Outline of my talk "Smart Smart Contracts: AI on the blockchain"

smart-smart-contracts-outline.md

• What is consensus?
  • We all agree on something
  • How do we agree when communication lines are unreliable?
    • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus_(computer_science)
    • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Generals%27_Problem
  • Paxos
    • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paxos_(computer_science)
    • Super complex
    • Limited implementations
  • Raft
    • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raft_(computer_science)
    • Easier to reason on
    • Literally 1 billion implementations
  • Bitcoin
    • consensus via blockchain and mining
    • Hashing is a “waste” of energy
    • Value in history and consensus (about 250 EUR)
• What is Ethereum?
  • Mining is a limited virtual machine
    • no outside access
  • Save contracts (programs) on the blockchain
    • contracts have their own storage
  • Transact with contracts and the execution is saved
  • Call to interact with contracts locally, execution is not saved
• What is a perceptron?
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perceptron
  • Single neuron of an artificial neural network
  • Inputs [1,0,1,0,1]
  • Weights [0.4, 0.1, -0.5, .2]
  • Single output True / False
• What is a neural network?
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_neural_network
  • Much perceptrons.
  • Such layers
  • Very smart
• Who cares?
  • Have community trained Apple Siri/ MS Cortana/IBM Watson
    • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Cortana
    • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watson_(computer)
  • Guaranteed all interactions are private
    • Remember two methods of interacting with blockchain
      • Transact = global consensus
        • good for learning
      • Call = Local interactions, no saved state
        • good for asking private questions
• What about morals, legality?
  • Can a deterministic system have self awareness?
    • Does it matter?
  • Can a distributed consciousness be attributed a legal personality and equal citizenship rights?
    • Programs are called “contracts” and can run a distributed autonomous organization. Corporations are legal people.
  • Which country would it be likely to recognize it?
  • If it didn’t like us, how can you stop a censorship proof network?
    • http://www.yudkowsky.net/singularity/aibox/