When envisioning pop culture, depending on what generation you might be born into, the perceptions range from HAL 9000’s glowing Red Eye from 2001 to Ava from Ex-Machina. However, the most modern concept of pop culture comes hand in hand with artificial intelligence. To make the experience wholesome, we look at artificial intelligence or specifically, machine language and cryptography as sister fields to see the implications of the phenomena in modern-day culture as well as in the times to come.

As products of a capitalist society, the millennials are inebriated with the concept of privacy, security and the idea of personal space. As such, one can understand that the hype for artificial intelligence is essentially due to its capability of creating machines that can mimic or surpass human proficiency. These machines can adapt to self-optimization in various scenarios to keep up-to-date with each new phenomena being introduced. Thus, a closed-loop feedback system is induced. Furthermore, in the digital world, the need for security is ever increasing which is where cryptography comes in.

Assiduous individuals work behind the screens to introduce cryptographic algorithms which provide blankets of security and are astonishingly adept in many logic-based situations. The blockchain systems when efficiently designed, also, incentivize users to contribute to the network whilst getting benefit from it; a phenomenon essential in a time when AI has become game masters in their own right. This can be further understood through an example.

If developers develop an AI solution in a centralized platform, they need to ensure an authentic interface for a reliable representation of an AI output. Furthermore, they also need to ensure that the integrity and security of the data is maintained. In a situation like this, if a blockchain system is used, its transparency and accessibility pump up the security that is required by the developer of the AI algorithm.

However, one must understand that artificial intelligence and its off-shoots are not a future trend, they are already here and they are influencing our day-to-day activities. Perceptions will always vary but one can hold artificial intelligence analogous to a Chocolate truffle surprise. No matter how many times you open it and see the decadent goodness, you can never be sure what flavour you will find on the inside. In short, for each new flavour, you will develop a different kind of fondness.

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The Bitfury Group may soon be known as a data miner, as well as a crypto mining firm.

In an interview with Reuters on Tuesday, the firm’s co-founder and CEO Valery Vavilov said Bitfury has launched an artificial intelligence (AI) division in order to break down the world’s vast amount of data and derive value from it.

Calling data “the next oil,” Vavilov said that 98 percent of all data is just sitting waiting to be analyzed.

While giving away few details, he added that the data analyses would utilize blockchain. “We also need to trust that data so that’s where blockchain comes in,” Vavilov said.

Bitfury offers a number of blockchain services, as well as making computer and crypto mining hardware and running crypto mining data centers.

Last November, Bitfury closed an $80 million funding round led by venture capital firm Korelya Capital. Mike Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital, Macquarie Capital, Dentsu Inc., Armat Group and others, also participated.

A month prior, the firm was said by Bloomberg sources to be considering holding an initial public offering (IPO) via a stock exchange listing in Amsterdam, London or Hong Kong. The sources said Bitfury may be valued as high as $3 billion–$5 billion if it goes public within the next two years.

Bitfury’s AI division is currently in “research mode,” according to Vavilov, with a clearer vision of its potential use cases and products expected at the end of the year or early 2020.

He said in a statement:

“Just as blockchain technology enables us all to fix our most broken and distrusted systems, artificial intelligence will bring new and extraordinary benefits to nearly every facet of our lives. To help this incredible technology achieve maximum impact, Bitfury is expanding our mission to offer hardware and software solutions designed especially for AI applications.”

To head up the new unit, the firm has appointed tech veteran Fabrizio Del Maffeo, formerly vice president and managing director of AAEON Technology Europe, a firm that focuses on AI and IoT as part of the ASUS Group.

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