February 14, 2024 • 47 mins
Embark on a technological odyssey with Dr. Alan Badeau as we uncover the rich potential of blockchain in revolutionizing not just finance, but industries far and wide. From smart contracts to secure supply chains, Dr. Badeau guides us through the vast applications of this groundbreaking tech. We tackle the historical moment of the 2008 financial crisis that paved the way for blockchain's emergence and consider how, even in the wake of high-profile tech scandals, this technology continues to garner trust and reshape our digital interactions.
As the conversation shifts to the luxurious world of NFTs and how high-end brands are adopting blockchain, we open the door to a future where managing digital identities could be as coveted as the products themselves. The journey through the internet's evolution—from the static pages of Web 1.0 to the bustling social hubs of Web 2.0—sets the stage for a decentralized and privacy-focused Web 3.0. Dr. Badeau shares vibrant insights into the infrastructure brewing to support this new web, inspiring visions of a world where control over personal data is returned to the user.
In the climactic chapter of our narrative, the golden trio of blockchain, AI, and quantum computing takes center stage, promising a renaissance in public and private sector innovation. Dr. Badeau and I explore the tangible benefits these technologies could bring to everyday challenges in traffic management, healthcare, and beyond. For entrepreneurs, we discuss AI's game-changing role in leveling the playing field, equipping anyone with a business idea to forge ahead with confidence.
Join us as we celebrate the synergy of these advanced technologies, and how together, they're scripting a new chapter for the future of governance and enterprise.
About Dr Allen Badeau
Dr. Allen Badeau: a renowned AI Evangelist and the founder of Allen Badeau LLC. This consulting firm excels in delivering cutting-edge solutions in AI, blockchain, quantum computing, and other advanced technologies to a diverse clientele, including commercial, federal, and international entities (allenbadeau.ai). Dr. Badeau's latest initiative, Harmonic AI, is set to revolutionize the AI-human interaction, aiming to enhance decision-making and strategic positioning with its first product launch slated for early Q1 2024 (www.harmonicai.ai).
Holding a PhD in Mechanical Engineering and boasting over two decades of field expertise, Dr. Badeau possesses an extensive knowledge base spanning the technical, commercial, and ethical facets of AI application across various sectors. His team is adept at facilitating AI-driven transformations at every organizational tier, encompassing technological, business, and marketing dimensions.
https://twitter.com/allen_badeau
https://allenbadeau.com/services
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Tech Travels hosted by the seasoned
tech enthusiast and industryexpert, steve Woodard.
With over 25 years ofexperience and a track record of
collaborating with thebrightest minds in technology,
steve is your seasoned guidethrough the ever-evolving world
of innovation.
Join us as we embark on aninsightful journey, exploring
(00:26):
the past, present and future oftech under Steve's expert
guidance.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Hey there, tech enthusiast, welcome back to
another thrilling episode ofTech Travels.
Today, we are joined by theaccomplished Dr Alan Badoe.
Dr Alan Badoe is a leadingprofessional in blockchain and
artificial intelligencetechnologies.
He has a PhD in mechanicalengineering and over two decades
of experience.
He's also the CEO of Alan BadoeLLC, where they specialize in
(01:13):
artificial intelligence,blockchain, quantum computing
and other advanced technicalsolutions.
Today we are going to dive intoa couple of different topics.
We're going to talk about Web 3, blockchain, metaverse and tech
entrepreneurship.
So, alan, thank you so verymuch for being on the show today
, really looking forward to ourdiscussion.
(01:34):
Before we begin, I want tostart with a quote from a book
called Blockchain 2035, where itsays the blockchain stands to
be among the most fundamentaltechnological, sociological and
political innovation of thecurrent era.
It's going to transform news,entertainment, gaming and even
(01:55):
our own financial institutions.
So, for those who might be lessfamiliar, could you provide a
brief overview as to whatblockchain is and really what
its fundamental properties are?
Speaker 3 (02:06):
When you think about blockchain and everybody goes
immediately to cryptocurrency,right, and that kind of facet
from an opinion perspective, andso a lot of people don't
realize really what it really is.
If you think about itfundamentally, it's a
(02:28):
distributed ledger, right, andit's really what you're trying
to do is enable the recording ofsome transaction or some event
that takes place in a reallysecure, very transparent way,
and what it allows you to do is,as these activities take place,
(02:53):
they put it on a block.
That block gets submitted intothe chain and then it gets
broken down from there andvalidated and verified and those
sort of things.
There's a whole bunch ofdifferent characteristics around
blockchain, whether it'sdecentralized or centralized,
(03:16):
meaning that central authority,a bank or something like that
could control it, or one entitythat is mining it, potentially.
But at the end of the day,that's what you're trying to do
and you're trying to utilizethat kind of technology so you
(03:37):
can track the event, soeverybody can see what's going
on, and that goes on not justfor cryptocurrencies, but really
from smart contracts all theway through supply chain
management, and then some folksare even starting to look at it
for voting and other types oftransactional events that take
(03:58):
place that really fundamentallycould reshape how things are
going.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
So it seems and you're right, I think I recall
it was people had theorized thatit was started really right
around 1991 and then it reallystarted to gain more of the
mainstream emergence rightaround 2008.
I think it was the catalystthat really pushed blockchain
into more of the ethos was thewhite paper from Satoshi
(04:26):
Nakamoto.
In your opinion, what was thetipping point that really pushed
blockchain from early cyberpunktype of technology into
something where people startedto use it as an actual platform
for real world applications?
What was that moment?
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Well, I think the general public's moment was
right around the housing crisisin 2008.
I mean, people got scared.
They started looking foralternative means of holding
some sort of asset that wouldallow them to be prepared for
(05:05):
the next time something likethat took place.
And there are a whole bunch ofdifferent financial implications
.
We've seen that, whereblockchain would have a great
return on as an asset and itwould outperform the stock
market or even gold from thatperspective.
(05:27):
But it really is.
I would say that as folksstarted to realize or, in some
cases, started to lose faith incertain institutions, they
wanted another way that theycould be prepared for those
rainy day events that take place.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
So which came first?
Was it the blockchain that camefirst, or was it kind of the
emergence of kind of more of analternative to fiat currency?
Was it the emergence of Bitcoin, or was it both?
Speaker 3 (05:59):
I think it was both.
I think it was both.
It was one of those in 2008,.
We were still in a reallycoming out of an AI winter.
Quantum had not really startedto take off yet.
Blockchain, to most people, wasa brand new technology.
(06:20):
It was one of those activitieswhere you could see some of the
real world implications aroundthat from video games all the
way through the things that youhad mentioned and then the
perfect storm of events reallyhit and that allowed us to
allowed Bitcoin really to takeoff and the 9,000 plus different
(06:47):
alternative coins that are outthere today.
You can see the snowball effectthat took place.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
It's incredible the explosion that's received over
the last couple of years and alot of it seems like it's kind
of both in both the economicsense and political sense.
It's been very controversial,right, it's Bitcoin,
cryptocurrencies they're all bad.
They're always for kind ofillicit activity to happen, but,
as we started to see, we'restarting to see a huge paradigm
(07:16):
shift towards mainstreamadoption.
Most financial institutions,even the big companies like
BlackRock, grayscale they're allstarting to kind of push for
more of this type of adoption,and even from the industry.
So what are you seeing fromwhere you sit and from being
from an industry recognizedleader on kind of how you're
(07:38):
evangelizing blockchain for moreof a progressive, positive
evolvement into our ethos?
Speaker 3 (07:44):
Yeah, and the challenge is is, every time we
seem to be gathering somemomentum, we as a I would say,
as a community, somehow mess up.
You have the FTX issue when, ofcourse, it was really starting
(08:06):
to gain a foothold and theinterest was there, and then you
had so much venture capitalistand private investment that was
taking place.
It was really a great time tolook at those things.
And then, unfortunately, thereare those negative consequences
and with any sort of technology,you lose faith or the public
(08:30):
loses faith very quickly.
You went from folks thinkingabout using X, y and Z currency
to oh no, we don't want anythingto deal with it or anything to
do with it, and that's alwaysgoing to be an issue with
blockchain until it reallystarts to gain a little bit of a
(08:51):
foothold.
But then you see countries likeVenezuela and some of those
others that are making a hugeinvestment in Bitcoin, and I
think it was two weeks ago thatthey just broke even and now
they're up in what theirinvestment was.
And I think from a generalpublic, that's not as important,
(09:13):
but I think from folks that arereally following it, it is
important because it's startingto turn around.
But I think, from myperspective, the key with
blockchain or distributedledgers is looking and seeing
how it can be applied to otherareas, much like AI and even
(09:37):
generative AI.
