Artificial intelligence and the blockchain are the two main technological hypes of the past fifteen years. Both were hailed as technologies with the potential to solve many problems and change the world, for the better. It now looks like their impact is overwhelmingly negative. Though they could be used for the common good, it turns out they are not very good at that. They are better, far better at harming humans than at helping them. They encode dystopian, sociopathic world views; and tend to attract developers, investors and entrepreneurs that share those world views. So, once deployed, they tend to bring the world closer to them. They are sociopathic tech.
This is disturbing, because mostly everyone fell for them: investors, developers, entrepreneurs, academics, government officials. I call for a re-examination of the achievements of these technologies and the impact they are having on our life and our societies. I would like to see support to innovation systems depend on how new technologies improve the well-being of humans and of the planet, and only on that. In what follows, I review some of the facts as a discussion starter.
Of how Artificial Intelligence excels at everything, except solving problems that matter
I recently had the opportunity to be exposed to the work of Juan Mateos-Garcia, a leading data scientist. Juan and his team had been looking at a large dataset of science papers published on the topic of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Their results look like this:
- AI has been undergoing a revolution since about 2012, when deep learning started to systematically outperform established techniques.
- Scientific production (papers) is booming. AI is shaping to be a general-purpose technology, like electricity or computing itself.
- Industry interest is evident. Many top scientists have been recruited from academia into industry. Venture capitalists have moved to invest in AI startups. Major governments are underwriting large public investments. There are talks of a “AI arms race” between China, the USA and the EU.
- AI is dominated by a small number of organisations and geographic clusters. Diversity of its workforce has stagnated.
- AI has had no impact on the effort to beat back the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, all other things being equal, a paper on COVID is more likely to be cited by other papers if it is not about AI.
This final point gave me pause. Something was off. Why would AI not make a valid contribution to fighting the COVID plague? The conditions all seemed to be in place: there was, and still is, plenty of funding for research on COVID. There is a large, inelastic demand for the applications of that research, like vaccines. There is plenty of training data being generated by health care institutions the world over. And, if AI is a general purpose technology, it should apply to any problem, including COVID. The most exciting technology of the moment somehow failed to contribute to solving the most pressing problem of the moment. Why is that?
I can imagine a world where AI is deployed to help in the fight against a pandemic. Wen would use it to engineer a more targeted response to the risks of contagion. Granular risk scores could be associated to individual people and different situations, allowing society to protect the most vulnerable people from the riskiest situations, while leaving low-risk individuals in low-risk contexts free to get on with their lives.
Sounds good, but that world is not the one we live in. In our world, AI-powered, individually customized COVID restrictions would run into non-tractable problems. First, the algos would seize the high correlation between different socio-demographic variables, and decide that poor people, people of color and (in America) trumpists are more prone to the contagion, and should stay at home more than white, affluent liberals. Discriminated groups would react fighting back, challenging the algos as biased, starting litigation and inviting to civil disobedience, as is happening time and time again.
Even if there was no conflict and everybody trusted the algos, it is not clear how we would use effectively the predictions they make for us. First of all, there is the cognitive challenge of understanding the predictions. You could tell someone something like this: “the risk of catching COVID on public transport for someone with your demographic profile went up 20% today, avoid the bus if you can”. But that is unlikely to work, because
- Most people do not understand risk. For example, they are more scared of terrorist attacks than they are of car crashes, though the latter are far more frequent (hence more dangerous) than the former.
- AI is Bayesian statistics, and as such it makes prediction not on you, but on somebody who is like you in a quantifiable way. It leaves out everything that makes you unique, putting it in the error term. For example, imagine you are a 45-year old living in the Netherlands who is also an ultra-marathoner. The algo computing your risk factor processes your age and the country you live in, because it has thick enough data in those dimensions. Your ultramarathons stay in the error term, because there are not enough people doing ultramarathons for that activity to be tracked in its own variable. And yet, when looking at the overall resilience of your organism, this is clearly an important information.
Given this situation, I suspect most people would end up following their own belief system rather than the algo’s recommendations. People who fancy themselves strong and resilient might say “yes, this gizmo is predicting high risk, but it is not talking about me, I am healthier and stronger than most!”. Or, vice versa, “yes, a low risk is predicted for outdoor mingling, but with my history of allergies I still don’t feel safe”. This is de facto happening right now with how people process scientific findings about COVID-19. Some people prefer to trust their own immune systems over the pharma-punditry complex. Others made COVID restrictions into some kind of weird religion, following them “above and beyond” even when science is calling for their relaxations. Even if a good AI-powered risk prediction system were in place , many humans are way too irrational to take full advantage of it. They prefer simple rules, applicable to all: “1.5 meters”, “wash your hands” and such. The promise of AI, providing personalized recommendation to each and every one of us, clashes with the human need for stability and security.
In conclusion, AI had no grip on COVID, and is unlikely to have any grip on any similar high-stakes problem. So, what is AI good for? We can start with the applications already being developed:
- Boosting consumerism: recommendation algorithms, targeted advertising. This has substantial socially detrimental spillovers. Algos maximizing engagement on social media are known to push their users towards ever more extreme, radicalizing content.
- Surveillance: facial recognition, predictive policing, remote invigilation of children (with notoriously racist algorithms), bossware.
- Machine translation.
- Deepfakes – whose main applications, according to Wikipedia, include “blackmail”, “pornography”, “politics” and “sockpuppets”.
With the exception of machine translation, these applications are all detrimental to human well-being, for world-eating values of “detrimental”. We are seeing yet another example of Kranzberg’s First Law in action: AI is not good, nor is it evil, nor is it neutral. It could be used for good, though I am unconvinced it would work very well: but it is when you use it for evil, dehumanizing purposes that it really shines.
That such a potentially toxic technology is attracting so much attention, public funding and private investment is a spectacular societal and policy failure. And that brings me to the blockchain.
Of the blockchain and its discontents
The blockchain, as by now everyone had to learn, is the name of a family of protocols that allow data storage not in a single repository, but in many. Using cryptography, the different computers who adhere to the same protocol validate each other’s copy of the database. This prevents a “rogue” participant from altering the records, as the alteration would only be present in a single computer and not be validated by the others. This system was first proposed to solve a problem called double spending when no trusted, centralized authority is present.
That was 2008. In these 13 years, blockchain solutions have been proposed for many, many problems. To my knowledge, none worked, or at least none worked any better than competing solutions that used a more conventional database architecture. This makes sense, because blockchains are self-contained systems. They use cryptography to certify that in-database operations, but they cannot certify anything that exists outside the database. Any system based on a blockchain relies on external sources of information, known as “oracles”. For example, if you were to build an identity system based on the blockchain, you would have to start by associating your name, date of birth etc. to a long string of digits. Once stored on the blockchain, the association is preserved, but some external “oracle” has to certify it before it gets stored. In the absence of a credible external certification, the system could work technically, but it would produce no impact. I could create my own identity system, but no one would use it, because I am not trustable enough when I issue a digital ID to your name. There are entities with the trustability to start such a system, for example major governments. But, because they are trustable, they do not need the blockchain at all. I have lost count of technologists who told me:
Any technology which is not an (alleged) currency and which incorporates blockchain anyway would always work better without it. (source)
But the blockchain is not just another clever technical solution in search of a problem to solve. I argue it is a major source of problems in itself. Consider this:
- The distribution of Bitcoins is extremely unequal, with a Gini coefficient estimated at 0.95 in 2018 (theoretical maximum: 1; Lesotho, the most unequal country on the planet for which we have data: 0.65). In fact, inequality seems to be a feature of blockchains, not just of Bitcoin – for example, it is estimated that the bulk of the monetary value conjured by Ethereum-based non-fungible tokens (NFTs) is appropriated by “already big-name artists and designers”.
- Blockchains use a lot of power. Every update anywhere in the system needs to be validated by network consensus, which includes a lot of computers exchanging data. Bitcoin alone consumes about 150 Terawatt per hour, more than Argentina. Providing computer power to the Bitcoin network is rewarded in Bitcoins, through a process known as “mining”: this provides the incentive to underwrite all this computation. In bid to make what they see as easy money, Bitcoin miners have resorted to malware that infects people’s computers and gets them to compute SHA-256 , incorporated into the builds of open source software projects; resurrected mothballed power stations that burn super-dirty waste coal; installed mining operations in Iranian mosques (which get electricity for free) and engaged in plain stealing. Their carbon footprint is enormous: one Bitcoin transaction generates the same amount of CO2 as 706,605 swipes of a Visa credit card. Some blockchains have less computationally expensive systems of verifications, but they are still more energy- and CO2-intensive than traditional databases.
- Fraud – especially to the detriment of less experienced investors – is rampant in crypto.
- Crypto has provided a monetization channel for ransomware attacks. Ransoms are demanded and paid in Bitcoin, untraceable by Interpol. Some observers go so far as to claim that the price of Bitcoin is tied to the volume of ransomware attacks. Hospitals and other health care institutions are among the main targets of these attacks: not only do they have to pay money, but their IT systems shut down, threatening the lives of patients.
