Did you watch the film “In time” – where everyone has a clock built into their body and the world economy was based on time – you could earn more time through work and paid with time, and when time ran out you died. Blockchain in principle has now moved this from science fiction to science possibility. The films premise is essentially a form of digital smart contract (the ethereum of the cryptocurrency world) – an unbreakable agreement with consequences digitally encoded in the transaction itself, that can trigger a digital response in another area that cannot be interfered with.
I start with this to deliberately present a distopian world triggered by blockchain technology, as most of what I have read about blockchain paints utopian pictures of what we can do once we rip the technology away from the crypto-currencies of today with their dark web and black market connotations (this origin in itself should be enough to give pause for thought, but apparently not). It is deliberate because most of the examples I come across are pitching blockchain as a utopian disruptive and potentially world changing technology, for example a short list : allowing refugees to own their own identities, rethinking the whole way we build and operate institutions and governments making them much more accountable, enabling individuals finally to have 100% direct control of their own data (genome data, social data…) and eliminating black markets. I don’t know about you but when I read these statements and think about the movie, In Time, it all feels like a very thin line between utopia and distopia and all these examples can easily be flipped given the “wrong owners”, people with high self interest – i.e. a lot of people – and with resources that can be mobilized on large scale. Potential markets for this flip-side distopia are already here today, for example the huge vested interests and money in human trafficking and modern slavery – if they can create even better ways to lock people into impossible situations that force them to work, they will. Why not a smart contracts in blockchains to digitally “hardcode” lockins that mean no work, no access to basics – they may be able to reduce their people costs to look after the “slaves” in the process – then i’m sure they will do it – it might not be directly reducing life but pretty close
The point is simple – blockchain is no different to other technologies and, as we are finding out with social media technologies, can be used for good and bad, regardless of the initial utopian intent. Its the structure and checks and balances we put around the technology that are going to dictate if it creates value or not for all stakeholders – no shortcuts to innovation.
Hopefully I’ll get the time to pull out of draft thoughts on how we can develop the frameworks needed to make blockchains succesful in a business context – but I’ll keep this post short. As always thoughts and comments welcome.