The public loses interest veryquickly if it's only got a
singular application, and Ithink, from blockchain and AI
perspective, as you start to seethese technologies converge to
solve certain problems whetherit's identity management,
(09:58):
whether it's supply chain,whether it's fraud that's when I
think the technology is reallygoing to be embraced.
But at the same time, folks arestill worried about it, and I
hear this all the time about adigital dollar, and the issue
(10:20):
with that is maybe a lot offolks don't want to have every
single one of their purchases orwhat they do with their quote
unquote digital dollar betracked by the government.
And I hear, as we'reprogressing to more advanced and
more acceptance, then othersstart to want to pull the covers
(10:42):
back because now they'regetting concerned about Big
Brother becoming too involved.
So it's a delicate balancethat's got to take place.
Otherwise it's going to go oneway or the other, and I don't
necessarily think that going allin for a digital currency is a
great move, but looking at goingall in on supply chain or
(11:07):
contracts or those kind ofthings is a great idea, so it's
a really delicate balance.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
It really is and I want to dive into the smart
contract with, inside thebusiness ethos, the application
of a smart contract.
Can you help us understandreally, just at a simple term,
really, what is a smart contractand what does it mean that when
someone says you're executing asmart contract on a blockchain,
what does that?
Really mean.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
Yeah, it's really where it's a self executing
contract that has terms that aredirectly written into that
block specifically, and so it'sautomatically enforced and it
can be well.
It will be automaticallyexecuted when, whatever, the
(11:54):
terms of that contract are met.
So if you have, for instance, ahouse, when your deed is owned
through the bank and those kindof things, then that all can be
traced and tracked andeverything is on the block and
you don't have to worry aboutsomebody coming in and swooping
(12:15):
in and saying, oh, I have thisdeed and XYZ deed and all the
fraud that takes place today andwhether it's squatters and the
legal issues around that.
It would prevent a lot of thosekind of things and it works
from procurement, you know, todeans and housing, as I said to
(12:37):
other, you know, legal type ofdocuments.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
So it provides almost like, almost like, a
cryptographic type of digitalsignature.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
That's exactly right.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Right, that really can't be changed, it can't be
altered.
I think I recall seeing acommercial.
I know that some of the bigretail houses Breitling Rolex,
even more of your big fashionhouses are now able to offer
when you purchase these products, they're offering you kind of
an NFT or some sort of digitalsignature that can be registered
(13:08):
on the blockchain.
This is huge because this issomething incredible where you
didn't see this before.
Now you start to see thismainstream adoption with
everyday things, from wearablesto watches.
You know, is this kind of themainstream wave that we start to
see?
Is this kind of that big pushand moving and evolving the
(13:28):
blockchain?
Speaker 3 (13:29):
I think so.
I think this is the start of it.
I think where the precipice isreally going to hit is I don't
know about you, but I'm reallytired of getting you know
letters from different agenciesthat I either have credit cards
with or I have accounts withthat my information has been
hacked or you know and stolen.
(13:50):
I think the next big push isreally going to be around
citizens taking back theirdigital identity and their
digital footprint, and the onlyway that you really can do that
is through, you know, some sortof you know blockchain type
event.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
And this is interesting because it really
kind of starts leading into thewhole concept around Web 3.0.
That's right, right, it's youknow.
Walk us through with theevolution from what is Web 1,
how do we get to where are weWeb 2 today?
What is what's the progression?
Where do we start?
Speaker 3 (14:27):
You know that's a.
That's a good, that's a goodquestion because you know, as
you, as we have evolved in whatwe and how we are, you know,
really connecting.
You know Web 1 was really, I'dsay, up into the early 2000s and
it was really what you wouldcall the, the static web, where
(14:52):
you'd look for content, you'dread it.
There was very littleinteractions.
I think folks remember a lot ofthose things, basic, very basic
.
You know HTML type sites andyou know I think probably one of
the best ones would have been,like, you know, some personal
websites that folks have thatlooked like a resume, right.
And then you know Web 2 reallystarted to evolve and allow a
(15:16):
lot of different type of, youknow, new features and really
the best example around that isaround all the interaction in
the social media sites you know,that are out there today, the
goal always being to, you know,allow some sort of creation.
That was more interaction andat the same time, you may be
(15:37):
able to monetize some of thosethings and, you know, do
something around those types of,you know, business models, that
kind of thing.
And you know I think Facebookprobably led that well with
MySpace technically, you know,but Facebook is still around,
right, but you know, I thinkthose folks were the ones that
were, you know, blazing some ofthose trails with you know, with
(16:01):
Google, and then YouTube helpedwith the video type of thing,
and so that's really still themainstream today for the most
part.
But as we start looking at Web3.0, that's when we're starting
to look at you know what folksare calling the semantic web,
and that's trying to getsomething that's more
(16:24):
intelligent, more technologycapable, but at the same time,
you're taking data.
It's connected in a way thatyou know humans and machines can
interact more appropriately.
Things are decentralized.
You know AI plays a is going toplay a huge role around that as
(16:45):
well, as you know what that.
You know that metaverse typesphere is going to look like.
But at the end of the day, it'sreally trying to get data, use
data more efficiently, makethings more interoperable, but
at the same time, safety andsecurity is really at the
forefront of what they're tryingto do.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
How far do you away?
Do you think we are from fullWeb 3 adoption.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
Well, I think it's like any other technology A lot
of it is going to be driven bythe users and the demands of the
users.
Now, techies, I think, are, youknow, really screaming for it
and they want to use it.
They understand fundamentallywhat it can do and how it can do
(17:37):
it and the security and thegreat features around that, but
the general public, you know,really doesn't.
They don't care right now andyou know, I think we're starting
to see a little bit of momentum.
People are saying, you know,just like I mentioned earlier,
they're tired of theirinformation being stolen.
How can they fix that?
And you know, they're tired ofall their information being
(18:01):
tracked, no matter where they goand what they do.
And you know they don'tunderstand that there's a
technology out there that todaythat can help, you know, prevent
that and provide them, you know, some security that they're
looking for.
So, you know, I would sayprobably three to five years is
when it's really going to startto, you know, propagate
(18:25):
throughout a whole bunch ofother sites.
You can see it now, when you'restarting to build a website or
you're starting to, you know, oryou have a website and you want
to offer some sort ofcredentialing method.
You know, a Web 3.0 capabilityis usually offered in there.
But most people think, oh, I'venever heard of that, I'm not
going to do something like that,and so it's going to be slow,
(18:49):
but I think we'll get thereeventually.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Yeah, it's going to be interesting to see.
I really hope it's going to bewithin the next five years.
I want to dovetail back intothe topic around blockchain.
You know, you hear so much inthe news that there are all the
different.
You know, bitcoin miners andEthereum miners.
They're all basically mining.
You've got companies like Riot,you've got companies like Hive,
(19:14):
you've got the Marathon all ofthese companies that are
building vast amounts ofinfrastructure with vast
computing power.
And I wonder you know, really,as you start to kind of build
out this infrastructure that'sgoing to basically run the
blockchain, I wonder you knowwhat?
Are we starting to see itsimpact on environmental
(19:35):
sustainability?
I mean, how does it reallyimpact renewable energies and
green initiatives?
Speaker 3 (19:41):
Well, I mean, you know there's a couple of ways
that you can look at it.
You know, you hope that it atleast balances out that the
positive impacts of trying tovalidate blocks, you know, on
these chains outweighs some ofthe you know aspects of.
(20:02):
You've got a lot of computersthat are running, they're
putting off heat, they'resucking up water and they're
taking a lot of energy.
And you know, I don't know if Ihave seen a study that says one
way or the other, when theylook at it purely from a
technical perspective, let'stake the emotional aspects out
of it, but purely from atechnical perspective, you know,
(20:24):
if you know that crunching thatgoes on with those numbers, you
know, is at least neutral withthe environmental impacts that
are taking place.
So, you know, here's the otherthing, though it's not just,
it's not just blockchain.
You know you've got AI startingto dominate some of these.
(20:49):
You know discussions as welland how much water they're
taking, and you know how much ittakes to run these GPUs and
those kind of things, and so I'mnot going to put the sole blame
on blockchain by any stretch ofthe imagination, but it does
have some sort of impact, butyou know actually being able to
quantify that.
You know I can't do that.
(21:10):
I haven't seen a study thatdoes that, at least to my
knowledge as of today.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Interesting.
I know you mentioned AI.
I mean let's I mean let's kindof let's think of it this way is
all of these resources thatwe're creating, like AI and
blockchain.
They're all probably consumingsome sort of computing power and
that's kind of putting off somesort of carbon footprint at
some point.
