Owen Vaughan and Alessio Pagani: Blockchain can bring accountability to AI
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Blockchain technology is beginning to influence other rapidly developing technology fields such as artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT). That was the message from two senior representatives of nChain, both of which organize conference events that will bring experts from the various areas together to learn from each other.
Owen Vaughan, Chief Science Officer for nChain Licensing and Alessio Pagani, Director of Research for nChain spoke on the latest episode of CoinGeek Conversations. Owen is convening a workshop on Blockchain and AI at IEEE Coins 2023 in Berlin in July. And Alessio does the same in relation to IoT at the Global IoT Summit, which is held in October.
Neither conference is focused on blockchain, but these sessions will bring the expertise of nChain, London’s blockchain development company, to a wider audience, as Alessio explained: “That’s our role. That’s why we’re organizing a workshop to help these experts in IoT to understand more about blockchain, and also for us to get feedback on our research in that field and discuss with the experts – and hopefully share more about BSV and blockchain in general.”
In relation to AI, Owen says “it’s a time when I think a lot of people are asking the question how can these two major advances in computer science in the twenty-first century talk to each other?” Owen’s conference, COINS, sounds like it would be crypto-related, but that’s just a coincidence. It has been going on since 2019 and COINS stands for Conference on Omni-layer Intelligent Systems.
Owen is confident that nChain’s work will be useful to AI developers – even if they don’t realize it yet. “They may not realize that the technology we’ve developed can support what they’re doing. I’m particularly interested in blockchain for data usage and auditability and things like that or identity management and decision-making. And those things are very relevant in AI at the moment.”
With IoT, Alessio says it’s not just about external sensors feeding back data from the field – traffic information, for example, or from actual agricultural areas – but also the personal data we collect on our phones. Using the blockchain would remove the third party from that system. So instead of sending the information to one of the tech giants, “it gives you back ownership of the data, and it allows anyone to have access to that data — if you want.”
A blockchain system would allow that kind of control over personal data—so, for example, says Alessio, you could provide health data for research if you choose, or limit the level of detail you allow.
There are concerns about the power of AI, but Owen says incorporating blockchain into systems could help provide much-needed accountability – or “decision auditability”: “So if an AI ever makes a decision, maybe it advises you to make a certain financial trading and you question that in the future it is very practical to have an audit trail. Why did it make that decision? And this is a whole field of research now called AI Explainability. So I think blockchain will be very useful in checks and balances … so we can be sure why[AI)ismakingdecisionsandmakesureit’scompliantwithlegalethicalandmoralstandards”[AI)tarbeslutningerogsørgeforatdenerisamsvarmedjuridiskeetiskeogmoralskestandarder”[AI)ismakingdecisionsandmakesureit’scompliantwithlegalethicalandmoralstandards”
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