- In 2021, tech companies that used to donate CPU power to legitimate projects have had to stop doing so, citing the constant abuse from crypto miners. It is worth quoting the words of Drew DeVault:
In return for this list of societal bads, so far, all the blockchain has to offer is a plethora of speculative financial assets: a casino. Which is also a societal bad, if you, like top innovation economist Mariana Mazzucato, believe that the economy is overfinancialized, and policies should be put in place to roll financialization way back. The blockchain is, overall, a net societal bad: it consumes resources to deliver a casino. Humanity would be better off without it. The picture gets even grimmer when you consider the opportunity costs: blockchain startups have gobbled an estimated 22 billion USD in venture capital funding from 2016 to 2021, very likely matched by various forms of government support, and that money could have it been used in more benign ways.
So, what’s going on here? Kranzberg’s First Law, yet again. The original group of developers that rallied around Satoshi’s Nakamoto White Paper had a libertarian ideology: they dreamed of a trustless society, where contact is reduced to a minimum and anonymised, and were obsessed with property rights. So, they built a technology that encodes those values, which in turn attracted more people than believe in those values. Code is law, they said. If someone can technically do something, that something is allowed, even moral, under some kind of tech version of social Darwinism. When the DAO was hacked in 2016, exploiting vulnerabilities in the Ethereum blockchain, the perpetrator bragged about it: if I stole your money, it’s your own fault, because code is law. I am just smarter than you, and I deserve to walk away with your money.
Trustless societies do exist – the mob is one of them. But they are not a good place to live. Economists and social scientists think of trust as social capital, and seek ways to build it up, via accountability and transparency. Again, the blockchain could conceivably be used for something good, but in practice almost all of its uses contribute to making the world a better place, while making money for the top 0.1% of crypto holders. This is because the tech itself embodied evil values, and because the social coalition behind it upholds these values. Don’t take it from me, take it from open source developer Drew DeVault:
Cryptocurrency is one of the worst inventions of the 21st century. I am ashamed to share an industry with this exploitative grift. It has failed to be a useful currency, invented a new class of internet abuse, further enriched the rich, wasted staggering amounts of electricity, hastened climate change, ruined hundreds of otherwise promising projects, provided a climate for hundreds of scams to flourish, created shortages and price hikes for consumer hardware, and injected perverse incentives into technology everywhere. (source)
Or writer and designer Rachel Hawley:
NFTs seem like an on-the-nose invention of an anticapitalist morality play: a technology that delivers exponential gains to those already at the top by convincing everyone to collectively imagine that free, widely distributed artwork is actually a scarce commodity, all while destroying the actual scarce resources of our planet. (source)
Or economist Nouriel Roubini, testifying to the U.S. Senate:
Until now, Bitcoin’s only real use has been to facilitate illegal activities such as drug transactions, tax evasion, avoidance of capital controls, or money laundering. (source)
Of how and why we are bad at supporting the right innovation
Why are the two most hyped technical innovation of the past 20 years, the blockchain and artificial intelligence, diminishing human well-being instead of enhancing it? Why are we investing in things that make our problems worse, when the world it facing environmental collapse? My working hypothesis is that the financial world will put money into anything that promises returns, with little humanitarian concerns. They lead the dance; and governments the world over have been captured into supporting anything that promises GDP growth. If I am right, it is important to decouple support to innovations from their growth implications, and throw our institutional support behind technologies that uphold human well-being over capital growth. Jason Hickel has some interesting thought in his book Less is More, and Mazzucato has forcefully made the point across the arc of her work.
Time will tell; and I am confident that better minds than mine will cast more light onto the matter. But this question can no longer wait, and if you are working in one of these two tech ecosystems, I suggest you ask your employer, and yourself, some hard questions.
Akili bandia na blockchain ni mbili kuu ya teknolojia hypes ya miaka kumi na tano iliyopita. Vyote viwili vilipongezwa kama teknolojia zenye uwezo wa kutatua matatizo mengi na kubadilisha ulimwengu, kwa bora. Sasa inaonekana kama athari zao ni hasi sana. Ingawa zinaweza kutumiwa kwa ajili ya manufaa ya wote, inatokea kwamba hazifanyi vizuri sana. Wao ni bora zaidi, bora zaidi katika kuwadhuru wanadamu kuliko kuwasaidia. Wao encode dystopian, sociopathic maoni ya dunia; na huwa na kuvutia watengenezaji, wawekezaji na wajasiriamali ambao kushiriki maoni hayo ya dunia. Kwa hiyo, mara wanapotumiwa, huwa wanaleta ulimwengu karibu nao. Ni teknolojia ya sociopathic. Hii ni ya kusumbua, kwa sababu zaidi ya kila mtu alianguka kwa ajili yao: wawekezaji, watengenezaji, wajasiriamali, wasomi, maafisa wa serikali. """Ninaomba kuchunguzwa tena mafanikio ya teknolojia hizi na athari ambazo zinaathiri maisha yetu na jamii zetu." """Ningependa kuona msaada kwa mifumo ya uvumbuzi inategemea jinsi teknolojia mpya zinavyoongeza ustawi wa wanadamu na sayari, na tu juu ya hilo." Katika yale yanayofuata, ninakagua baadhi ya mambo ya hakika ili kuanzisha mazungumzo. Kwa mfano, katika utafiti wa AI, Juan Mateos-Garcia, mwanasayansi wa data, alielezea jinsi ya kuunda teknolojia ya AI. Juan na timu yake walikuwa wakitazama seti kubwa ya data ya karatasi za sayansi zilizochapishwa juu ya mada ya Akili bandia (AI). "Mafunzo ya AI yanaonekana kama haya: ""AI imekuwa ikipitia mapinduzi tangu karibu 2012, wakati kujifunza kina kilianza kwa utaratibu kushinda mbinu zilizowekwa." - Uzalishaji wa kisayansi (karatasi) ni booming. AI inaonekana kuwa teknolojia ya matumizi ya jumla, kama umeme au kompyuta yenyewe. - Maslahi ya viwanda ni dhahiri. Wanasayansi wengi mashuhuri wamekuwa wakichaguliwa kutoka vyuo vikuu kwenda viwandani. Wawekezaji wa uwekezaji wa biashara ya ujasiriamali wamehamia kuwekeza katika mashirika ya kuanza ya AI. Serikali kubwa zinafadhili uwekezaji mkubwa wa umma. Kuna mazungumzo ya "mbio za silaha za AI" kati ya China, Marekani na EU. AI inatawaliwa na idadi ndogo ya mashirika na makundi ya kijiografia. Tofauti ya wafanyakazi wake imesimama. AI haijaathiri juhudi za kukabiliana na janga la COVID-19 Kwa kweli, vitu vingine vyote vikiwa sawa, karatasi juu ya COVID ina uwezekano mkubwa wa kutajwa na karatasi zingine ikiwa sio juu ya AI. Jambo hilo la mwisho lilinifanya nijiwekee akilini. Kuna kitu kilichokuwa kimetoka. Kwa nini AI haitoweza kutoa mchango sahihi katika kupambana na tauni ya COVID? "Masharti yote yalionekana kuwa yamekamilika: kulikuwa na, na bado kuna, fedha nyingi kwa ajili ya utafiti wa COVID.""" Kuna mahitaji makubwa, yasiyo ya kubadilika kwa matumizi ya utafiti huo, kama vile chanjo. Kuna mengi ya data ya mafunzo inayotokezwa na taasisi za huduma ya afya duniani kote. Na, ikiwa AI ni teknolojia ya kusudi la jumla, inapaswa kutumika kwa shida yoyote, pamoja na COVID. Teknolojia ya wakati huu haikuweza kutatua tatizo la wakati huu. Kwa nini hilo? "Ninaweza kuwazia ulimwengu ambapo AI itatumika kusaidia katika mapambano dhidi ya janga.""" Wen angetumia programu hiyo ili kupanga njia bora ya kukabiliana na hatari za kuambukizwa. "Hii inaweza kuhusishwa na watu binafsi na hali tofauti, ikiruhusu jamii kulinda watu walio hatarini zaidi kutoka kwa hali hatari, wakati ikiacha watu wa hatari ya chini katika muktadha wa hatari ya chini huru kuendelea na maisha yao. """ Inaonekana kuwa nzuri, lakini hii sio ulimwengu ambao tunaishi. Katika ulimwengu