What about?
You know?
Talk to me a little bit aboutquantum computing.
(21:37):
I know I know quantum computersare able to perform serious
amounts of calculations fasterthan modern computers.
They're using a math based typeof encryption and it really
presents it.
And then people are saying well, you know, quantum computing,
it's really going to start tolook at breaking certain
vulnerabilities within thingslike AS256.
(22:00):
So my question is is willquantum computing destroy
blockchain or is it going tomake it more secure?
Speaker 3 (22:08):
I think there's two ways that you can look at it.
If you don't like blockchain inthe first place, I think you're
going to, you're going to be onthe side that says it can, it's
going to destroy it and it'snot, it's not worth it.
There are, at least as of todayyou know, certain algorithms
that folks say are, you know,quantum resistance.
When it, when it comes tocertain types of blockchain I
(22:31):
don't I haven't personallyplayed around with those or
tried to break them or thosekind of things, but you know
there, there are at least issome, some literature out there
that says that's a capability.
Now, what I would say from youknow, a technology perspective,
and it really this is where thatthird part of what I like to
(22:54):
call the golden triangle startsto come into play.
When you take the fundamentalcapabilities of distributed
ledgers and you combine thosewith the calculating power of a
quantum computer and then tie AIinto that, that's when you
start to get, you know, really,some spectacular capabilities
(23:20):
with that convergence of thosethree technologies.
And you know, from myperspective, when you put those
together, I think, some of theproblems that we will be able to
solve, from traffic to supplychain, to, you know some of the
healthcare things that are outthere.
I think fundamentally it'sreally all three of those that
(23:43):
you know combine that will, willlead to some spectacular
discoveries that far outweighthe negative aspects of one over
the other versus the other.
I mean, we've looked at, we'velooked at using you know, for
instance, combining blockchainwith AI to, you know, really
(24:06):
secure both the front end withsome of the models and the data
that goes along with that.
And then you start to look atquantum computing, because you
know quantum computers are notgoing to be able to solve your
everyday problems for the mostpart.
You're not going to run a wordprocessor, you're not going to
run certain other you knowapplications on a quantum
(24:26):
computer and so it's morelimited in what it's.
What, it's true, impactful.
You know results will be forthe normal person other than,
hey, maybe you don't have asmuch traffic, or there's an
optimized traffic route, forinstance, or they set the lights
finally, so that you can gofrom you know your house to you
(24:51):
know five miles and it'sconsistently green throughout
the way, right, I mean, thoseare the kind of you know real
world applications that quantumcomputers can solve.
But as you start to stack thosetogether, it really becomes
more important.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
Have we been able to combine all three?
It seems like that's thetrifecta it's blockchain, it's
AI, it's quantum computing.
I mean, are we starting to see,you know, anybody out there
currently in the innovationspace, or anyone kind of leading
the charge, that's been able tofind the magic to combine all
three of these to solve a realproblem?
Speaker 3 (25:25):
So it's more.
It's more bits and pieces of allthree of them and so, for
instance, some of the thingsthat I've done, you know I've
looked at applying, you know allthree of them and really, from
a quantum computing perspective,we have to talk about not to
get too technical, but reallyyou know there's three different
types of quantum computing andwe're using what's called
(25:48):
quantum annealing typeactivities, but we're applying
bits and pieces of all three ofthose to fraud and trying to be
able to identify fraudulentactivities that take place
either, for instance, on ablockchain or, you know,
potentially using blockchain tofind those, for you know
(26:10):
different activities that aretaking place on the web or other
types of, you know, fraudulentthings, whether it's
transactional, whether it's youknow some of the other things
that it can be used for.
That's really the biggest areawhere folks are using, you know
some of those things outside ofthe outside of the military.
In the military, there are, ofcourse, other applications that
(26:31):
are being used, but you know Ireally I won't go into those on,
on, on here.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
No, I mean, I completely agree.
I know that there's been some.
I know by in years past there'sbeen some controversy I know
you know for a couple years agois Google was using some sort of
machine learning to help sortout and basically kind of image
classify drone images.
Yeah, they're just there aretoo many images that human being
cannot possibly consume.
(26:59):
So they were applying machinelearning.
That's right.
Speaker 3 (27:02):
Automable.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
To kind of look for, yeah, Maven and that got a
little bit of some attention onthe on the news and it seemed to
kind of, you know, kind of hey,we're gonna from a Google's
perspective, we're gonna pullback a little bit on that.
Now I don't want to dive intoit too deep, but from a
government approach, you know,within, not just from the
private sector, but into thepublic sphere with, you know,
(27:26):
certain government agencies, youknow, even within our
government is, you know, youknow, is there a starting to be
kind of more of an appetite forblockchain and AI adoption?
Seems like everywhere we look,there's AI everywhere.
And come the commercial space,from your phone to computer, to
TV.
But what about elements of ourgovernment?
Are we starting to see a shiftwhere we see some appetite for
(27:47):
this?
Speaker 3 (27:47):
Well, I think, from a blockchain perspective, you
know they came out hot and heavyright around 2011, 2012.
And that's when they were using, or at least doing some you
know investigations around hyperledger and how they could use
hyper ledger to do procurementtracking and those kind of
things.
A lot of that died down and isalmost non existent, you know
(28:12):
now, and really unfortunatebecause now, with the
utilization of AI or the desire,I should say, to utilize, you
know AI then blockchain is oneof those areas that really could
help, you know, secure the dataand all those other you know
government initiatives that areimportant to them.
(28:35):
If you look at, you know, an Sbomb, right when you are
developing an application, thefederal government has a lot of
requirements around that, andbeing able to track who
developed the software, where itwas developed, you know, yada,
yada, yada yada all the way downthe line, is very important.
Blockchain would be able to,you know, help facilitate that,
(28:55):
even on the AI, where they getthe data, how they use the data,
how the data is trained in theDOD model, for example, very
important on, you know, to beable to track it from its
initial source so it's notpoisoned data, right, and so you
know there are very few thatare looking at that today, but
(29:16):
they're doing some.
They're doing some advancedstuff on the DOD side, which is,
which is, you know, fantastic,but there are so many other
places and areas that it can beused.
Now, you know, tatgpt, of course, blew up everything, but the
problem is is on the governmentside.
When you start looking at thesecurity regulations of putting
(29:38):
these systems on or these modelson government systems, it's not
that easy.
Actually it's really hard.
And you know security by, youknow their nature.
They usually say no to a lot ofthings and you know, when you
start to see releases that comeout from, you know, folks like
GSA or the Air Force or some ofthose other big agencies that
(30:02):
say they don't use the largelanguage models, don't put them
on government systems yet,because we're not quite sure
what it does.
You know that's, that's notunusual, and so usually the
federal government is, you know,three, four, five years behind
when it comes to getting a holdof some of these technologies
that the everyday person workingin the government can use.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
I think I heard that basically is that the certain
government agencies are stillprobably using fax machines,
floppy disks something like thatright?
Speaker 3 (30:37):
Well, that part is true and if you look at it, the
largest code base still in thefederal government is COBOL.
I think there's almost 40billion lines at Cobalt that is
still in operational use today.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
Is there any plan that we're ever going to be able
to kind of start to see it moreof a push towards more of
adoption within the governmentspace?
I mean, do we think it'spossible that it might happen?
We think that there might bekind of a secondary revolution
with that, but what do we thinkit's going to take?
Speaker 3 (31:08):
Yeah, I think it's going to happen.
I think Microsoft is reallyleading the way.
Office 365 is everywhere insidethe federal government.
Really, the integration ofCopilot and with Office 365,
that's going to drive a lot ofthat, because now people want to
(31:32):
use what they have at home andthey want to be able to go in
the office and be able to use it.
If they can't go into theoffice, they want to stay remote
so they can continue to usesome of those things on their
personal devices.
It's going to happen.
How quickly it happens?
There are some pilots going ontoday inside of the DoD, as well
(31:53):
as the civilian agencieslooking at that.
It's just, these things reallytake time.
They have so many differentaccreditation and processes that
they have to go through.
It just does take an awful lotof time.
I will say this from a largelanguage model perspective.
(32:17):
I've demonstrated to a lot ofgovernment agencies and even
commercial clients that youdon't have to be in a rush
because if you do it wrong, it'sgoing to get access to
something that you probablydon't want it to have access to.
It's going to cause you anawful lot of pain.
Get your ducks in a row andthen deploy it.
(32:41):
I think the government is justby nature going to do that.
They're not going to jump thegun, but maybe they'll be a
little bit slower than a lot offolks would like, but that's
kind of normal.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
It seems like that's kind of the natural evolution of
how government takes a while toadopt technology, but at the
end they do come around.
