Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain and the Platforms of the Future

Artificial intelligence (AI) and Blockchain are infrastructure technologies historically analogous to desktop operating systems and internet communications. Public controversy surrounding both AI and Blockchain echo back in time to widespread media dialogue in the 1980's and 90's on the potentially deleterious effects of computing power on the autonomy and security of the individual. AI is the operating system of the future in its capacity to augment human productivity and enhance complex decision-making. Operating systems, such as Microsoft Windows and Mac OS, facilitated user-friendly information processing, specifically access to information and specialized software in data and word processing. As AI research advances and moves to commercialization, tools will become available to better aggregate, process and decipher complex and disparate information. As a result, AI holds the promise of enhancing human cognitive function, and offsetting asymmetries in intellectual and knowledge-based decision-making. Blockchain will reduce the frictional costs of economic transactions in a manner reminiscent of the internet's power to facilitate the rapid frictionless transfer of information – the so-called information superhighway. Blockchain and its derivative cryptocurrency technology hold the promise of disrupting financial and economic transaction intermediaries in a manner reminiscent of the impact of the internet and email on the telecommunications industry. Dominant platforms to enable widespread consumer and enterprise adoption of AI and Blockchain have yet to emerge. However, user-friendly operating systems or software to enhance cognitive human capacity and facilitate economic transacting will usher in a new age of productivity and global growth – provided rising public and regulatory concerns regarding their adoption can be alleviated. Leveraging a historical comparative analysis, this paper explores the capacity of both AI and Blockchain, as distinct and complimentary infrastructure technologies, to enhance the lives of individuals and generate greater social integration by offsetting systemic barriers to socio-economic advancement, while reducing the frictional costs of otherwise complex economic transacting. In sum, this work proposes new modalities that are fundamental to understanding the structure, qualities and promise of the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution