Why I Left Google's AI Division for the World of Blockchain

AI is flourishing with the rise of ChatGPT, while crypto crashes abound. So why can’t I stop thinking about blockchain?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is currently tech’s golden child. AI-powered tools like ChatGPT are now sophisticated enough to pass MBA and medical license exams, and almost 30% of surveyed professionals reported using ChatGPT to draft emails or code.

Meanwhile, sentiment around blockchain is pessimistic. Justifiably so, after countless people lost their life savings amidst price crashes and the implosion of centralized cryptocurrency exchanges.

I’ve worked in both spaces. I started as a product manager within Google’s Research & Machine Intelligence division, developing a product that diagnosed patients with preventable eye diseases. I transitioned completely by accident when I discovered blockchain could be leveraged for fundraising.

Given the current momentum behind AI applications and the steep headwinds against blockchain, I’ve been asked repeatedly why I ever made the switch.

The answer is simple:

While AI empowers individuals, blockchain can empower collectives.

Tech isn’t interesting without a concrete application: a hammer seems pretty lame until it’s used to build a house. So what are the applications of AI and blockchain respectively? In short:

Let’s break this down with real-world examples that I’ve experienced.

Artificial Intelligence: Empowering Individuals

At Google, I worked on a product that assessed a patient’s risk of blindness based on the image of the back of their eye. Doctors used the tool below to generate a data set of 100k+ images and their associated disease status:

After training on this data set, the AI could diagnose patients with ~90% accuracy. While the AI performed at par with expert physicians, it boasted two significant improvements:

1. Speed: The model outputs a diagnosis in seconds, while humans take ~10 minutes, increasing the volume of diagnosed cases by 100x.

2. Quality: The AI consistently outperformed less experienced and overextended physicians, since it trained on a significantly larger data set and is immune to fatigue

   
   

This use case highlights the key value proposition of artificial intelligence: to replace or expedite human labor that is routine and/or error prone.

The impact of introducing AI to this workflow is clear: by handing over the time-consuming, repetitive task of image recognition to AI, physicians could focus on what they uniquely do best: patient interaction. Rather than replace humans, we found that AI empowers individuals through the time and effort saved of handling lower-level tasks.

ChatGPT promises to empower a broader set of individuals. Writers and developers who leverage ChatGPT will let the computer handle the boring stuff, creating more room for creative thinking. I’ve personally experienced this shift, saving energy by generating this post’s splash image on MidJourney and leveraging ChatGPT to SEO-optimize my prose.

I’m a big believer in the power of AI to empower individuals and planned to continue my tech career in the space. So what pulled me away?

My Unexpected Encounter with Blockchain: Museum Volunteering

While I was clear on the value prop of AI when I joined Google, my foray into blockchain could not have been more random. I never understood the point of cryptocurrency, accusing my dad of gambling when he gifted me ETH in 2018 and selling it all when I thought it peaked at $28 (oops).

But during COVID, I began volunteering for a museum. A third of U.S. museums were at risk of closing permanently, a trend I hoped to reverse as an art lover. As I explored strategies for non-profit fundraising, I came across an unexpected solution: blockchain.

If I donate to a museum (or any cause) today, I have no idea whether the money is allocated as promised. I also have no say over how the funds are distributed since that is left entirely to the organization.

Blockchain disrupts this model. As a quick refresher, forget any of the overcomplicated jargon you’ve heard to define blockchain. Blockchain is just like any other database (record of entries, such as transactions), except that no single entity has control over it (de-centralized).

Due to its decentralized nature, blockchain ensures that fundraisers are transparent. Traditional fundraisers track transactions on centralized databases, controlled by banks or the fundraiser. These databases are managed by and only accessible to their owners, meaning donors have no visibility. In contrast, records on public blockchains are viewable by anyone, holding fundraisers accountable for the proper allocation of the sum they raise.

Pushing fundraising entities towards transparency already represents a significant improvement over the status quo. But the true power of blockchain emerges when there is no central fundraising entity at all.

A Donor-Managed Fundraiser

Imagine your hometown is hit by a natural disaster, leaving thousands without access to food or water. You want to help, but you want your dollars to be spent on initiatives you believe in.

In the status quo, your only option is to donate to a fundraising entity (e.g. non-profit, campaign) and cross your fingers that a) they account for your opinion, and b) they use the money as promised. That requires putting a lot of faith in a group of people you’ve never met.

But what if you could donate to a fundraiser that was managed entirely by its donors, rather than a third party? Beyond providing a transparent and secure database, many blockchains support an additional feature: voting rights. Logic is built into the blockchain that automatically distributes the funds based on the outcome of votes.

For example, a blockchain-powered fundraiser may use a majority vote to evaluate proposals for how to allocate collected funds. A donor proposes paying Company X to rebuild homes. Another donor proposes hiring Company Y. If the majority votes for Company Y, then the funds tracked on the blockchain are automatically disbursed to Company Y. Funds thereby pass from donor to operator without passing through any intermediary, while automatically accounting for the input of donors.

As a donor, you no longer need to rely on a fundraising entity to ensure that your donations are properly allocated. This use case highlights the utility of blockchain to coordinate people without needing to trust one another.

Blockchain: Empowering Collectives

I’m still extremely skeptical of most blockchain use cases and products. Unregulated speculation on cryptocurrency and NFTs have destroyed countless lives, and most blockchain products feel like they are built by cyborgs for other cyborgs. The space requires a massive rehaul of values and user experience before it has any chance of achieving impact and adoption at scale.

Despite my doubts, my experience with blockchain-powered fundraising gave me valuable insight in the technology’s latent potential: by automatically and transparently handling tasks that require a high level of trust (e.g. fund disbursement), blockchain empowers collectives to manage themselves without relying on a third-party.

Since the database tracking activity (e.g. transactions, voting) of the group is decentralized, and because voting outcomes are automatically enforced, collectives can self-organize without needing to find a trustworthy “leader” or administrator.

Pretty f**king cool!

Now that I’ve worked on both (Blockchain and AI) — what’s next?

There is no way to predict whether Blockchain vs. AI will have a greater societal impact. They are each mere tools, and their legacy is entirely dependent on how the tools are leveraged (or abused).

But blockchain doesn’t stand a chance if the tech community continues to fixate on its negative applications while obsessing over AI. The meaningful applications of blockchain will never see the light of day if builders are scared away by this distorted sentiment. Given my conviction that blockchain is a powerful tool to organize collectives, I plan to continue sharing perspectives on the potential of the technology when used correctly.

So along with the community of writers at Bankless Academy, I’ll keep covering meaningful applications of blockchain — stay tuned on Twitter and Medium for my next post!

Notes:

• For the sake of non-jargony writing, I’m abstracting away the concept of smart contracts and DAOs here.

• Technical note: This assumes that Company Y has a cryptocurrency wallet! Or in the future, smart contracts can interact with traditional bank accounts.

  
  

Featured image generated by MidJourney.