It sounds like there are somepositive keynotes to take away
from that.
Let's transition and reallywant to talk about getting your
insights into the tech,entrepreneurship and innovation
(33:16):
space.
Tell me a little bit about yourjourney in the tech industry
and talk about some of theexperiences around how you're
talking to other startups aroundemerging trends and
transformational technologies.
Speaker 3 (33:29):
Yeah, it's been an interesting journey.
If you look at my background, Istarted out with getting my PhD
in computational fluid dynamicsand then I went to work for the
CDC and then became a federalcontractor.
There were always ideas that Iwould have let's spend a little
(33:55):
bit of time outside of my normalactivities and let's see what
we can do.
That led to starting aconsulting company where I
helped use that kind oftechnology for Newell Rubbermaid
and helping apply some thingsthat I learned, actually in the
Department of Defense, toward amop bucket.
(34:17):
Believe it or not, I got apatent with them and the wave
break mop bucket.
I helped do some of thesimulations on it in the design
very early on.
A lot of fun.
Trying to take thesetechnologies and apply them in a
commercial way to areas thatfolks have never even thought of
(34:39):
is something that I think is alot of fun.
What I tell people, especiallywith AI today, I try to describe
it as though that now you havea tool that you really can apply
everywhere and for any type ofbusiness that you want to start,
(35:03):
the only thing that you have todo is have an idea.
The best way to think about itis I'm probably the worst artist
I won't say necessarily in theworld, but I would probably be
in the top five.
I'm a stick figure kind of guy.
Unless it's an engineeringdiagram, I have some very
(35:24):
interesting ideas and visionswhen it comes to art.
I can't paint, but guess what?
Now I have a tool that, if Ican describe what I want, it
will do it for me.
It's the exact same thing froma business perspective.
If you have an idea but youdon't know how to start a
(35:44):
business, then you say you cango out to one of the models.
There's 140 of them, 148, Ithink, available as of today.
You can go out to any one ofthose and say write me a
business plan, help me developwhat a roadmap looks like.
All the things that you need todo from an administrative
(36:05):
perspective can be handled by AIso you can actually focus on
maturing your idea, your widget,whatever that's going to be and
really attack the marketplace.
No other time have we in humanhistory have we had such power
to go out and start something onour own, with the aid of think
(36:33):
about it as a lawyer that canhelp you.
Think about it as a banker thatcan help you get financing.
All that stuff is now atpeople's fingertips.
If they would just embrace itand try it and use it for
something other than write me ajoke or write me a poem or
something like that, then thereare huge opportunities.
(36:58):
That's really what I am tryingto get out there for folks is
that try it, use it in ways thatyou've never thought of, use it
in ways that you've or thingsthat you've never done before,
and when you get familiar withthe technology, that's when the
power really kicks in.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
It seems like it really serves as an accelerator
for people who really want tobasically have an idea.
They want to be able to pursueself entrepreneurship, and it
really does help level theplaying field because now you
don't need to assemble the fullteam, you don't have to work to
build your own startup.
You can be your own independentstartup as a one-person show.
(37:38):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (37:40):
What's amazing is I left my previous job in early
summer, started my consultingcompany and also started a
software company and myself, mypartner and my AI, my own large
language model that I trained todo some software development.
(38:01):
We have developed together aton of code that will be
releasing soon.
It's that kind of capabilityyou really have an edge if
you're not afraid to use it,because it can scale what your
capabilities are so far beyondwhat you can comprehend, that if
(38:24):
you don't use it, yourcompetitor is using it, and
that's where that's a problem.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
So what's your advice for aspiring entrepreneurs
looking to get out there?
Speaker 3 (38:40):
Well, the biggest question that I actually get at
these conferences, outside ofthe ethics and the security
pieces around is it going totake my job?
Is AI going to replace me?
And my response to folks rightnow is that AI is not going to
(39:01):
replace you with somebody thatknows how to use the AI will,
and so what I tell people isthat it doesn't matter what your
age is.
This is a tool that is reallyagnostic, as long as you know
how to use a computer or a phoneor something like that.
To try something that is smallfirst meaning, hey, go in and
(39:27):
filter my email and if I getsomething from Judy, to put it
into the spam, something likethat try something very easy and
then expand on what thosecapabilities are because, like I
said earlier, the folks thatare going to lose out are the
(39:47):
ones that are refusing to try itbecause they think that they
can do it better.
The reality is, you may be ableto do it better, but if I can
do it faster and it's maybe notquite as good as you, but maybe
a notch down I can put abusiness out of existence with
(40:08):
that kind of capability.
Because we've all seen most ofthe time.
First, the market is veryimportant, getting the word out
very important, keeping the wordout very important and having
AI do that just scalesexponentially what your
workforce becomes, and so folksthat ignore it they're going to
be in a world of hurt soon.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
Yeah, but I think overall, I think it's really
going to have a positive impact,right, I think you have
disruptive technologies thatkind of move and displace people
, but it also starts to presentand emerge a new set of leaders
and innovators and people whocan really think and use the
technologies and pair thosetogether.
I think that's the superpower,right.
Speaker 3 (40:53):
Yeah, and that's the fun thing, because I've seen the
dynamics of institutions thatallow their workforce to use AI
and institutions that do not.
Overall, I would say on average, those that are using the tool
are really scaling what theirworkforce can do.
(41:16):
And you are taking somebodythat may be excellent at their
job, but now they are excellentand they are extraordinarily
fast, and that combination isreally scary.
But then, from a managerperspective, at the same time,
being able to manage a workforceis not easy, right, but now
(41:37):
you're combining what I'mcalling a digital workforce in
that management chain as well,and so you have to be able to
manage that kind of relationship, and most people aren't
prepared for something like that, and that takes a lot of time.
That takes an ability to usethe tool, a manager that's
(41:59):
willing to play with it,understand it and then
understand the dynamics of whathis team and their attitudes are
.
Because if you're an introvertand you've got AI, the problem
is now you want to ask 50different check GPTs or versions
of check GPT, because you wantto just reinforce what that
position is.
(42:19):
But if you are not that way andyou are more of a, I guess I
would say there's a lot ofdifferent ways to classify that
person that you know has a verystrong opinion about something,
but when you give them AI, thatjust bolsters their confidence
(42:40):
and their ego.
And then I've seen it wheresome of the folks have become a
little bit of a bully anddominate the discussions and
those kind of things, and soagain, it goes back to being
able to manage a new workforce.
That is, granted, it's better,it's scalable, but it is now
(43:01):
emotionally different than whatfolks are used to seeing.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
Interesting, so real quick and as we wrap up here is
kind of give us your insightsand expertise and give us a five
year prediction on kind of whatyou foresee, kind of how we
start to wrap around this newworld of blockchain, metaverse,
ai, virtual reality,cryptocurrency, kind of like
(43:26):
what's kind of the real visionyou start to see pan out in the
next five years.
Speaker 3 (43:32):
Yeah, I think folks are going to realize that
technology is just a technologyand unless people feel
comfortable with it, they have agood experience with it and it
is, I guess, what I would saypersonally rewarding in some
(43:53):
fashion.
I think these technologies orthese algorithms are just going
to fall by the wayside.
I think it's going to be folksthat focus on the user
experience.
That relationship between humanand AI or human and how it can
apply to the blockchain, isgoing to start to dominate, and
(44:16):
I think that's where we willstart to see more investment and
more research dollars and moreventure capitalist dollars as we
move forward, because we'veseen how fast things are
changing today.
You're getting a new methodologyfor these generative models
(44:39):
just about every single day, andif you only focus on one,
you're in trouble, because oneday you're flying high, the next
day you're out of business andyou're trying to figure out what
you're going to do next.
That's how quickly these thingsare changing, but if you are
consistently focusing on theexperience of your customers,
then all these become plug andplay.
How can I use this now withwhat I'm doing?
(45:00):
How can I use this to make mycustomers' lives better, easier,
more transparent, those kind ofthings.
That's where I think we'll bein three to five years, and when
you start to combine VR withthe metaverse, with AI, with the
digital experience, and thenthat relationship, that is an
(45:20):
exceptionally strong story thatI think is going to really start
to dominate.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
Incredible.
It definitely is an incredibleworld that we're about to
embrace.
I'm very excited for thejourney and it seems like
there's a limitless amount ofpossibilities, both just from
the technology side, from allthe applications that are going
to impact the end userexperience, from things like
hotel check-in to self-automatedcars I mean I can go on and on
(45:51):
but I think that it's anincredible journey.
I think we're just starting tosee just the first wave of that
happening.