wetu, vikwazo vya COVID vinavyoendeshwa na AI, vilivyoboreshwa kibinafsi, vingeingia katika matatizo yasiyoweza kushughulikiwa. "Kwanza, ""algorithms"" itachukua uhusiano wa juu kati ya tofauti za kijamii na za idadi ya watu, na kuamua kwamba watu maskini, watu wa rangi na (katika Amerika) Trumpists ni zaidi ya kuambukizwa, na wanapaswa kukaa nyumbani zaidi kuliko wazungu, wazuri, na wazuri." "Kundi zilizotengwa na haki za binadamu zingekabiliana na vita, kukataa ""algorithms"" kama upendeleo, kuanza kesi na kuwakaribisha kwa kutotii raia, kama inavyofanyika mara kwa mara." Hata kama hakukuwa na mgogoro na kila mtu aliamini algos, ni wazi jinsi sisi kutumia ufanisi utabiri wao kufanya kwa ajili yetu. Kwanza kabisa, kuna changamoto ya utambuzi ya kuelewa utabiri. "Mfano: ""Uwezekano wa kupata COVID-19 katika usafiri wa umma kwa mtu mwenye tabia yako uliongezeka kwa asilimia 20 leo, epuka basi ikiwa unaweza.""" Lakini hiyo haiwezekani kufanya kazi, kwa sababu - Watu wengi hawaelewi hatari. Kwa mfano, wao huogopa zaidi mashambulizi ya kigaidi kuliko aksidenti za magari, ingawa ya mwisho ni ya mara kwa mara zaidi (kwa hiyo ni hatari zaidi) kuliko ya kwanza. AI ni takwimu za Bayesian, na kama vile inafanya utabiri sio juu yako, lakini juu ya mtu ambaye ni kama wewe kwa njia inayoweza kupimwa. Inaacha nje kila kitu kinachokufanya uwe wa kipekee, ikiiweka katika neno la makosa. Kwa mfano, fikiria wewe ni mzee wa miaka 45 anayeishi Uholanzi ambaye pia ni mwanariadha wa mbio za ultra-marathon. Algorithm ya algorithm ya algorithm ya algorithm ya algorithm ya algorithm ya algorithm ya algorithm ya algorithm ya algorithm ya algorithm ya algorithm ya algorithm ya algorithm ya algorithm ya algorithm ya algorithm ya algorithm ya algorithm ya algorithm ya algorithm ya algorithm ya algorithm ya algorithm ya algorithm ya algorithm. Ultramarathons ni moja ya mashindano ya kwanza ya ulimwengu, na kwa sababu ya idadi ndogo ya watu wanaoshiriki katika mashindano hayo, shughuli hizo zinaweza kufuatiliwa kwa sababu ya idadi ndogo ya watu wanaoshiriki. Hata hivyo, kwa kuzingatia uwezo wa mwili wako wa kukabiliana na hali hii, ni muhimu sana. Kutokana na hali hii, mimi tuhuma watu wengi ingekuwa kuishia kufuatia mfumo wao wenyewe wa imani badala ya mapendekezo ya algo. Watu ambao wanajifikiria kuwa wenye nguvu na wenye nguvu wanaweza kusema <unk>ndio, kifaa hiki kinatabiri hatari kubwa, lakini haizungumzi juu yangu, nina afya na nguvu kuliko wengi!<unk> Au, kinyume chake, <unk>ndiyo, hatari ya chini inatarajiwa kwa kuchangamana nje, lakini na historia yangu ya mzio bado <unk>sijisikii salama<unk>. Hii ni kweli, na inatokea sasa hivi na jinsi watu wanavyoshughulikia matokeo ya kisayansi kuhusu COVID-19. Watu fulani hupendelea kuamini mfumo wao wa kinga kuliko mfumo wa wataalamu wa dawa. Wengine walifanya vizuizi vya COVID kuwa aina fulani ya dini ya ajabu, wakifuata <unk> juu na zaidi <unk> hata wakati sayansi inahitaji kupumzika kwao. Hata kama mfumo mzuri wa utabiri wa hatari unaotumiwa na AI ungekuwa mahali pake, wanadamu wengi ni wasio na busara sana kuitumia kikamilifu. Wao hupendelea sheria rahisi, zinazotumika kwa wote: <unk>1.5 mita<unk>, <unk>safisha mikono yako<unk> na vinginevyo. Ahadi ya AI, kutoa mapendekezo ya kibinafsi kwa kila mmoja wetu, inagongana na hitaji la binadamu la utulivu na usalama. Kwa kumalizia, AI haikuwa na udhibiti juu ya COVID, na haiwezekani kuwa na udhibiti wowote juu ya shida yoyote ya hatari ya hali ya juu. Kwa hiyo, AI ni