Artificial Intelligence + Blockchain = Passive Income (Forever?)

Below you will find the text of a “Medium” article investigating the possible collaborations of two pioneer fields of Science.The original article can be found here

The benefits of artificial intelligence are no longer limited to high-profile corporations, movie supervillains, and programmers performing fruitless experiments. What was once science fiction has now finally become reality, and when paired with blockchain technology it is no surprise that AI is making leaps and bounds. But the question that always comes to mind when a new technology comes to light is “Can I make money on it?” When looking at blockchain technology infused with artificial intelligence, the answer could be positive indeed!

Thanks to agency.howtotoken.com for support in creating this topic (First platform with proven ICO contractors)
Why bother combining AI and blockchains?
You’ve probably heard about world chess champions losing to computers, or perhaps you’re familiar with self-driving cars — both of these examples are fueled by artificial intelligence. We create AI to enable computers to solve problems for themselves, essentially giving them the ability to write code in response to new problems they encounter. When paired with blockchains, AI is able to be better understood by humans, operate more efficiently, and make blockchains in general more efficient.

In order for machines to learn, they need massive amounts of data to analyze, just like humans. The difference is that humans analyze their data passively, we use our five senses to take in the world and we store it away to create our belief in how the world functions. Trent McConaghy explains in his article on Medium, “Because blockchains introduced three new characteristics:

decentralized/shared control
immutable/audit trails
native assets/exchanges.
People inspired by Bitcoin were happy to overlook the traditional database-centric shortcomings, because these new benefits had potential to impact industries and society at large in wholly new ways.” He continues by adding, “These three new ‘blockchain’ database characteristics are also potentially interesting for AI applications.”

Remember, machines don’t have senses, they need data, and blockchains can help them acquire that data faster and more cleanly (thanks to decentralization/shared control). Some AI may learn better than others, and by sharing IP/testing models on an exchange, there is the potential for faster growth (and profit for developers). Once AI starts learning, it becomes far easier for us to trace the path it took to a solution if that path is stored on an immutable trail. Considering that one of the primary reasons we are creating AI in the first place is to make the lives of humans easier, one such obvious avenue is being explored by using AI and the blockchain to create both active and passive income streams.

What exactly are we doing with AI + Blockchain?
Blockchain technology provides users with the ability to create a trustless system on which they can run smart contracts, track a ledger, and more. AI and machine learning allows for hands-off programs that are designed to become smarter and more efficient over time. As Tshilidzi Marwala and Bo Xing explain in their University of Johannesburg paper, there are eight key ways where AI can help blockchains; four of which are pertinent to our discussion:

“Scalability — AI can perform collaborative learning without a centralized dataset.
Security — AI can detect blockchain application layer intrusion issues.
Privacy — AI can improve the performance of hash functions.
Efficiency — AI can predict the likelihood of a node to fulfill certain mining tasks.”

It’s obvious to see how much of an impact AI will have on blockchains, and companies that are getting a headstart in the industry will almost certainly benefit greatly from such foresight. From increased scalability, enhanced security/privacy, and greater efficiency, AI will make it cheaper, safer, and easier to operate blockchains in general. There is a collection of examples where we can currently see AI and the blockchain working together on specific problems, such as:

Cryptocurrency Trading
Trading cryptocurrencies is a risky market in the same way that the stock market can be dangerous, and one of the worst ways to increase this danger is by involving emotions. If the market starts crashing you may have a panic attack and quickly sell, only to watch the market bounce back higher than it ever was, leaving you at a loss. One simple way to prevent these emotional mistakes is by using an AI-based cryptobot to trade for you, such as Cryptohopper or Autonio. Crypto bots are built on four principles: algorithms, market prediction, stop losses, and AI. Through these companies it is common for users to subscribe to “signals,” or external services that provide trading strategies based on the data they’ve collected and analyzed using AI. If the average trader removes themselves (and their emotions) from the equation, and instead base their trading on strategies generated by artificial intelligence, they are far more likely to succeed.

Music Streaming
As we’ve mentioned before in a different article, musicians in today’s market struggle to earn their keep. Musiclife is a company that is working hard to change that by using blockchain technology infused with artificial intelligence. On the Musiclife platform, artists are automatically paid through smart contracts every time their music is streamed. This alone helps to ensure that the artists make more money for their work compared to traditional streaming platforms. But the real kicker here is Musiclife’s pricing model. Using an AI pricing method, the music price through the platform automatically adjusts based on current market playback data, so the more popular a song is the more money the artist will make.

Given the potential of the AI + blockchain music streaming industry, it comes as no surprise to see big names like Spotify throwing their hat into the ring and buying Niland, a startup focused on using AI for user-preference predictions.

For those of us that aren’t musicians or professional cryptocurrency traders, however, these technologies may feel a bit detached from our daily lives. Luckily, there is a third option for making money in this industry, both during our lives and even potentially long after we’ve passed.

Creating an Avatar-based Legacy
A legacy used to be something that only the rich and powerful could afford to think about, but as decentralization technology helps to disrupt the status quo the possibility of creating lasting change is opening up to everyone. Whether your goal is to provide for your family after your death, or to have the work you’ve dedicated your life to carry on after your passing, avatars may be what you seek. Created by EverLife, avatars are created using a combination of artificial intelligence and blockchain technology that gives you a platform where you can create your digital legacy. By harnessing a combination of machine learning, smart contracts, teachable skills, and secure avatar-to-avatar communications, there are a few key things you can do with your avatar:

Passive income — Avatars can be taught to perform specific tasks (that will earn you EVER tokens), to trade cryptocurrencies using your trading strategies (utilizing potential Skills Marketplace features), and to even seek new skills and tasks to add to their repertoire.
Personal legacy — Your avatar can interview you, recording your answers while compiling the story of your life in order to give future generations of your family the chance to interact with you (through your avatar) long after you’ve died.
When creating avatars, EverLife chose to implement AI into their systems to ensure growth and that expansion would continue long after user input ceased. They understood that blockchains alone wouldn’t be sufficient, which is the same conclusion that Tshilidzi Marwala and Bo Xing come to: “The DNA of the 4IR (Industrial Revolution) is AI, while blockchain represents one of the most disruptive technologies that may transform the whole economic system. Though blockchain holds various promises, this technology is still in its infancy.“ What EverLife, Marwala, and Xing are saying is that although the blockchain may be a groundbreaking technology, only by intertwining it with artificial intelligence will we truly see its full potential.

What the future holds…
As Matt Turck points out in his article, the last 15 years was defined by social, mobile, and cloud-based services. Turck then goes on to say that “[t]here’s a rationale for making the argument that AI, the blockchain, and the Internet of Things is the new social, mobile, and cloud. Those trends are still very much emerging, but their potential impact is massive.” In the same way that social, mobile, and cloud development spawned many huge companies that exist today (Spotify, Airbnb, Twitter, Facebook, Uber, etc), one could speculate that the next 10–15 years will see a surplus of AI, blockchain, and IoT-based companies succeeding.

Will our lives benefit from this? The better question would be to ask if our lives benefitted from all of the companies created during the last 10–15 years. We find ourselves currently standing on the precipice of change — a shift in the major industries is coming before us that has the potential of leading to sweeping innovations across a wide spectrum of our lives. The only question left is whether or not you, the average crypto-enthusiast, will seize the opportunity to make a profit during these changing times.