It's coming.
But, alan, I want to express mysincere gratitude for you
coming on Tech Travels today.
Your insights on blockchain andentrepreneurship has really
added immense value to ourjourney today and thank you for
(46:12):
sharing this.
We're very honored to have youon as a guest.
Thank you for sharing yourknowledge and for making this an
invariate-riching episode forour listeners.
We hope to have you back on.
Speaker 3 (46:22):
Yeah, I appreciate it , Steve.
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
Awesome.
Thanks again, fellow travelers,for joining us on today's show.
If you liked this episode,please take a moment to rate the
show.
Be sure to subscribe to thechannel if you would like to be
notified when new shows areposted.
If you want to share this showwith your friends, please share
on your preferred social mediaplatform.
I would love your help to bringawareness to this channel.
(46:45):
You can follow me on Twitter attheTechChannel.
Join us next time as we ventureinto the future, into the
realms of technology.
Until then, stay curious, stayinformed.
Most of all, happy travels.
Speaker 1 (47:00):
Thanks so much for listening to the Tech Travels
podcast with Steve Woodard.
Please tune in next time and besure to follow us and subscribe
on the Apple podcast andSpotify platforms.
We'll see you next time.
Welcome to Tech Travels hosted by the seasoned
tech enthusiast and industryexpert, steve Woodard.
With over 25 years ofexperience and a track record of
collaborating with thebrightest minds in technology,
steve is your seasoned guidethrough the ever-evolving world
of innovation.
Join us as we embark on aninsightful journey, exploring
(00:26):
the past, present and future oftech under Steve's expert
guidance.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Hey there, tech enthusiast, welcome back to
another thrilling episode ofTech Travels.
Today, we are joined by theaccomplished Dr Alan Badoe.
Dr Alan Badoe is a leadingprofessional in blockchain and
artificial intelligencetechnologies.
He has a PhD in mechanicalengineering and over two decades
of experience.
He's also the CEO of Alan BadoeLLC, where they specialize in
(01:13):
artificial intelligence,blockchain, quantum computing
and other advanced technicalsolutions.
Today we are going to dive intoa couple of different topics.
We're going to talk about Web 3, blockchain, metaverse and tech
entrepreneurship.
So, alan, thank you so verymuch for being on the show today
, really looking forward to ourdiscussion.
(01:34):
Before we begin, I want tostart with a quote from a book
called Blockchain 2035, where itsays the blockchain stands to
be among the most fundamentaltechnological, sociological and
political innovation of thecurrent era.
It's going to transform news,entertainment, gaming and even
(01:55):
our own financial institutions.
So, for those who might be lessfamiliar, could you provide a
brief overview as to whatblockchain is and really what
its fundamental properties are?
Speaker 3 (02:06):
When you think about blockchain and everybody goes
immediately to cryptocurrency,right, and that kind of facet
from an opinion perspective, andso a lot of people don't
realize really what it really is.
If you think about itfundamentally, it's a
(02:28):
distributed ledger, right, andit's really what you're trying
to do is enable the recording ofsome transaction or some event
that takes place in a reallysecure, very transparent way,
and what it allows you to do is,as these activities take place,
(02:53):
they put it on a block.
That block gets submitted intothe chain and then it gets
broken down from there andvalidated and verified and those
sort of things.
There's a whole bunch ofdifferent characteristics around
blockchain, whether it'sdecentralized or centralized,
(03:16):
meaning that central authority,a bank or something like that
could control it, or one entitythat is mining it, potentially.
But at the end of the day,that's what you're trying to do
and you're trying to utilizethat kind of technology so you
(03:37):
can track the event, soeverybody can see what's going
on, and that goes on not justfor cryptocurrencies, but really
from smart contracts all theway through supply chain
management, and then some folksare even starting to look at it
for voting and other types oftransactional events that take
(03:58):
place that really fundamentallycould reshape how things are
going.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
So it seems and you're right, I think I recall
it was people had theorized thatit was started really right
around 1991 and then it reallystarted to gain more of the
mainstream emergence rightaround 2008.
I think it was the catalystthat really pushed blockchain
into more of the ethos was thewhite paper from Satoshi
(04:26):
Nakamoto.
In your opinion, what was thetipping point that really pushed
blockchain from early cyberpunktype of technology into
something where people startedto use it as an actual platform
for real world applications?
What was that moment?
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Well, I think the general public's moment was
right around the housing crisisin 2008.
I mean, people got scared.
They started looking foralternative means of holding
some sort of asset that wouldallow them to be prepared for
(05:05):
the next time something likethat took place.
And there are a whole bunch ofdifferent financial implications
.
We've seen that, whereblockchain would have a great
return on as an asset and itwould outperform the stock
market or even gold from thatperspective.
(05:27):
But it really is.
I would say that as folksstarted to realize or, in some
cases, started to lose faith incertain institutions, they
wanted another way that theycould be prepared for those
rainy day events that take place.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
So which came first?
Was it the blockchain that camefirst, or was it kind of the
emergence of kind of more of analternative to fiat currency?
Was it the emergence of Bitcoin, or was it both?
Speaker 3 (05:59):
I think it was both.
I think it was both.
It was one of those in 2008,.
We were still in a reallycoming out of an AI winter.
Quantum had not really startedto take off yet.
Blockchain, to most people, wasa brand new technology.
(06:20):
It was one of those activitieswhere you could see some of the
real world implications aroundthat from video games all the
way through the things that youhad mentioned and then the
perfect storm of events reallyhit and that allowed us to
allowed Bitcoin really to takeoff and the 9,000 plus different
(06:47):
alternative coins that are outthere today.
You can see the snowball effectthat took place.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
It's incredible the explosion that's received over
the last couple of years and alot of it seems like it's kind
of both in both the economicsense and political sense.
It's been very controversial,right, it's Bitcoin,
cryptocurrencies they're all bad.
They're always for kind ofillicit activity to happen, but,
as we started to see, we'restarting to see a huge paradigm
(07:16):
shift towards mainstreamadoption.
Most financial institutions,even the big companies like
BlackRock, grayscale they're allstarting to kind of push for
more of this type of adoption,and even from the industry.
So what are you seeing fromwhere you sit and from being
from an industry recognizedleader on kind of how you're
(07:38):
evangelizing blockchain for moreof a progressive, positive
evolvement into our ethos?
Speaker 3 (07:44):
Yeah, and the challenge is is, every time we
seem to be gathering somemomentum, we as a I would say,
as a community, somehow mess up.
You have the FTX issue when, ofcourse, it was really starting
(08:06):
to gain a foothold and theinterest was there, and then you
had so much venture capitalistand private investment that was
taking place.
It was really a great time tolook at those things.
And then, unfortunately, thereare those negative consequences
and with any sort of technology,you lose faith or the public
(08:30):
loses faith very quickly.
You went from folks thinkingabout using X, y and Z currency
to oh no, we don't want anythingto deal with it or anything to
do with it, and that's alwaysgoing to be an issue with
blockchain until it reallystarts to gain a little bit of a
(08:51):
foothold.
But then you see countries likeVenezuela and some of those
others that are making a hugeinvestment in Bitcoin, and I
think it was two weeks ago thatthey just broke even and now
they're up in what theirinvestment was.
And I think from a generalpublic, that's not as important,
(09:13):
but I think from folks that arereally following it, it is
important because it's startingto turn around.
But I think, from myperspective, the key with
blockchain or distributedledgers is looking and seeing
how it can be applied to otherareas, much like AI and even
(09:37):
generative AI.
The public loses interest veryquickly if it's only got a
singular application, and Ithink, from blockchain and AI
perspective, as you start to seethese technologies converge to
solve certain problems whetherit's identity management,
(09:58):
whether it's supply chain,whether it's fraud that's when I
think the technology is reallygoing to be embraced.
But at the same time, folks arestill worried about it, and I
hear this all the time about adigital dollar, and the issue
(10:20):
with that is maybe a lot offolks don't want to have every
single one of their purchases orwhat they do with their quote
unquote digital dollar betracked by the government.
And I hear, as we'reprogressing to more advanced and
more acceptance, then othersstart to want to pull the covers
(10:42):
back because now they'regetting concerned about Big
Brother becoming too involved.
So it's a delicate balancethat's got to take place.
Otherwise it's going to go oneway or the other, and I don't
necessarily think that going allin for a digital currency is a
great move, but looking at goingall in on supply chain or
(11:07):
contracts or those kind ofthings is a great idea, so it's
a really delicate balance.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
It really is and I want to dive into the smart
contract with, inside thebusiness ethos, the application
of a smart contract.
