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This really doesn't make any sense. >blockchains introduced three new characteristics: centralized / shared control, immutable / audit trails, and native asset

by lappa 10y ago

This really doesn't make any sense. >blockchains introduced three new characteristics: centralized / shared control, immutable / audit trails, and native assets / exchanges. Blockchains aren't immutable, they are just expensive to mutate. Blockchains aren't centralized. Blockchains didn't introduce audit trails, these have always been possible simply through having a transaction table that is only appended to. This of course does require trust in the central authority. >(4) Leads to provenance on training/testing data & models, to improve the trustworthiness of the data & models. Data wants reputation too. Is training set fraud really an issue in training AI? >(1) Leads to more data, and therefore better models. >(2) Leads to qualitatively new data, and therefore qualitatively new models. >(3) Allows for shared control of AI training data & models. The author has a poor understanding of both AI and blockchain technology[1]. Blockchains are for decentralized consensus, but it seems the author is vaguely proposing using a blockchain as a mass datastore (with ownership labels) for both training data and AI algorithms. Of course AI is an exciting field so this means you can generate hype by implying the field of AI has yet to solve the problem of sharing data with fellow researchers until now. [1] https://download.wpsoftware.net/bitcoin/alts.pdf https://download.wpsoftware.net/bitcoin/alts.pdf

trentmc 10y ago
Hi, it's the author here. > This really doesn't make any sense. Disagree. Below, I respond to each of your points. > Blockchains aren't immutable, they are just expensive to mutate. Agreed; very little is truly absolutely immutable. It's all shades of grey. I actually prefer the word "tamper-resistant" and I usually say that next to the "immutable" definition, such as in the first paragraph of https://bigchaindb.com/whitepaper https://bigchaindb.com/whitepaper. But "immutable" makes for a good shorthand, especially because that's the label that the community uses. > Blockchains aren't centralized. Oops, that was a typo. I meant to say "decentralized". Fixed it. (That was a pretty big oops!) > Blockchains didn't introduce audit trails ... Correct. > ... [status quo] require[s] trust in the central authority Exactly. And it's crucial to note that once you don't have to trust a central authority to store your audit trail, you have a way more trustworthy audit trail that improves many applications and unlocks new ones. > The author has a poor understanding of both AI and blockchain technology ... "treatise on altcoins" Disagree. First, you don't need an "altcoin" to have a blockchain. To understand of what's special about blockchains, you first have to understand what already exists for distributed databases, then what the delta is. Second, consensus in a distributed database has been around for decades; Satoshi did not invent it. Lamport laid down much of the theory for FT and BFT consensus in 1982. What Bitcoin brought forward, in addition to BFT-ish consensus, was Sybil tolerance (addressing attack-of-the-clones). Third, as for my understanding of AI: I've been doing it professionally since the late 90s; here are my publications: http://trent.st/publications http://trent.st/publications. Doing AI in the 90s was one of the least popular things one could possibly do, so I certainly didn't do it for the hype. > vaguely proposing using a blockchain as a mass datastore (with ownership labels) Obviously I gave much more specific proposals than that. I have other writings that dive into more detail on some of the use cases, such as an IP registry [1] and for AI DAOs [2]. [1] https://medium.com/ipdb-blog/a-decentralized-content-registry-for-the-decentralized-web-99cf1335291f https://medium.com/ipdb-blog/a-decentralized-content-registr... [2] https://medium.com/@trentmc0/ai-daos-and-three-paths-to-get-there-cfa0a4cc37b8 https://medium.com/@trentmc0/ai-daos-and-three-paths-to-get-...
- pdpi 10y ago
  > First, you don't need an "altcoin" to have a blockchain. Hmm, you're treading on thin ice here. What exactly do you mean by a "blockchain", then? I tend to work on the assumption that people are talking about something closer to the whole Satoshi consensus stack on top of hashed linked lists (the _actual_ blockchain), rather than just the hashed linked list data structure. Which segues into -- Satoshi consensus was designed against a stringent set of requirements, and the security model for the algorithm he devised absolutely demands a miner reward of some sort that's denominated in the same currency as that being used in transactions (in those circumstances, double spend attacks can be proved irrational once a transaction is deep enough inside the chain) I'm not saying you're flat-out wrong, but you do need to specify which properties of Satoshi consensus you are willing to discard to make that statement true.
  - trentmc 10y ago
    Throw a rock in the blockchain space and you'll find a different definition of blockchains, or what it means for one thing to be a blockchain or not. It doesn't really help anyone to argue for hours on end over this, when it's largely a matter of opinion. To me, what's more interesting is to identify what are the new characteristics (in terms of benefits) that blockchains have, above and beyond traditional distributed databases; which in turn unlock new applications or improve existing applications. To me, those characteristics are: decentralized, immutable, assets; I describe them in the article, and also in more detail in https://bigchaindb.com/whitepaper https://bigchaindb.com/whitepaper.
    - pdpi 10y ago
      > To me, those characteristics are: decentralized, immutable, assets; How do you achieve fully trustless decentralisation without the currency aspect, while still being resilient to sybil attacks? Or are you willing to sacrifice truslessness? In which case, how are you defining decentralisation?
      - trentmc 10y ago
deleted 10y ago
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by lappa 10y ago

