EP3. Blockchain, Web3 and Tech with Dr Allen Badeau

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 

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:04

Welcome to Tech Travels hosted by the seasoned tech enthusiast and industry expert, steve Woodard. With over 25 years of experience and a track record of collaborating with the brightest minds in technology, steve is your seasoned guide through the ever-evolving world of innovation. Join us as we embark on an insightful journey, exploring the past, present and future of tech under Steve's expert guidance.

Speaker 2: 0:50

Hey there, tech enthusiast, welcome back to another thrilling episode of Tech Travels. Today, we are joined by the accomplished Dr Alan Badoe. Dr Alan Badoe is a leading professional in blockchain and artificial intelligence technologies. He has a PhD in mechanical engineering and over two decades of experience. He's also the CEO of Alan Badoe LLC, where they specialize in artificial intelligence, blockchain, quantum computing and other advanced technical solutions. Today we are going to dive into a couple of different topics. We're going to talk about Web 3, blockchain, metaverse and tech entrepreneurship. So, alan, thank you so very much for being on the show today, really looking forward to our discussion. Before we begin, I want to start with a quote from a book called Blockchain 2035, where it says the blockchain stands to be among the most fundamental technological, sociological and political innovation of the current era. It's going to transform news, entertainment, gaming and even our own financial institutions. So, for those who might be less familiar, could you provide a brief overview as to what blockchain is and really what its fundamental properties are?

Speaker 3: 2:06

When you think about blockchain and everybody goes immediately to cryptocurrency, right, and that kind of facet from an opinion perspective, and so a lot of people don't realize really what it really is.

Speaker 3: 2:24

If you think about it fundamentally, it's a distributed ledger, right, and it's really what you're trying to do is enable the recording of some transaction or some event that takes place in a really secure, very transparent way, and what it allows you to do is, as these activities take place, they put it on a block.

Speaker 3: 2:57

That block gets submitted into the chain and then it gets broken down from there and validated and verified and those sort of things. There's a whole bunch of different characteristics around blockchain, whether it's decentralized or centralized, meaning that central authority, a bank or something like that could control it, or one entity that is mining it, potentially. But at the end of the day, that's what you're trying to do and you're trying to utilize that kind of technology so you can track the event, so everybody can see what's going on, and that goes on not just for cryptocurrencies, but really from smart contracts all the way through supply chain management, and then some folks are even starting to look at it for voting and other types of transactional events that take place that really fundamentally could reshape how things are going.

Speaker 2: 4:04

So it seems and you're right, I think I recall it was people had theorized that it was started really right around 1991 and then it really started to gain more of the mainstream emergence right around 2008. I think it was the catalyst that really pushed blockchain into more of the ethos was the white paper from Satoshi Nakamoto. In your opinion, what was the tipping point that really pushed blockchain from early cyberpunk type of technology into something where people started to use it as an actual platform for real world applications? What was that moment?

Speaker 3: 4:43

Well, I think the general public's moment was right around the housing crisis in 2008. I mean, people got scared. They started looking for alternative means of holding some sort of asset that would allow them to be prepared for the next time something like that took place. And there are a whole bunch of different financial implications. We've seen that, where blockchain would have a great return on as an asset and it would outperform the stock market or even gold from that perspective. But it really is. I would say that as folks started to realize or, in some cases, started to lose faith in certain institutions, they wanted another way that they could be prepared for those rainy day events that take place.

Speaker 2: 5:47

So which came first? Was it the blockchain that came first, or was it kind of the emergence of kind of more of an alternative to fiat currency? Was it the emergence of Bitcoin, or was it both?

Speaker 3: 5:59

I think it was both. I think it was both. It was one of those in 2008,. We were still in a really coming out of an AI winter. Quantum had not really started to take off yet. Blockchain, to most people, was a brand new technology. It was one of those activities where you could see some of the real world implications around that from video games all the way through the things that you had mentioned and then the perfect storm of events really hit and that allowed us to allowed Bitcoin really to take off and the 9,000 plus different alternative coins that are out there today. You can see the snowball effect that took place.

Speaker 2: 6:56

It's incredible the explosion that's received over the last couple of years and a lot of it seems like it's kind of both in both the economic sense and political sense. It's been very controversial, right, it's Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies they're all bad. They're always for kind of illicit activity to happen, but, as we started to see, we're starting to see a huge paradigm shift towards mainstream adoption. Most financial institutions, even the big companies like BlackRock, grayscale they're all starting to kind of push for more of this type of adoption, and even from the industry. So what are you seeing from where you sit and from being from an industry recognized leader on kind of how you're evangelizing blockchain for more of a progressive, positive evolvement into our ethos?

