Introduction

This is the third and final post of the series (although more relevant content may come in the future). By now you have become familiar with BCIs, you are aware of the current very promising commercial BCI developments and you have been excited but also troubled by Kurzweil's reliable predictions on what the world may look like in 15 years' time in relation to BCIs - if not, I recommend check out Part 1 and Part 2 of the series to get up to speed.

Assumptions

So, before we proceed with our subject matter - blockchain CloudMinds - let's make some vital assumptions about the future. We assume that many of the 'sci-fi' predictions for the future will hold true in the next 15-30 years, and will be the environment in which these CloudMinds will flourish; among those developments are advanced inter-connected BCIs capable of mapping and recording many aspects of brain activity, medical nano-robots recording and engaging with our bodily functions at a cellular level, advanced AI, Internet of Things (IoT) on steroids, space exploration and interplanetary travel, advanced biomedical and genomic engineering, advanced robotics and even quantum computing, amongst others. These are by no means super wild predictions, given the time horizon and the exponential growth of our technology. So that is the framework or environment on which the present conceptual exploration is based.  

The pioneer thinker in the field

My present analysis and discussion is based on the pioneering work of Melanie Swan - a blockchain futurist, accomplished scholar, entrepreneur and finance professional. Swan's research is my main reference for this article (you will find the links at the bottom of the post).

Post Roadmap

This article will cover a) applications of blockchain CloudMinds, b) blockchain design principles and c) concerns and their mitigation. This is all conceptual work (which doesn't take away from Melanie Swan's exceptional research and mind) and there is quite a lot of space for thinking and innovation, especially when it comes to design. So please contribute your ideas and thoughts in the comments!

Applications of Blockchain CloudMinds

The applications are numerous, and in fact quite unlimited, and differ in levels of complexity, implementation and integrity depending on whether they are centered around the individual or involve pooled-minds and Machine-Human CloudMinds. 

Personal Thought Chains

First things first, the blockchain can be used to allow individuals to 'upload their digital mindfiles', a type of life and thought-logging memory storage for future retrieval and processing. Such data can be captured via wearables, intraneocortical nano electronics, cognitive nanorobots, BCIs, consumer EEGs and other means. Remember from Part 1 , Kernel is currently developing a BCI for long-term memory storage via targetting the hippocampus in the brain, while Facebook is currently developing a non-invasive BCI to allow you to turn your thoughts into text on your smartphone. Apart from the immediate uses of archiving for future memory recall (ex in the event of an accident), replaying and authentication / identification, these personal digital thought logs could also be coupled with an AI layer and function as the discrete external component of a Neural Turing Machine for higher-level thinking and exploration (much like how Deep Mind AI research is using external memory modules), as well as keep track of user contributions in pooled-mind problem solving endeavors (another application as we will see). At a higher level, this could incorporate a IPFS-type functionality to incorporate a versioning feature, in effect creating a GitHub of sorts for the mindlogs, affirming provenance and giving backtracking capabilities in the event of a 'hack' or otherwise malevolent external manipulation, while also allowing for multiple versions to run in parallel for the purposes of simulations.

The digital mindfiles, along with genome data and brain connectome representations, could be coupled with our existing 'online presence' to create a virtual avatar. By online presence, let's examine the following: think about everything you have posted on Facebook; pictures, thoughts, comments, reactions, likes etc. etc. Your online presence in general and social media activity in specific is an accurate microcosmic digital representation of who you are. So, it gives an ideal substrate for a full-on digital transition. But hey, would you really want Facebook involved in this? (maybe yes, maybe no, it's your brain). But how about a blockchain-based social media environment, like Steemit?? The Steemit blockchain could in fact play a vital role in creating this virtual avatar, given that your thoughts (in the form of posts, comments, reactions etc.) and information on personality, preferences and life experiences are already set in stone on an immutable blockchain and available. All of us here on Steemit already have possibly the most sincere, creative and all around awesome 'digital self' presence, compared to any other space online. And with Steemit continuously growing to include new features, functionalities and, of course, more people, the case will be even stronger. So, if Steemit is still around in 15 years (and we all hope it will), it could be a gamechanger (this is quite stretched isn't it, but hey, it's a fancy thought experiment!!). 

Big Health Data and Advanced Preventive Medicine 

With everyone's comprehensive health information stored on this BCI blockchain, down to granular biomolecular information, we could have the first truly planet-wide comprehensive big heath data bank, which when coupled with advanced AI, could be used for running simulations to predict the effect of certain medical interventions and more optimally prescribe medication, advance our knowledge and above all be used for disease prevention. This could be in the form of nanorobots in our bloodstream running self-repair throughout our body, and fixing problems even before they become a liability. 

