Block #3: The Convergence of Technologies in the Age of Autonomy

When we look at technology, I often feel that the public eye tends to get a kind of tunnel-vision on one particular technology rather than recognizing the entire landscape. We hear news all the time about ChatGPT, Bitcoin, Meta Quest 3, or some of the other new products that are hitting the shelves. But, we rarely learn about how they may start to intertwine together. So, as I’ve started to pick up on this, I’ve been getting curious myself. As the world prepares for its leap of faith into a fully immersive digital world, how do the technologies we so often hear about converge together?

A good starting point is understanding Carlota Perez’s Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital, where she makes the claim that there have been five technological revolutions that have occurred in the past 250 years. Often, technological revolutions are coupled with financial cycles that roughly occur every 50-60 years. (see chart)

To add an extra layer, the book Crypto Asset Investing in the Age of Autonomy, authored by Jake Ryan , Founder and CIO of Tradecraft Capital adds a new perspective to Perez's claim. He argues that we are at the beginning of a new technological revolution as we see AI, IoT, robotics, and blockchain converge to not just produce autonomous robots but autonomous businesses. Essentially, we are entering an age where people are removed as middlemen or facilitators of transactions and redundant tasks.?

A good example of this is an autonomous farm. IoT devices can precisely measure water levels required for optimal crop growth. AI agents, equipped with this data and enhanced by weather analytics, can calibrate irrigation processes. They can even integrate with oracle or data networks to discern market trends, subsequently selling crops at the most advantageous prices. Furthermore, these agents can instruct robots about specific crop-related tasks. And underpinning all these operations, blockchain technology records and authenticates each action, ensuring transparency and traceability.

But let’s not stop there. I'm going to unpack this a bit more.?

The Internet of Things (IoT) are any sensors, devices, or data-producing items. This can be devices such as your phone or ring camera to sensors on a Tesla car. The International Data Corporation (IDC) estimates that there will be 41.6 billion IoT devices in 2025, capable of generating 79.4 zettabytes of data. Think about it like this, if each terabyte were a kilometer, then 79.4 zettabytes would be equivalent to traveling from Earth to the sun and back over 400 times! That amount of information can be extremely overwhelming if you do not have a proper way to digest and organize it. This is the use case artificial intelligence (AI) brings to us.?

AI has the incredible capability to sift through these mind-boggling amounts of data, discern patterns, extract meaningful insights, and translate them into actionable knowledge. This symbiotic relationship between IoT and AI paves the way for smarter decision-making, optimized processes, and the creation of more intuitive, responsive environments, from smart homes to entire smart cities. In fact, Bloomberg announced earlier this year that they believe Generative AI will become a $1.3 Trillion market by 2032. And we are seeing a race between the top tech companies in the world to capture most of that market share. AI is reshaping the tech landscape and first movers/early adopters will have an uprecendented competitive advantage against their peers.

Robotics will expand on this market as it takes AI-driven knowledge and acts upon it. Just last week, Amazon launched the testing of humanoid robots in factories here in the United States. Self-driving cars are now freely roaming San Francisco and Austin with more than a dozen cities expected to be added to the list in the coming year. And to put this all into perspective, John Deere publicly stated last year it plans to completely autonomize farming by 2030. A world in which robots walk around alongside people is not that far away but the seamless interplay of these technologies hinges on an underpinning structure: blockchain technology.

Blockchain technology is not just another addition to the tech ecosystem; it's the glue that binds these diverse technologies together, enabling them to operate in a synchronized, trustless environment. It acts as the track upon which vast volumes of data and knowledge can flow securely and transparently. Sergey Nazarov , Co-Founder of Chainlink Labs , coins this evolving space as the "verifiable web," encapsulating the idea that in a world where AI, IoT, and robots intersect, there's an unprecedented need for verification, authenticity, and traceability.?

Blockchain, as a decentralized ledger, provides exactly this: a transparent framework where every action, decision, and transaction is recorded and verifiable by all. It opens up the possibility of tokenization, which refers to the digital representation of assets on a blockchain. 波士顿谘询公司 released a report that stated Tokenization is predicted to be a $16 Trillion Market by 2030. Through tokenization, physical or intangible assets can be converted into digital tokens that can be traded, sold, or invested in, on a decentralized platform. Essentially, it allows for a transparent, secure, and interoperable path for the liquid democratization of asset ownership.

With the infusion of blockchain, the convergence of technologies such as AI, IoT, and robotics is supported in a cohesive manner. Blockchain provides a unified platform where data from IoT devices can be securely and transparently stored. This data can then be processed by AI algorithms to make decisions, the outcomes of which are also stored on the blockchain. In addition, smart contracts on blockchains can autonomously trigger actions in the real world, such as instructing a robot to perform a task, ensuring full traceability and accountability in a decentralized environment. This seamless integration, underpinned by blockchain, allows these diverse technologies to synergize and create autonomous, self-governing systems.

So, to wrap up and bring it full circle. Carlota Perez, suggests there are four phrases to a technological innovation and as stated in this article above, we seem to be on the cusp of a generational opportunity.

Thanks again for your time. Please feel free to share this or comment if you learned something new. I hope you have a great rest of your week.

Best,

Albert Perez