nzuri kwa nini? Tunaweza kuanza na maombi tayari kuwa maendeleo: - Kuongeza matumizi: mapendekezo algorithms, matangazo ya lengo. Jambo hilo lina matokeo mabaya sana kwa jamii. Algo zinazozidisha ushiriki kwenye media ya kijamii zinajulikana kushinikiza watumiaji wao kuelekea yaliyomo zaidi na zaidi, yaliyomo ya kukandamiza. - Ufuatiliaji: utambuzi wa uso, polisi wa utabiri, ufuatiliaji wa mbali wa watoto (na algorithms maarufu ya ubaguzi wa rangi), bossware. - Tafsiri ya mashine. - Deepfakes <unk> ambayo maombi kuu, kulingana na Wikipedia, ni pamoja na <unk> blackmail <unk>, <unk> pornography <unk>, <unk> siasa <unk> na <unk> sockpuppets <unk>. Isipokuwa tafsiri ya mashine, maombi haya yote ni mabaya kwa ustawi wa binadamu, kwa thamani ya kula dunia ya <unk> madhara <unk>. "Kwanza, sheria ya kwanza ya Kranzberg inatuambia kwamba ""AI sio nzuri, sio mbaya, wala haina upendeleo.""" Inaweza kutumika kwa ajili ya mema, ingawa mimi ni unconvinced ingekuwa kazi vizuri sana: lakini ni wakati wewe kutumia kwa madhumuni ya uovu, dehumanizing kwamba ni kweli inang'aa. """Utaalamu huu unaoweza kuwa na sumu unavutia umakini mwingi, fedha za umma na uwekezaji wa kibinafsi, ni kushindwa kwa jamii na sera." Na hiyo inanileta kwenye blockchain. Blockchain, kama sasa kila mtu alikuwa na kujifunza, ni jina la familia ya itifaki ambayo kuruhusu kuhifadhi data si katika hazina moja, lakini katika wengi. Kutumia cryptography, kompyuta tofauti ambao kufuata itifaki hiyo hiyo kuthibitisha kila mmoja nakala ya hifadhidata. Hii inazuia mshiriki wa "rogue" kubadilisha rekodi, kwani mabadiliko yangekuwapo tu katika kompyuta moja na hayangethibitishwa na wengine. Mfumo huu uliwasilishwa kwanza kutatua tatizo linaloitwa matumizi maradufu wakati hakuna mamlaka ya kuaminika, ya kati iliyopo. Hiyo ilikuwa mwaka wa 2008. Katika miaka ya 13, blockchain imebadilika na imepatikana katika maeneo mengi. Kwa ufahamu wangu, hakuna kazi, au angalau hakuna kazi yoyote bora kuliko ufumbuzi kushindana kwamba kutumika zaidi ya kawaida database usanifu. Hii ina maana, kwa sababu blockchains ni mifumo ya kujitegemea. Wao kutumia cryptography kuthibitisha kwamba katika-database shughuli, lakini hawawezi kuthibitisha chochote kwamba ipo nje ya database. Mfumo wowote kulingana na blockchain hutegemea vyanzo vya nje ya habari, inayojulikana kama <unk>oracles<unk>. Kwa mfano, kama wewe walikuwa kujenga mfumo wa utambulisho kulingana na blockchain, ingekuwa na kuanza kwa kuhusisha jina lako, tarehe ya kuzaliwa, na kadhalika. kwa mfululizo mrefu wa tarakimu. Mara kuhifadhiwa juu ya blockchain, ushirika ni kuhifadhiwa, lakini baadhi ya nje <unk>oracle<unk> ina kuthibitisha kabla ya kupata kuhifadhiwa. Katika kukosekana kwa vyeti vya nje vya kuaminika, mfumo huo unaweza kufanya kazi kiufundi, lakini hautasababisha athari yoyote. "Ningeweza kuunda mfumo wangu wa utambulisho, lakini hakuna mtu ambaye angetumia, kwa sababu mimi si wa kuaminika vya kutosha wakati mimi kutoa ID digital kwa jina lako. """ Kuna vyombo na trustability kuanza mfumo kama huo, kwa mfano serikali kubwa. Lakini, kwa sababu wao ni trustable, hawana haja ya blockchain wakati wote. "Nimepoteza hesabu ya wataalamu wa teknolojia ambao waliniambia: ""Teknolojia yoyote ambayo si sarafu (inaodhaniwa) na ambayo inajumuisha blockchain hata hivyo itafanya kazi vizuri zaidi bila hiyo.""" blockchain ni si tu mwingine smart ufumbuzi wa kiufundi katika kutafuta tatizo la kutatua. Mimi wanasema ni chanzo kikuu cha matatizo yenyewe. Kwa