Can you help us understandreally, just at a simple term,
really, what is a smart contractand what does it mean that when
someone says you're executing asmart contract on a blockchain,
what does that?
Really mean.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
Yeah, it's really where it's a self executing
contract that has terms that aredirectly written into that
block specifically, and so it'sautomatically enforced and it
can be well.
It will be automaticallyexecuted when, whatever, the
(11:54):
terms of that contract are met.
So if you have, for instance, ahouse, when your deed is owned
through the bank and those kindof things, then that all can be
traced and tracked andeverything is on the block and
you don't have to worry aboutsomebody coming in and swooping
(12:15):
in and saying, oh, I have thisdeed and XYZ deed and all the
fraud that takes place today andwhether it's squatters and the
legal issues around that.
It would prevent a lot of thosekind of things and it works
from procurement, you know, todeans and housing, as I said to
(12:37):
other, you know, legal type ofdocuments.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
So it provides almost like, almost like, a
cryptographic type of digitalsignature.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
That's exactly right.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Right, that really can't be changed, it can't be
altered.
I think I recall seeing acommercial.
I know that some of the bigretail houses Breitling Rolex,
even more of your big fashionhouses are now able to offer
when you purchase these products, they're offering you kind of
an NFT or some sort of digitalsignature that can be registered
(13:08):
on the blockchain.
This is huge because this issomething incredible where you
didn't see this before.
Now you start to see thismainstream adoption with
everyday things, from wearablesto watches.
You know, is this kind of themainstream wave that we start to
see?
Is this kind of that big pushand moving and evolving the
(13:28):
blockchain?
Speaker 3 (13:29):
I think so.
I think this is the start of it.
I think where the precipice isreally going to hit is I don't
know about you, but I'm reallytired of getting you know
letters from different agenciesthat I either have credit cards
with or I have accounts withthat my information has been
hacked or you know and stolen.
(13:50):
I think the next big push isreally going to be around
citizens taking back theirdigital identity and their
digital footprint, and the onlyway that you really can do that
is through, you know, some sortof you know blockchain type
event.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
And this is interesting because it really
kind of starts leading into thewhole concept around Web 3.0.
That's right, right, it's youknow.
Walk us through with theevolution from what is Web 1,
how do we get to where are weWeb 2 today?
What is what's the progression?
Where do we start?
Speaker 3 (14:27):
You know that's a.
That's a good, that's a goodquestion because you know, as
you, as we have evolved in whatwe and how we are, you know,
really connecting.
You know Web 1 was really, I'dsay, up into the early 2000s and
it was really what you wouldcall the, the static web, where
(14:52):
you'd look for content, you'dread it.
There was very littleinteractions.
I think folks remember a lot ofthose things, basic, very basic
.
You know HTML type sites andyou know I think probably one of
the best ones would have been,like, you know, some personal
websites that folks have thatlooked like a resume, right.
And then you know Web 2 reallystarted to evolve and allow a
(15:16):
lot of different type of, youknow, new features and really
the best example around that isaround all the interaction in
the social media sites you know,that are out there today, the
goal always being to, you know,allow some sort of creation.
That was more interaction andat the same time, you may be
(15:37):
able to monetize some of thosethings and, you know, do
something around those types of,you know, business models, that
kind of thing.
And you know I think Facebookprobably led that well with
MySpace technically, you know,but Facebook is still around,
right, but you know, I thinkthose folks were the ones that
were, you know, blazing some ofthose trails with you know, with
(16:01):
Google, and then YouTube helpedwith the video type of thing,
and so that's really still themainstream today for the most
part.
But as we start looking at Web3.0, that's when we're starting
to look at you know what folksare calling the semantic web,
and that's trying to getsomething that's more
(16:24):
intelligent, more technologycapable, but at the same time,
you're taking data.
It's connected in a way thatyou know humans and machines can
interact more appropriately.
Things are decentralized.
You know AI plays a is going toplay a huge role around that as
(16:45):
well, as you know what that.
You know that metaverse typesphere is going to look like.
But at the end of the day, it'sreally trying to get data, use
data more efficiently, makethings more interoperable, but
at the same time, safety andsecurity is really at the
forefront of what they're tryingto do.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
How far do you away?
Do you think we are from fullWeb 3 adoption.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
Well, I think it's like any other technology A lot
of it is going to be driven bythe users and the demands of the
users.
Now, techies, I think, are, youknow, really screaming for it
and they want to use it.
They understand fundamentallywhat it can do and how it can do
(17:37):
it and the security and thegreat features around that, but
the general public, you know,really doesn't.
They don't care right now andyou know, I think we're starting
to see a little bit of momentum.
People are saying, you know,just like I mentioned earlier,
they're tired of theirinformation being stolen.
How can they fix that?
And you know, they're tired ofall their information being
(18:01):
tracked, no matter where they goand what they do.
And you know they don'tunderstand that there's a
technology out there that todaythat can help, you know, prevent
that and provide them, you know, some security that they're
looking for.
So, you know, I would sayprobably three to five years is
when it's really going to startto, you know, propagate
(18:25):
throughout a whole bunch ofother sites.
You can see it now, when you'restarting to build a website or
you're starting to, you know, oryou have a website and you want
to offer some sort ofcredentialing method.
You know, a Web 3.0 capabilityis usually offered in there.
But most people think, oh, I'venever heard of that, I'm not
going to do something like that,and so it's going to be slow,
(18:49):
but I think we'll get thereeventually.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Yeah, it's going to be interesting to see.
I really hope it's going to bewithin the next five years.
I want to dovetail back intothe topic around blockchain.
You know, you hear so much inthe news that there are all the
different.
You know, bitcoin miners andEthereum miners.
They're all basically mining.
You've got companies like Riot,you've got companies like Hive,
(19:14):
you've got the Marathon all ofthese companies that are
building vast amounts ofinfrastructure with vast
computing power.
And I wonder you know, really,as you start to kind of build
out this infrastructure that'sgoing to basically run the
blockchain, I wonder you knowwhat?
Are we starting to see itsimpact on environmental
(19:35):
sustainability?
I mean, how does it reallyimpact renewable energies and
green initiatives?
Speaker 3 (19:41):
Well, I mean, you know there's a couple of ways
that you can look at it.
You know, you hope that it atleast balances out that the
positive impacts of trying tovalidate blocks, you know, on
these chains outweighs some ofthe you know aspects of.
(20:02):
You've got a lot of computersthat are running, they're
putting off heat, they'resucking up water and they're
taking a lot of energy.
And you know, I don't know if Ihave seen a study that says one
way or the other, when theylook at it purely from a
technical perspective, let'stake the emotional aspects out
of it, but purely from atechnical perspective, you know,
(20:24):
if you know that crunching thatgoes on with those numbers, you
know, is at least neutral withthe environmental impacts that
are taking place.
So, you know, here's the otherthing, though it's not just,
it's not just blockchain.
You know you've got AI startingto dominate some of these.
(20:49):
You know discussions as welland how much water they're
taking, and you know how much ittakes to run these GPUs and
those kind of things, and so I'mnot going to put the sole blame
on blockchain by any stretch ofthe imagination, but it does
have some sort of impact, butyou know actually being able to
quantify that.
You know I can't do that.
(21:10):
I haven't seen a study thatdoes that, at least to my
knowledge as of today.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Interesting.
I know you mentioned AI.
I mean let's I mean let's kindof let's think of it this way is
all of these resources thatwe're creating, like AI and
blockchain.
They're all probably consumingsome sort of computing power and
that's kind of putting off somesort of carbon footprint at
some point.
What about?
You know?
Talk to me a little bit aboutquantum computing.
(21:37):
I know I know quantum computersare able to perform serious
amounts of calculations fasterthan modern computers.
They're using a math based typeof encryption and it really
presents it.
And then people are saying well, you know, quantum computing,
it's really going to start tolook at breaking certain
vulnerabilities within thingslike AS256.
(22:00):
So my question is is willquantum computing destroy
blockchain or is it going tomake it more secure?
Speaker 3 (22:08):
I think there's two ways that you can look at it.
If you don't like blockchain inthe first place, I think you're
going to, you're going to be onthe side that says it can, it's
going to destroy it and it'snot, it's not worth it.
There are, at least as of todayyou know, certain algorithms
that folks say are, you know,quantum resistance.
When it, when it comes tocertain types of blockchain I
(22:31):
don't I haven't personallyplayed around with those or
tried to break them or thosekind of things, but you know
there, there are at least issome, some literature out there
that says that's a capability.
Now, what I would say from youknow, a technology perspective,
and it really this is where thatthird part of what I like to
(22:54):
call the golden triangle startsto come into play.