Speaker 3: 7:44

Yeah, and the challenge is is, every time we seem to be gathering some momentum, we as a I would say, as a community, somehow mess up. You have the FTX issue when, of course, it was really starting to gain a foothold and the interest was there, and then you had so much venture capitalist and private investment that was taking place. It was really a great time to look at those things. And then, unfortunately, there are those negative consequences and with any sort of technology, you lose faith or the public loses faith very quickly. You went from folks thinking about using X, y and Z currency to oh no, we don't want anything to deal with it or anything to do with it, and that's always going to be an issue with blockchain until it really starts to gain a little bit of a foothold. But then you see countries like Venezuela and some of those others that are making a huge investment in Bitcoin, and I think it was two weeks ago that they just broke even and now they're up in what their investment was. And I think from a general public, that's not as important, but I think from folks that are really following it, it is important because it's starting to turn around. But I think, from my perspective, the key with blockchain or distributed ledgers is looking and seeing how it can be applied to other areas, much like AI and even generative AI.

Speaker 3: 9:40

The public loses interest very quickly if it's only got a singular application, and I think, from blockchain and AI perspective, as you start to see these technologies converge to solve certain problems whether it's identity management, whether it's supply chain, whether it's fraud that's when I think the technology is really going to be embraced.

Speaker 3: 10:09

But at the same time, folks are still worried about it, and I hear this all the time about a digital dollar, and the issue with that is maybe a lot of folks don't want to have every single one of their purchases or what they do with their quote unquote digital dollar be tracked by the government. And I hear, as we're progressing to more advanced and more acceptance, then others start to want to pull the covers back because now they're getting concerned about Big Brother becoming too involved. So it's a delicate balance that's got to take place. Otherwise it's going to go one way or the other, and I don't necessarily think that going all in for a digital currency is a great move, but looking at going all in on supply chain or contracts or those kind of things 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 the business ethos, the application of a smart contract. Can you help us understand really, just at a simple term, really, what is a smart contract and what does it mean that when someone says you're executing a smart 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 are directly written into that block specifically, and so it's automatically enforced and it can be well. It will be automatically executed when, whatever, the terms of that contract are met. So if you have, for instance, a house, when your deed is owned through the bank and those kind of things, then that all can be traced and tracked and everything is on the block and you don't have to worry about somebody coming in and swooping in and saying, oh, I have this deed and XYZ deed and all the fraud that takes place today and whether it's squatters and the legal issues around that. It would prevent a lot of those kind of things and it works from procurement, you know, to deans and housing, as I said to other, you know, legal type of documents.

Speaker 2: 12:41

So it provides almost like, almost like, a cryptographic type of digital signature.

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 a commercial. I know that some of the big retail houses Breitling Rolex, even more of your big fashion houses are now able to offer when you purchase these products, they're offering you kind of an NFT or some sort of digital signature that can be registered on the blockchain. This is huge because this is something incredible where you didn't see this before. Now you start to see this mainstream adoption with everyday things, from wearables to watches. You know, is this kind of the mainstream wave that we start to see? Is this kind of that big push and moving and evolving the blockchain?

Speaker 3: 13:29

I think so. I think this is the start of it. I think where the precipice is really going to hit is I don't know about you, but I'm really tired of getting you know letters from different agencies that I either have credit cards with or I have accounts with that my information has been hacked or you know and stolen. I think the next big push is really going to be around citizens taking back their digital identity and their digital footprint, and the only way that you really can do that is through, you know, some sort of you know blockchain type event.

Speaker 2: 14:07

And this is interesting because it really kind of starts leading into the whole concept around Web 3.0. That's right, right, it's you know. Walk us through with the evolution from what is Web 1, how do we get to where are we Web 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 good question because you know, as you, as we have evolved in what we and how we are, you know, really connecting. You know Web 1 was really, I'd say, up into the early 2000s and it was really what you would call the, the static web, where you'd look for content, you'd read it. There was very little interactions. I think folks remember a lot of those things, basic, very basic. You know HTML type sites and you know I think probably one of the best ones would have been, like, you know, some personal websites that folks have that looked like a resume, right. And then you know Web 2 really started to evolve and allow a lot of different type of, you know, new features and really the best example around that is around 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 and at the same time, you may be able to monetize some of those things and, you know, do something around those types of, you know, business models, that kind of thing. And you know I think Facebook probably led that well with MySpace technically, you know, but Facebook is still around, right, but you know, I think those folks were the ones that were, you know, blazing some of those trails with you know, with Google, and then YouTube helped with the video type of thing, and so that's really still the mainstream today for the most part.