mfano, kwa mfano, katika nchi za Afrika Kusini, kiwango cha Gini cha Bitcoin ni 0.95 (kiwango cha juu cha nadharia: 1; Lesotho, nchi isiyo na usawa zaidi duniani ambayo tuna data: 0.65). Kwa kweli, ukosefu wa usawa unaonekana kuwa sifa ya blockchains, si tu ya Bitcoin - kwa mfano, inakadiriwa kwamba sehemu kubwa ya thamani ya fedha iliyotolewa na Ethereum-msingi non-fungible tokens (NFTs) ni appropriated na " tayari jina kubwa wasanii na wabunifu ". - Blockchains kutumia nguvu nyingi. Kila update mahali popote katika mfumo inahitaji kuthibitishwa na makubaliano ya mtandao, ambayo ni pamoja na kompyuta nyingi kubadilishana data. Bitcoin inahitaji Terawatt 150 kwa saa, zaidi ya Argentina. "Kutoa nguvu ya kompyuta kwa mtandao wa Bitcoin ni tuzo katika Bitcoin, kupitia mchakato unaojulikana kama ""uchimbaji,"" ambayo hutoa kichocheo cha kuidhinisha hesabu hii yote." "Wakati wa kampeni ya Bitcoin, wachimbaji wa Bitcoin wametumia programu hasidi ambayo huambukiza kompyuta za watu na kuwafanya wafanye SHA-256 (kujumuishwa katika ujenzi wa miradi ya programu ya chanzo wazi), kuzalisha vituo vya umeme vilivyofungwa ambavyo huchoma makaa ya mawe machafu, na kuanzisha shughuli za uchimbaji katika misikiti ya Iran (ambayo hupata umeme bure).""" "Kupitia Bitcoin, ""malipo ya kaboni"" ya Bitcoin ni sawa na kiasi cha CO2 kinachotokana na kadi ya mkopo ya Visa ya 706,605." Baadhi ya blockchains kuwa na mifumo ya chini computationally gharama kubwa ya uthibitisho, lakini bado ni zaidi ya nishati na CO2 intensive kuliko hifadhidata jadi. - Udanganyifu - hasa kwa hasara ya wawekezaji wasio na uzoefu - ni rampant katika crypto. Crypto ni njia ya kuingiza pesa katika mashambulizi ya ransomware Fidia zinatakiwa na kulipwa kwa Bitcoin, zisizoweza kufuatiliwa na Interpol. Baadhi ya waangalizi kwenda mbali kama kudai kwamba bei ya Bitcoin ni amefungwa kwa kiasi cha mashambulizi ransomware. Hospitali na taasisi nyingine za huduma za afya ni miongoni mwa malengo makuu ya mashambulizi haya: si tu wanahitaji kulipa pesa, lakini mifumo yao ya IT imefungwa, ikitishia maisha ya wagonjwa. Kampuni za teknolojia ambazo zilikuwa zikitoa nguvu za CPU kwa miradi halali zililazimika kuacha kufanya hivyo, zikitaja unyanyasaji wa mara kwa mara kutoka kwa wachimbaji wa crypto. "Kama Drew DeVolt alisema, ""Kwa kubadilishana na orodha hii ya ubaya wa kijamii, hadi sasa, blockchain ina tu kutoa wingi wa mali ya kifedha ya ubunifu: kasino.""" "Mwanadiplomasia wa Marekani Mariana Mazzucato anasema: ""Uchumi wa dunia umeharibiwa na fedha nyingi na ni lazima kuwe na sera za kuondoa fedha nyingi." Blockchain ni, kwa ujumla, hasi ya kijamii ya wavu: inatumia rasilimali kutoa casino. Wanadamu wangekuwa na maisha bora bila hiyo. "Picha inakuwa mbaya zaidi wakati unafikiria gharama za fursa: blockchain startups wamekula takriban dola bilioni 22 katika ufadhili wa mtaji wa uwekezaji kutoka 2016 hadi 2021, uwezekano mkubwa unaolingana na aina mbalimbali za msaada wa serikali, na pesa hizo zinaweza kutumika kwa njia nzuri zaidi. """ Kwa hiyo, ni nini kinachoendelea hapa? Sheria ya Kwanza ya Kranzberg, tena. Kikundi cha awali cha watengenezaji ambao walikusanyika karibu na Satoshi Nakamoto White Paper walikuwa na itikadi ya uhuru: walitamani jamii isiyo na uaminifu, ambapo mawasiliano yamepunguzwa hadi kiwango cha chini na haijulikani, na walikuwa na wasiwasi na haki za mali. Kwa hiyo, walijenga teknolojia ambayo huingiza maadili hayo, ambayo kwa upande wake iliwavutia watu wengi kuliko kuamini