When you take the fundamentalcapabilities of distributed
ledgers and you combine thosewith the calculating power of a
quantum computer and then tie AIinto that, that's when you
start to get, you know, really,some spectacular capabilities
(23:20):
with that convergence of thosethree technologies.
And you know, from myperspective, when you put those
together, I think, some of theproblems that we will be able to
solve, from traffic to supplychain, to, you know some of the
healthcare things that are outthere.
I think fundamentally it'sreally all three of those that
(23:43):
you know combine that will, willlead to some spectacular
discoveries that far outweighthe negative aspects of one over
the other versus the other.
I mean, we've looked at, we'velooked at using you know, for
instance, combining blockchainwith AI to, you know, really
(24:06):
secure both the front end withsome of the models and the data
that goes along with that.
And then you start to look atquantum computing, because you
know quantum computers are notgoing to be able to solve your
everyday problems for the mostpart.
You're not going to run a wordprocessor, you're not going to
run certain other you knowapplications on a quantum
(24:26):
computer and so it's morelimited in what it's.
What, it's true, impactful.
You know results will be forthe normal person other than,
hey, maybe you don't have asmuch traffic, or there's an
optimized traffic route, forinstance, or they set the lights
finally, so that you can gofrom you know your house to you
(24:51):
know five miles and it'sconsistently green throughout
the way, right, I mean, thoseare the kind of you know real
world applications that quantumcomputers can solve.
But as you start to stack thosetogether, it really becomes
more important.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
Have we been able to combine all three?
It seems like that's thetrifecta it's blockchain, it's
AI, it's quantum computing.
I mean, are we starting to see,you know, anybody out there
currently in the innovationspace, or anyone kind of leading
the charge, that's been able tofind the magic to combine all
three of these to solve a realproblem?
Speaker 3 (25:25):
So it's more.
It's more bits and pieces of allthree of them and so, for
instance, some of the thingsthat I've done, you know I've
looked at applying, you know allthree of them and really, from
a quantum computing perspective,we have to talk about not to
get too technical, but reallyyou know there's three different
types of quantum computing andwe're using what's called
(25:48):
quantum annealing typeactivities, but we're applying
bits and pieces of all three ofthose to fraud and trying to be
able to identify fraudulentactivities that take place
either, for instance, on ablockchain or, you know,
potentially using blockchain tofind those, for you know
(26:10):
different activities that aretaking place on the web or other
types of, you know, fraudulentthings, whether it's
transactional, whether it's youknow some of the other things
that it can be used for.
That's really the biggest areawhere folks are using, you know
some of those things outside ofthe outside of the military.
In the military, there are, ofcourse, other applications that
(26:31):
are being used, but you know Ireally I won't go into those on,
on, on here.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
No, I mean, I completely agree.
I know that there's been some.
I know by in years past there'sbeen some controversy I know
you know for a couple years agois Google was using some sort of
machine learning to help sortout and basically kind of image
classify drone images.
Yeah, they're just there aretoo many images that human being
cannot possibly consume.
(26:59):
So they were applying machinelearning.
That's right.
Speaker 3 (27:02):
Automable.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
To kind of look for, yeah, Maven and that got a
little bit of some attention onthe on the news and it seemed to
kind of, you know, kind of hey,we're gonna from a Google's
perspective, we're gonna pullback a little bit on that.
Now I don't want to dive intoit too deep, but from a
government approach, you know,within, not just from the
private sector, but into thepublic sphere with, you know,
(27:26):
certain government agencies, youknow, even within our
government is, you know, youknow, is there a starting to be
kind of more of an appetite forblockchain and AI adoption?
Seems like everywhere we look,there's AI everywhere.
And come the commercial space,from your phone to computer, to
TV.
But what about elements of ourgovernment?
Are we starting to see a shiftwhere we see some appetite for
(27:47):
this?
Speaker 3 (27:47):
Well, I think, from a blockchain perspective, you
know they came out hot and heavyright around 2011, 2012.
And that's when they were using, or at least doing some you
know investigations around hyperledger and how they could use
hyper ledger to do procurementtracking and those kind of
things.
A lot of that died down and isalmost non existent, you know
(28:12):
now, and really unfortunatebecause now, with the
utilization of AI or the desire,I should say, to utilize, you
know AI then blockchain is oneof those areas that really could
help, you know, secure the dataand all those other you know
government initiatives that areimportant to them.
(28:35):
If you look at, you know, an Sbomb, right when you are
developing an application, thefederal government has a lot of
requirements around that, andbeing able to track who
developed the software, where itwas developed, you know, yada,
yada, yada yada all the way downthe line, is very important.
Blockchain would be able to,you know, help facilitate that,
(28:55):
even on the AI, where they getthe data, how they use the data,
how the data is trained in theDOD model, for example, very
important on, you know, to beable to track it from its
initial source so it's notpoisoned data, right, and so you
know there are very few thatare looking at that today, but
(29:16):
they're doing some.
They're doing some advancedstuff on the DOD side, which is,
which is, you know, fantastic,but there are so many other
places and areas that it can beused.
Now, you know, tatgpt, of course, blew up everything, but the
problem is is on the governmentside.
When you start looking at thesecurity regulations of putting
(29:38):
these systems on or these modelson government systems, it's not
that easy.
Actually it's really hard.
And you know security by, youknow their nature.
They usually say no to a lot ofthings and you know, when you
start to see releases that comeout from, you know, folks like
GSA or the Air Force or some ofthose other big agencies that
(30:02):
say they don't use the largelanguage models, don't put them
on government systems yet,because we're not quite sure
what it does.
You know that's, that's notunusual, and so usually the
federal government is, you know,three, four, five years behind
when it comes to getting a holdof some of these technologies
that the everyday person workingin the government can use.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
I think I heard that basically is that the certain
government agencies are stillprobably using fax machines,
floppy disks something like thatright?
Speaker 3 (30:37):
Well, that part is true and if you look at it, the
largest code base still in thefederal government is COBOL.
I think there's almost 40billion lines at Cobalt that is
still in operational use today.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
Is there any plan that we're ever going to be able
to kind of start to see it moreof a push towards more of
adoption within the governmentspace?
I mean, do we think it'spossible that it might happen?
We think that there might bekind of a secondary revolution
with that, but what do we thinkit's going to take?
Speaker 3 (31:08):
Yeah, I think it's going to happen.
I think Microsoft is reallyleading the way.
Office 365 is everywhere insidethe federal government.
Really, the integration ofCopilot and with Office 365,
that's going to drive a lot ofthat, because now people want to
(31:32):
use what they have at home andthey want to be able to go in
the office and be able to use it.
If they can't go into theoffice, they want to stay remote
so they can continue to usesome of those things on their
personal devices.
It's going to happen.
How quickly it happens?
There are some pilots going ontoday inside of the DoD, as well
(31:53):
as the civilian agencieslooking at that.
It's just, these things reallytake time.
They have so many differentaccreditation and processes that
they have to go through.
It just does take an awful lotof time.
I will say this from a largelanguage model perspective.
(32:17):
I've demonstrated to a lot ofgovernment agencies and even
commercial clients that youdon't have to be in a rush
because if you do it wrong, it'sgoing to get access to
something that you probablydon't want it to have access to.
It's going to cause you anawful lot of pain.
Get your ducks in a row andthen deploy it.
(32:41):
I think the government is justby nature going to do that.
They're not going to jump thegun, but maybe they'll be a
little bit slower than a lot offolks would like, but that's
kind of normal.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
It seems like that's kind of the natural evolution of
how government takes a while toadopt technology, but at the
end they do come around.
It sounds like there are somepositive keynotes to take away
from that.
Let's transition and reallywant to talk about getting your
insights into the tech,entrepreneurship and innovation
(33:16):
space.
Tell me a little bit about yourjourney in the tech industry
and talk about some of theexperiences around how you're
talking to other startups aroundemerging trends and
transformational technologies.
Speaker 3 (33:29):
Yeah, it's been an interesting journey.
If you look at my background, Istarted out with getting my PhD
in computational fluid dynamicsand then I went to work for the
CDC and then became a federalcontractor.
There were always ideas that Iwould have let's spend a little
(33:55):
bit of time outside of my normalactivities and let's see what
we can do.
That led to starting aconsulting company where I
helped use that kind oftechnology for Newell Rubbermaid
and helping apply some thingsthat I learned, actually in the
Department of Defense, toward amop bucket.
(34:17):
Believe it or not, I got apatent with them and the wave
break mop bucket.
I helped do some of thesimulations on it in the design
very early on.
A lot of fun.
Trying to take thesetechnologies and apply them in a
commercial way to areas thatfolks have never even thought of
(34:39):
is something that I think is alot of fun.