CloudMind Information Query and Entertainment

In a blockchain network of inter-connected human BCIs, different people would be able to 'push and pull' information and data to and from each other, with proper permissions. Aside from effectively telepathic communication, a humanity-wide knowledge and experience record can be created (much like the conceptual 'Akasha Records' stemming from eastern spirituality), and people would be able to 'live-stream' and access past and future experiences of other people. Think of a Youtube vlogger sharing his point of view with the world via using a GoPro; now imagine accessing his/her entire subjective experience, and re-experiencing it yourself. The blockchain would effectively store a copy of human history, experienced from every possible point of view. 

Problem-Solving Cloudminds

This is self-evident, albeit very powerful. People can come together and collaborate on solving highly complex problems by combining their brain power. The time-stampted thought logs of each person would allow for contribution credits along the evolution of the problem solution. 

IoT Machine - Human collaborative purpose-specific CloudMinds

This is pretty big. Think about a network of interconnected IoT devices (ex from a smart building to entire cities' infrastructure, self-driving vehicle fleets and space exploring humanoid robots) and their controllers, becoming 'one'. You can already argue that for instance a fighter jet pilot or a Formula-1 driver is one and the same with their vehicle when operating it, during that incredible state of flow. The extensive presence of sensors in IoT devices, feeding in data streams to the BCIs of humans - or to other AI machines - can bring about purpose-specific CloudMinds operating aspects of our world on auto-pilot. In fact, original research by David Eagleman (watch his TED talks!) already has some exciting innovations relating to this; Dr. Eagleman and his team of researchers have created a wearable 'vest' embedded with small patch vibrators which are fed data streams - virtually any data (IoT device data, stock market data, weather data, speech data, you name it) and the vibrators well, vibrate, transmitting the data stream info in the form of vibrations. By wearing the vest and having the little patches vibrating on your back (around the spinal column), Dr. Eagleman discovered that the person wearing the vest eventually gets an intuitive understanding of the data, as the brain (remember, best pattern-recognition software) starts to decode the data and find meaning. The vest was given to people who were born deaf, and human speech (sound waves) was translated into vibrations (fourier transform) and those were sent to the vest. After a couple of weeks, the deaf people starting hearing...from the speech-translated-into-vibrations hitting their back..! I kid you not. They also tried this with stock market data and asked the subjects to make intuitive predictions on stock market price fluctuations after being fed live price data streams and well, I'm not sure what happened I don't think they have published the results.. but I have a hunch they are up to something..! Anyway, I transgressed. Back to our subject.

Best one yet: Consensus-based control and deployment of Benevolent AI 

So, remember how Elon Musk is worried about humanity ending up being AI's 'housecat'? That once we build super advanced AI (our ML / DL algorithms are already really good, but not nearly to that point), and train it using our own intelligence (BCIs and data from our brains, the OG neural network, will in fact be THE BEST training data input for AI), then AI will surpass us (which frankly I think is the natural evolution of our species, but the most ideal scenario is one where we merge, a symbiosis). Intelligent direction, in place of natural selection. So in making the steps towards highly advanced and complex AI systems, ideally we want a decentralized control and say over it (not just Google and other tech giant engineers). The blockchain could bring exactly that. Imagine a planet (or interplanetary)- overreaching AI, taking care of humanity by controlling all the robots doing all the work for us, and this AI being controlled on a consensus-basis by all humans alive, using our mind. This is straight out of a utopian futuristic movie. (is there one with such a theme? would definitely watch).

 

Ok, so these potential future applications are awesome, and they are just a few out of the truly endless possibilities. But how would this futuristic BCI CloudMind blockchain run?? What would its design principles be? Obviously, there are no definite or nearly complete answers yet, but here is a good start.

BCI CloudMind Blockchain Design Principles

A responsible design and constitution governing the blockchain that underpins the inter-connected BCI CloudMinds of the future would be expected to include in its themes, amongst many others, some of the following points: 

1. Adoption: The blockchain BCI network should accommodate a wide spectrum of adoption possibilities. From full-fledged adoption to complete non-adoption, every person should feel free to act on their own accord, and the exercise of user choice should be celebrated and not vilified. Explicit pathways and possibilities for gradual adoption should be defined, in phases of increasing levels of comfort and engagement. Adoption should be freely undertaken (without coercion or incentives) and should also be completely reversible, allowing for the ability to leave BCI cloudmind communities easily. Similarly, the order of adoption (early vs late adopters) alone should not confer any special privileges, rights or powers over the communities, aside from the acclimation and greater experience an early adopter would enjoy. 