katika maadili hayo. Walisema kwamba kanuni ni sheria. "Kama mtu anaweza kufanya kitu kwa njia ya kiufundi, kitu hicho kinaruhusiwa, hata kiadili, chini ya aina fulani ya toleo la kiufundi la Darwinism ya kijamii.""" "Wakati DAO ilivunjwa mnamo 2016, ikitumia udhaifu katika blockchain ya Ethereum, mhalifu alijigamba juu yake: ""Ikiwa niliiba pesa zako, ni kosa lako mwenyewe, kwa sababu nambari ni sheria.""" Mimi tu ni busara kuliko wewe, na mimi wanastahili kutembea mbali na fedha yako. Jamii zisizo na uaminifu zipo <unk> umati ni mojawapo yao. Lakini si mahali pazuri pa kuishi. Wataalamu wa uchumi na wanasayansi wa kijamii huona uaminifu kama mtaji wa kijamii, na kutafuta njia za kuujenga, kupitia uwajibikaji na uwazi. blockchain inaweza kutumika kwa kitu kizuri, lakini katika mazoezi karibu matumizi yake yote kuchangia kufanya dunia mahali bora, wakati kufanya fedha kwa ajili ya juu 0.1% ya wamiliki crypto. Hii ni kwa sababu teknolojia yenyewe iliwakilisha maadili mabaya, na kwa sababu muungano wa kijamii nyuma yake unadumisha maadili haya. "Hakuna mtu anayeweza kuamini kwamba, kama mkurugenzi wa programu ya wazi ya Drew DeVolt, ""Cryptocurrency ni moja ya uvumbuzi mbaya zaidi wa karne ya 21.""" Nina aibu kushiriki sekta na udanganyifu huu wa unyonyaji. """Imefanikiwa kuwa sarafu muhimu, imebuni aina mpya ya matumizi mabaya ya mtandao, imewafanya matajiri kuwa matajiri zaidi, imepoteza kiasi kikubwa cha umeme, imeharakisha mabadiliko ya hali ya hewa, imeharibu mamia ya miradi ya kuahidi, imetoa hali ya hewa kwa mamia ya udanganyifu kusitawi, imesababisha upungufu na ongezeko la bei ya vifaa vya watumiaji, na imeweka motisha mbaya katika teknolojia kila mahali.""" "Mwandishi na mbuni Rachel Hawley anasema: ""NFTs zinaonekana kama uvumbuzi wa uso wa mchezo wa maadili ya anti-capitalist, teknolojia ambayo hutoa faida ya exponential kwa wale ambao tayari wako juu kwa kuwashawishi watu wote kufikiria kwa pamoja kwamba kazi ya sanaa ya bure, iliyosambazwa sana, ni bidhaa ndogo, wakati wote kuharibu rasilimali za kweli za sayari yetu.""" "Mtaalamu wa uchumi Nouriel Rubini, akitoa ushahidi katika Baraza la Seneti la Marekani, alisema: ""Hata sasa, matumizi ya Bitcoin ni kuwezesha shughuli haramu kama vile biashara ya dawa za kulevya, kuepuka kodi, kuepuka udhibiti wa mtaji, au fedha za ujanja." "Kwa nini ni mbili ya ""hyped zaidi"" ubunifu wa kiufundi wa miaka 20 iliyopita, blockchain na akili bandia, kupunguza ustawi wa binadamu badala ya kuongeza?" Kwa nini tunatumia pesa zetu katika mambo ambayo yanazidisha matatizo yetu, wakati ulimwengu unakabiliwa na uharibifu wa mazingira? """Nadhani ulimwengu wa fedha utaweka pesa katika chochote kinachotarajia kurudi, bila wasiwasi wa kibinadamu." "Hii ni kwa sababu serikali za nchi zote duniani zimekuwa zikitoa msaada kwa kila kitu kinachotarajia ""kukuza"" Pato la Taifa." """Ikiwa nina haki, ni muhimu kuunganisha msaada kwa uvumbuzi kutoka kwa athari zao za ukuaji, na kutupa msaada wetu wa taasisi nyuma ya teknolojia ambazo zinaunga mkono ustawi wa binadamu juu ya ukuaji wa mtaji." Jason Hickel, mwandishi wa kitabu chake cha Less is More, anasema kuwa ni muhimu sana kwa watu wa kawaida kuweza kupata uzoefu wa kufurahisha. Wakati utaonyesha; na nina uhakika kwamba akili bora kuliko yangu itatoa mwanga zaidi juu ya jambo hilo. Lakini swali hili haliwezi kusubiri tena, na ikiwa unafanya kazi katika moja ya mifumo hii miwili ya teknolojia, ninapendekeza umuletee mwajiri wako na wewe mwenyewe maswali magumu.