Speaker 3: 16:11

But as we start looking at Web 3.0, that's when we're starting to look at you know what folks are calling the semantic web, and that's trying to get something that's more intelligent, more technology capable, but at the same time, you're taking data. It's connected in a way that you know humans and machines can interact more appropriately. Things are decentralized. You know AI plays a is going to play a huge role around that as well, as you know what that. You know that metaverse type sphere is going to look like. But at the end of the day, it's really trying to get data, use data more efficiently, make things more interoperable, but at the same time, safety and security is really at the forefront of what they're trying to do.

Speaker 2: 17:09

How far do you away? Do you think we are from full Web 3 adoption.

Speaker 3: 17:15

Well, I think it's like any other technology A lot of it is going to be driven by the users and the demands of the users. Now, techies, I think, are, you know, really screaming for it and they want to use it. They understand fundamentally what it can do and how it can do it and the security and the great features around that, but the general public, you know, really doesn't. They don't care right now and you know, I think we're starting to see a little bit of momentum.

Speaker 3: 17:51

People are saying, you know, just like I mentioned earlier, they're tired of their information being stolen. How can they fix that? And you know, they're tired of all their information being tracked, no matter where they go and what they do. And you know they don't understand that there's a technology out there that today that can help, you know, prevent that and provide them, you know, some security that they're looking for. So, you know, I would say probably three to five years is when it's really going to start to, you know, propagate throughout a whole bunch of other sites. You can see it now, when you're starting to build a website or you're starting to, you know, or you have a website and you want to offer some sort of credentialing method. You know, a Web 3.0 capability is usually offered in there. But most people think, oh, I've never heard of that, I'm not going to do something like that, and so it's going to be slow, but I think we'll get there eventually.

Speaker 2: 18:53

Yeah, it's going to be interesting to see. I really hope it's going to be within the next five years. I want to dovetail back into the topic around blockchain. You know, you hear so much in the news that there are all the different. You know, bitcoin miners and Ethereum miners. They're all basically mining. You've got companies like Riot, you've got companies like Hive, you've got the Marathon all of these companies that are building vast amounts of infrastructure with vast computing power. And I wonder you know, really, as you start to kind of build out this infrastructure that's going to basically run the blockchain, I wonder you know what? Are we starting to see its impact on environmental sustainability? I mean, how does it really impact 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 at least balances out that the positive impacts of trying to validate blocks, you know, on these chains outweighs some of the you know aspects of. You've got a lot of computers that are running, they're putting off heat, they're sucking up water and they're taking a lot of energy. And you know, I don't know if I have seen a study that says one way or the other, when they look at it purely from a technical perspective, let's take the emotional aspects out of it, but purely from a technical perspective, you know, if you know that crunching that goes on with those numbers, you know, is at least neutral with the environmental impacts that are taking place.

Speaker 3: 20:38

So, you know, here's the other thing, though it's not just, it's not just blockchain. You know you've got AI starting to dominate some of these. You know discussions as well and how much water they're taking, and you know how much it takes to run these GPUs and those kind of things, and so I'm not going to put the sole blame on blockchain by any stretch of the imagination, but it does have some sort of impact, but you know actually being able to quantify that. You know I can't do that. I haven't seen a study that does 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 kind of let's think of it this way is all of these resources that we're creating, like AI and blockchain. They're all probably consuming some sort of computing power and that's kind of putting off some sort of carbon footprint at some point. What about? You know? Talk to me a little bit about quantum computing. I know I know quantum computers are able to perform serious amounts of calculations faster than modern computers. They're using a math based type of encryption and it really presents it. And then people are saying well, you know, quantum computing, it's really going to start to look at breaking certain vulnerabilities within things like AS256. So my question is is will quantum computing destroy blockchain or is it going to make 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 in the first place, I think you're going to, you're going to be on the side that says it can, it's going to destroy it and it's not, it's not worth it. There are, at least as of today you know, certain algorithms that folks say are, you know, quantum resistance. When it, when it comes to certain types of blockchain I don't I haven't personally played around with those or tried to break them or those kind of things, but you know there, there are at least is some, some literature out there that says that's a capability. Now, what I would say from you know, a technology perspective, and it really this is where that third part of what I like to call the golden triangle starts to come into play. When you take the fundamental capabilities of distributed ledgers and you combine those with the calculating power of a quantum computer and then tie AI into that, that's when you start to get, you know, really, some spectacular capabilities with that convergence of those three technologies. And you know, from my perspective, when you put those together, I think, some of the problems that we will be able to solve, from traffic to supply chain, to, you know some of the healthcare things that are out there. I think fundamentally it's really all three of those that you know combine that will, will lead to some spectacular discoveries that far outweigh the negative aspects of one over the other versus the other.