What I tell people, especiallywith AI today, I try to describe
it as though that now you havea tool that you really can apply
everywhere and for any type ofbusiness that you want to start,
(35:03):
the only thing that you have todo is have an idea.
The best way to think about itis I'm probably the worst artist
I won't say necessarily in theworld, but I would probably be
in the top five.
I'm a stick figure kind of guy.
Unless it's an engineeringdiagram, I have some very
(35:24):
interesting ideas and visionswhen it comes to art.
I can't paint, but guess what?
Now I have a tool that, if Ican describe what I want, it
will do it for me.
It's the exact same thing froma business perspective.
If you have an idea but youdon't know how to start a
(35:44):
business, then you say you cango out to one of the models.
There's 140 of them, 148, Ithink, available as of today.
You can go out to any one ofthose and say write me a
business plan, help me developwhat a roadmap looks like.
All the things that you need todo from an administrative
(36:05):
perspective can be handled by AIso you can actually focus on
maturing your idea, your widget,whatever that's going to be and
really attack the marketplace.
No other time have we in humanhistory have we had such power
to go out and start something onour own, with the aid of think
(36:33):
about it as a lawyer that canhelp you.
Think about it as a banker thatcan help you get financing.
All that stuff is now atpeople's fingertips.
If they would just embrace itand try it and use it for
something other than write me ajoke or write me a poem or
something like that, then thereare huge opportunities.
(36:58):
That's really what I am tryingto get out there for folks is
that try it, use it in ways thatyou've never thought of, use it
in ways that you've or thingsthat you've never done before,
and when you get familiar withthe technology, that's when the
power really kicks in.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
It seems like it really serves as an accelerator
for people who really want tobasically have an idea.
They want to be able to pursueself entrepreneurship, and it
really does help level theplaying field because now you
don't need to assemble the fullteam, you don't have to work to
build your own startup.
You can be your own independentstartup as a one-person show.
(37:38):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (37:40):
What's amazing is I left my previous job in early
summer, started my consultingcompany and also started a
software company and myself, mypartner and my AI, my own large
language model that I trained todo some software development.
(38:01):
We have developed together aton of code that will be
releasing soon.
It's that kind of capabilityyou really have an edge if
you're not afraid to use it,because it can scale what your
capabilities are so far beyondwhat you can comprehend, that if
(38:24):
you don't use it, yourcompetitor is using it, and
that's where that's a problem.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
So what's your advice for aspiring entrepreneurs
looking to get out there?
Speaker 3 (38:40):
Well, the biggest question that I actually get at
these conferences, outside ofthe ethics and the security
pieces around is it going totake my job?
Is AI going to replace me?
And my response to folks rightnow is that AI is not going to
(39:01):
replace you with somebody thatknows how to use the AI will,
and so what I tell people isthat it doesn't matter what your
age is.
This is a tool that is reallyagnostic, as long as you know
how to use a computer or a phoneor something like that.
To try something that is smallfirst meaning, hey, go in and
(39:27):
filter my email and if I getsomething from Judy, to put it
into the spam, something likethat try something very easy and
then expand on what thosecapabilities are because, like I
said earlier, the folks thatare going to lose out are the
(39:47):
ones that are refusing to try itbecause they think that they
can do it better.
The reality is, you may be ableto do it better, but if I can
do it faster and it's maybe notquite as good as you, but maybe
a notch down I can put abusiness out of existence with
(40:08):
that kind of capability.
Because we've all seen most ofthe time.
First, the market is veryimportant, getting the word out
very important, keeping the wordout very important and having
AI do that just scalesexponentially what your
workforce becomes, and so folksthat ignore it they're going to
be in a world of hurt soon.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
Yeah, but I think overall, I think it's really
going to have a positive impact,right, I think you have
disruptive technologies thatkind of move and displace people
, but it also starts to presentand emerge a new set of leaders
and innovators and people whocan really think and use the
technologies and pair thosetogether.
I think that's the superpower,right.
Speaker 3 (40:53):
Yeah, and that's the fun thing, because I've seen the
dynamics of institutions thatallow their workforce to use AI
and institutions that do not.
Overall, I would say on average, those that are using the tool
are really scaling what theirworkforce can do.
(41:16):
And you are taking somebodythat may be excellent at their
job, but now they are excellentand they are extraordinarily
fast, and that combination isreally scary.
But then, from a managerperspective, at the same time,
being able to manage a workforceis not easy, right, but now
(41:37):
you're combining what I'mcalling a digital workforce in
that management chain as well,and so you have to be able to
manage that kind of relationship, and most people aren't
prepared for something like that, and that takes a lot of time.
That takes an ability to usethe tool, a manager that's
(41:59):
willing to play with it,understand it and then
understand the dynamics of whathis team and their attitudes are
.
Because if you're an introvertand you've got AI, the problem
is now you want to ask 50different check GPTs or versions
of check GPT, because you wantto just reinforce what that
position is.
(42:19):
But if you are not that way andyou are more of a, I guess I
would say there's a lot ofdifferent ways to classify that
person that you know has a verystrong opinion about something,
but when you give them AI, thatjust bolsters their confidence
(42:40):
and their ego.
And then I've seen it wheresome of the folks have become a
little bit of a bully anddominate the discussions and
those kind of things, and soagain, it goes back to being
able to manage a new workforce.
That is, granted, it's better,it's scalable, but it is now
(43:01):
emotionally different than whatfolks are used to seeing.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
Interesting, so real quick and as we wrap up here is
kind of give us your insightsand expertise and give us a five
year prediction on kind of whatyou foresee, kind of how we
start to wrap around this newworld of blockchain, metaverse,
ai, virtual reality,cryptocurrency, kind of like
(43:26):
what's kind of the real visionyou start to see pan out in the
next five years.
Speaker 3 (43:32):
Yeah, I think folks are going to realize that
technology is just a technologyand unless people feel
comfortable with it, they have agood experience with it and it
is, I guess, what I would saypersonally rewarding in some
(43:53):
fashion.
I think these technologies orthese algorithms are just going
to fall by the wayside.
I think it's going to be folksthat focus on the user
experience.
That relationship between humanand AI or human and how it can
apply to the blockchain, isgoing to start to dominate, and
(44:16):
I think that's where we willstart to see more investment and
more research dollars and moreventure capitalist dollars as we
move forward, because we'veseen how fast things are
changing today.
You're getting a new methodologyfor these generative models
(44:39):
just about every single day, andif you only focus on one,
you're in trouble, because oneday you're flying high, the next
day you're out of business andyou're trying to figure out what
you're going to do next.
That's how quickly these thingsare changing, but if you are
consistently focusing on theexperience of your customers,
then all these become plug andplay.
How can I use this now withwhat I'm doing?
(45:00):
How can I use this to make mycustomers' lives better, easier,
more transparent, those kind ofthings.
That's where I think we'll bein three to five years, and when
you start to combine VR withthe metaverse, with AI, with the
digital experience, and thenthat relationship, that is an
(45:20):
exceptionally strong story thatI think is going to really start
to dominate.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
Incredible.
It definitely is an incredibleworld that we're about to
embrace.
I'm very excited for thejourney and it seems like
there's a limitless amount ofpossibilities, both just from
the technology side, from allthe applications that are going
to impact the end userexperience, from things like
hotel check-in to self-automatedcars I mean I can go on and on
(45:51):
but I think that it's anincredible journey.
I think we're just starting tosee just the first wave of that
happening.
It's coming.
But, alan, I want to express mysincere gratitude for you
coming on Tech Travels today.
Your insights on blockchain andentrepreneurship has really
added immense value to ourjourney today and thank you for
(46:12):
sharing this.
We're very honored to have youon as a guest.
Thank you for sharing yourknowledge and for making this an
invariate-riching episode forour listeners.
We hope to have you back on.
Speaker 3 (46:22):
Yeah, I appreciate it , Steve.
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
Awesome.
Thanks again, fellow travelers,for joining us on today's show.
If you liked this episode,please take a moment to rate the
show.
Be sure to subscribe to thechannel if you would like to be
notified when new shows areposted.
If you want to share this showwith your friends, please share
on your preferred social mediaplatform.
I would love your help to bringawareness to this channel.
(46:45):
You can follow me on Twitter attheTechChannel.
Join us next time as we ventureinto the future, into the
realms of technology.
Until then, stay curious, stayinformed.
Most of all, happy travels.
Speaker 1 (47:00):
Thanks so much for listening to the Tech Travels
podcast with Steve Woodard.
Please tune in next time and besure to follow us and subscribe
on the Apple podcast andSpotify platforms.
We'll see you next time.
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