2. Security and transparency: The blockchain should include advanced anti-virus protection and safeguard against mind hacking and other similar possibly malevolent acts . There should be complete transparency at every stage, along with opt-out possibilities regarding data collection, use, privacy, and possible monetization. Blockchain-based tracking logs such as thought chains could provide the basis for independent monitoring of access and activity in BCI cloudmind communities, adjusted for abidance to the set of prescribed rules and performed by voted specialized members.

3. Support: The network should provide education, community forums, and feedback mechanisms for participants to share their experiences within the blockchain. There could be a space, in the form of a social network, for users of the community to resolve questions and issues. Users would naturally be expected to provide a support ecosystem to each other, working for the good of the entire community. There could be periodic check-ins and evaluations by external voted referees as to whether agreed-upon contractual terms are within compliance, and smart-contracts implementation could ensure the above.

4. Standards: The network should engage with industry standards bodies to establish and steward technology norms as features, along with etiquette and ethical codes. At present, for example, BCIs might fall under the IEEE 802.15 working group for Wireless Personal Area Networks (WPANs).   

Proof of Intelligence

By any means, it would be expected that consensus mechanisms for a BCI CloudMind blockchain would be reinvented, moving from a proof of work or proof of stake model, as are the current industry standards for cryptocurrencies, to new consensus mechanisms, like a proof of intelligence model. In one way, a proof of  intelligence model could serve as both a reputational  qualifier - a proof of ability to participate - but also as a key in the authentication/verification process. In  another way, proof of intelligence could be a quantifiable indication that a certain amount of 'mental' processing has taken place, for instance when a new idea, concept, association or piece of knowledge is created on a thought chain. This part of the equation is perhaps one of the hardest ones to think about. 

What would be the equivalent token in this blockchain (an IdeaCoin? a MindCoin?) and if there was one, what would its uses and mechanics be? Any thoughts on a viable model for a consensus mechanism??

Concerns

To the discerning eye, the most immediately apparent concerns any individual would have, in considering to enter such a BCI CloudMind blockchain, would relate to privacy and security. The responsible design and constitution principles are meant to mitigate such concerns. Outside of this, one would also perhaps expect potential future users to fear for a possible loss of personal identity, in other words fear of being absorbed into a vortex, sucked and locked in a hive mind. Or perhaps a fear of the collective unconscious of the cloudmind 'polluting' the users' own subconscious with unintended foreign thoughts. This is definitely a sensitive topic, and we cannot help but get a little philosophical. 

In philosophy, one of the strongest claims regarding personal identity is articulated by Derek Parfit, who posited in 1986 that continuing personal identity is not required for the survival of the person. Instead, what is relevant is relational experience between past and future selves and events. What is salient is not a persistence of who “I” am over time, but the timeline itself, how events are connected throughout the past, present, and future. Namely, the being that is “I” has some sense of continuity and connectedness of psychological features such as memories of events and personality traits, but there is no requirement for this “I” to have a personal identity for the purposes of survival. Another point that supports the non-criticality and non-persistence of the human self as a unit is that humans can in fact forget that they are a subject, a unit, a self, and often lose track of time and a sense of identity, when immersed in flow state (ex. a figther jet pilot or a gamer immersed in a computer game). Similarly, when nondualistic/non-Cartesian consciousness experiences arise - in other words, a sense of unity - often brought about by medidation or experiences on psychoactive substances, the brain registers a lack of subject-object distinction, conceiving of no difference between itself and world objects. Interestingly, in the Buddhist philosophical tradition, the self is an illusion (maya), a trick of the mind, brought about continuously when piecing together the stream of moments throughout the timeline of one's life. 

Now, do these philosophical musings take away from the real reservations one may face before entering a BCI Cloudmind? Not necessarily. But on the other hand, we cannot quite prove we are not already living in a simulation either...

Hope you enjoyed this! There's a lot of food for thought, please share your impressions and ideas in the comments!! :)

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Image Sources:  

Picture 1  

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References and additional (awesome) readings: 

http://jetpress.org/v26.2/swan.htm 

https://www.slideshare.net/lablogga/blockchain-cloudminds-humanmachine-pooledmind-dacs

https://www.slideshare.net/lablogga/brain-as-a-dac-swan

https://www.slideshare.net/lablogga/blockchain-smartnetworks

http://www.the-blockchain.com/docs/Blockchain%20Thinking%20-%20The%20Brain%20as%20a%20DAC%20-%20Decentralized%20Autonomous%20Organization.pdf

https://ieet.org/index.php/IEET2/bio/swan/

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