On Blockchain and the Human Condition; Why Machines will never Take Over the Earth
By: Dr. Kevin D Halow MD MBA RVT FACS
Disclaimer: This is just my opinion.
Machines will never replace Humans as the master race, not because they can’t; they just don’t care to do so.
While on vacation recently, I had the opportunity to read a book on “BlockChain.” (Need a Reference about the book) This brings up two important questions: “What is BlockChain?” and “Why would you be reading such a book on vacation?”
Blockchain, for those of you who are living under a rock, is the latest and greatest in how we, as the master race, are going to take our lives to the next level. In the future, nearly everything that we do on the computer and the web will be with blockchain technology, from storing information to making contracts to purchasing goods and services—it will all be on the blockchain. Even all of your data and information will be stored on the blockchain; this includes all of your medical information, which is why I am interested in this new technology. Blockchain is going to be the basis of everything that we do because it is completely secure. Because of its design, it is nearly impossible to hack. This is the reason that it will be the perfect solution for your personal medical information. Your medical information will travel with you, anywhere that you go, on the blockchain, and will be available to any medical provider, but only as you want it released. It can be accessed only for brief periods, only as needed, but will then be “locked back up” in the blockchain to protect your privacy. (Need a reference here)
As for why I would read this on vacation, it is really difficult to try and understand. I struggle using “Word” to type a blog, let alone understand blockchain technology. As it turns out, a 10-hour plane ride to London is the perfect place to try and understand this new technology; there are no other distractions to prevent you from plowing through it.
In their book (need the reference), the authors (need names) discuss the concept of a “Distributed Autonomous Enterprises (DAE).” Essentially, in this layman’s understanding, a state where nodes of computers, using Blockchain technology, essentially can remove middle management-CEOs, CFOs, COO’s and their cadre from our lives, by seamlessly carrying out every one of our needed tasks for us. Whether we are renting an apartment in London or taking a self-driving car to the British Museum or checking the weather for our flight to Ireland the next day, computers will manage all of it for us. Somewhere in this reading, the image of “The Terminator” or the “The Matrix” comes to mind where things go horribly wrong, and the machines take over only to make us their servants. Yet, that could not be farther from the truth. As crazy as this new technology sounds, I can guarantee that machines will never conquer us.
As a physician and surgeon, I have emersed myself in the “Human Condition,”; that which constitutes what it is like to live and be human. (Reference—see below). Need a reference) Walking through the many rooms at the British Museum makes our struggle through the millennia all too clear. As humans, we create, we love, we hate, we fight, and we mourn. We struggle to control our environment and to explain and understand our existence. While poets, philosophers, psychologists and
Humans suffer and have a basic instinct for life. Computers neither suffer, nor do they care if they live.
References:
Human Condition- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_condition