trentmc 10y ago

Hi, it's the author here. > This really doesn't make any sense. Disagree. Below, I respond to each of your points. > Blockchains aren't immutable, they are just expensive to mutate. Agreed; very little is truly absolutely immutable. It's all shades of grey. I actually prefer the word "tamper-resistant" and I usually say that next to the "immutable" definition, such as in the first paragraph of https://bigchaindb.com/whitepaper https://bigchaindb.com/whitepaper. But "immutable" makes for a good shorthand, especially because that's the label that the community uses. > Blockchains aren't centralized. Oops, that was a typo. I meant to say "decentralized". Fixed it. (That was a pretty big oops!) > Blockchains didn't introduce audit trails ... Correct. > ... [status quo] require[s] trust in the central authority Exactly. And it's crucial to note that once you don't have to trust a central authority to store your audit trail, you have a way more trustworthy audit trail that improves many applications and unlocks new ones. > The author has a poor understanding of both AI and blockchain technology ... "treatise on altcoins" Disagree. First, you don't need an "altcoin" to have a blockchain. To understand of what's special about blockchains, you first have to understand what already exists for distributed databases, then what the delta is. Second, consensus in a distributed database has been around for decades; Satoshi did not invent it. Lamport laid down much of the theory for FT and BFT consensus in 1982. What Bitcoin brought forward, in addition to BFT-ish consensus, was Sybil tolerance (addressing attack-of-the-clones). Third, as for my understanding of AI: I've been doing it professionally since the late 90s; here are my publications: http://trent.st/publications http://trent.st/publications. Doing AI in the 90s was one of the least popular things one could possibly do, so I certainly didn't do it for the hype. > vaguely proposing using a blockchain as a mass datastore (with ownership labels) Obviously I gave much more specific proposals than that. I have other writings that dive into more detail on some of the use cases, such as an IP registry [1] and for AI DAOs [2]. [1] https://medium.com/ipdb-blog/a-decentralized-content-registry-for-the-decentralized-web-99cf1335291f https://medium.com/ipdb-blog/a-decentralized-content-registr... [2] https://medium.com/@trentmc0/ai-daos-and-three-paths-to-get-there-cfa0a4cc37b8 https://medium.com/@trentmc0/ai-daos-and-three-paths-to-get-...

pdpi 10y ago
> First, you don't need an "altcoin" to have a blockchain. Hmm, you're treading on thin ice here. What exactly do you mean by a "blockchain", then? I tend to work on the assumption that people are talking about something closer to the whole Satoshi consensus stack on top of hashed linked lists (the _actual_ blockchain), rather than just the hashed linked list data structure. Which segues into -- Satoshi consensus was designed against a stringent set of requirements, and the security model for the algorithm he devised absolutely demands a miner reward of some sort that's denominated in the same currency as that being used in transactions (in those circumstances, double spend attacks can be proved irrational once a transaction is deep enough inside the chain) I'm not saying you're flat-out wrong, but you do need to specify which properties of Satoshi consensus you are willing to discard to make that statement true.
- trentmc 10y ago
  Throw a rock in the blockchain space and you'll find a different definition of blockchains, or what it means for one thing to be a blockchain or not. It doesn't really help anyone to argue for hours on end over this, when it's largely a matter of opinion. To me, what's more interesting is to identify what are the new characteristics (in terms of benefits) that blockchains have, above and beyond traditional distributed databases; which in turn unlock new applications or improve existing applications. To me, those characteristics are: decentralized, immutable, assets; I describe them in the article, and also in more detail in https://bigchaindb.com/whitepaper https://bigchaindb.com/whitepaper.
  - pdpi 10y ago
    > To me, those characteristics are: decentralized, immutable, assets; How do you achieve fully trustless decentralisation without the currency aspect, while still being resilient to sybil attacks? Or are you willing to sacrifice truslessness? In which case, how are you defining decentralisation?
    - trentmc 10y ago

deleted 10y ago

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