-brain interface (CBI) branch to receive the messages being transmitted to them.

Using EEG, the researchers translated the greetings “hola” and “ciao” into binary, and then emailed the results from India to France. At this receiving location, a CBI transmitted the message to the receivers’ brains through noninvasive brain stimulation. This was experienced as phosphenes — flashes of light in their peripheral vision. The light appeared in the numerical sequences that allowed the receivers to decode the data in the message. It’s important to note that this information was not conveyed to the subjects via tactile, visual, or auditory cues; special measures were taken to block sensory input. This ensured that the communication was exclusively mind-to-mind — though it was channeled through several different mediums.

A second experiment was conducted between individuals in Spain and France, achieving a total error rate of just 15% percent (11% on the decoding end and 5% on the initial coding site).

This in itself is a remarkable step in human communication, but being able to do so across a distance of thousands of miles is a critically important proof-of-principle for the development of brain-to-brain communications.

Alternatively, we can say that hive mind is the apparent intelligence that emerges at the group level in some social species, particular insects like honeybees and ants. An individual honeybee might not be very bright (although that’s debatable), but the honeybee colony as a collective might be very intelligent.

 

Other works on hive mind:

Google hive mind robot:

Google’s electrical engineer Sergey Levine has published a paper on ArXiv about the developments the team has made in creating deep learning software that tries to mimic humans picking up objects. Levine and his fellow researchers have decided that the best option is to hook up 14 robots to a hive mind – like the Borg race in Star Trek – and force them to pick up objects over and over again.

Once one of them figures out how to pick up a particular object, it will pass on the information to the others in the neural network.

 

read more Blackhole, the kinky hole

 

Observing the behavior of the arms over 800,000 grasp attempts, the researchers have shown no major improvement in terms of their ability to pick up objects in a more human-like manner, but their decisions in how they pick things up – such as where is the best place to grasp it – has reached almost human levels.

Scientists from MIT’s Sloan Neuroeconomics Lab and Princeton University decided to look for a better way to harvest the boundless potential of the hive mind. Through their research, which is published in the journal “Nature”, they were able to develop a technique that they dubbed the “surprisingly popular” algorithm. This algorithm can more accurately pinpoint correct answers from large groups of people through a rather simple technique. People are asked a question, and they must give two answers. The first is what they think the correct answer is, and the second is what they think the popular opinion will be. The overall deviation between the crowd’s two responses indicates the correct answer.

In the future, the scientists hope to utilize their method in a number of different settings, such as political forecasting, making economic predictions, pricing artwork, or grading research proposals.

One day soon, the hive mind may be used as the primary way for us to make predictions and prepare for whatever the future holds.

Source

Virtual Identity