Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin Is Changing Money, Business, and the World

by Don Tapscott

Artificial intelligence expert Steve Omohundro threw this phrase at us: the dictator’s learning curve, or how cave dwellers end up with space age technology. Think about all the AI labs out there staffed by the world’s smartest PhDs with access to the world’s most powerful computers. PhDs might fork the bitcoin code or write a smart contract that controls a drone’s delivery of a package, where bitcoin is held in escrow until that exact moment when the package arrives. Let’s say these PhDs post that software as open source code to the Internet, because that’s what they do to move their ideas forward; they share ideas. So now ISIS doesn’t need an AI lab, it doesn’t need a software development team. It just needs to substitute a grenade for the package. That’s the dictator’s learning curve, and it’s not steep. But don’t blame the code or the culture of sharing. It’s not necessarily what we do with the code; it’s what we don’t realize we’re doing with it—the unintended consequences of a friction-free world.