Speaker 3: 23:56

I mean, we've looked at, we've looked at using you know, for instance, combining blockchain with AI to, you know, really secure both the front end with some of the models and the data that goes along with that. And then you start to look at quantum computing, because you know quantum computers are not going to be able to solve your everyday problems for the most part. You're not going to run a word processor, you're not going to run certain other you know applications on a quantum computer and so it's more limited in what it's. What, it's true, impactful. You know results will be for the normal person other than, hey, maybe you don't have as much traffic, or there's an optimized traffic route, for instance, or they set the lights finally, so that you can go from you know your house to you know five miles and it's consistently green throughout the way, right, I mean, those are the kind of you know real world applications that quantum computers can solve. But as you start to stack those together, it really becomes more important.

Speaker 2: 25:06

Have we been able to combine all three? It seems like that's the trifecta 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 innovation space, or anyone kind of leading the charge, that's been able to find the magic to combine all three of these to solve a real problem?

Speaker 3: 25:25

So it's more.

Speaker 3: 25:26

It's more bits and pieces of all three of them and so, for instance, some of the things that I've done, you know I've looked at applying, you know all three of them and really, from a quantum computing perspective, we have to talk about not to get too technical, but really you know there's three different types of quantum computing and we're using what's called quantum annealing type activities, but we're applying bits and pieces of all three of those to fraud and trying to be able to identify fraudulent activities that take place either, for instance, on a blockchain or, you know, potentially using blockchain to find those, for you know different activities that are taking place on the web or other types of, you know, fraudulent things, whether it's transactional, whether it's you know some of the other things that it can be used for. That's really the biggest area where folks are using, you know some of those things outside of the outside of the military. In the military, there are, of course, other applications that are being used, but you know I really 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's been some controversy I know you know for a couple years ago is Google was using some sort of machine learning to help sort out and basically kind of image classify drone images. Yeah, they're just there are too many images that human being cannot possibly consume. So they were applying machine learning. 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 on the 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 pull back a little bit on that. Now I don't want to dive into it too deep, but from a government approach, you know, within, not just from the private sector, but into the public sphere with, you know, certain government agencies, you know, even within our government is, you know, you know, is there a starting to be kind of more of an appetite for blockchain 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 our government? Are we starting to see a shift where we see some appetite for this?

Speaker 3: 27:47

Well, I think, from a blockchain perspective, you know they came out hot and heavy right around 2011, 2012. And that's when they were using, or at least doing some you know investigations around hyper ledger and how they could use hyper ledger to do procurement tracking and those kind of things. A lot of that died down and is almost non existent, you know now, and really unfortunate because now, with the utilization of AI or the desire, I should say, to utilize, you know AI then blockchain is one of those areas that really could help, you know, secure the data and all those other you know government initiatives that are important to them. If you look at, you know, an S bomb, right when you are developing an application, the federal government has a lot of requirements around that, and being able to track who developed the software, where it was developed, you know, yada, yada, yada yada all the way down the line, is very important. Blockchain would be able to, you know, help facilitate that, even on the AI, where they get the data, how they use the data, how the data is trained in the DOD model, for example, very important on, you know, to be able to track it from its initial source so it's not poisoned data, right, and so you know there are very few that are looking at that today, but they're doing some. They're doing some advanced stuff on the DOD side, which is, which is, you know, fantastic, but there are so many other places and areas that it can be used.

Speaker 3: 29:26

Now, you know, tatgpt, of course, blew up everything, but the problem is is on the government side. When you start looking at the security regulations of putting these systems on or these models on government systems, it's not that easy. Actually it's really hard. And you know security by, you know their nature. They usually say no to a lot of things and you know, when you start to see releases that come out from, you know, folks like GSA or the Air Force or some of those other big agencies that say they don't use the large language models, don't put them on government systems yet, because we're not quite sure what it does. You know that's, that's not unusual, and so usually the federal government is, you know, three, four, five years behind when it comes to getting a hold of some of these technologies that the everyday person working in the government can use.

Speaker 2: 30:28

I think I heard that basically is that the certain government agencies are still probably using fax machines, floppy disks something like that right?

Speaker 3: 30:37

Well, that part is true and if you look at it, the largest code base still in the federal government is COBOL. I think there's almost 40 billion 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 more of a push towards more of adoption within the government space? I mean, do we think it's possible that it might happen? We think that there might be kind of a secondary revolution with that, but what do we think it's going to take?

Speaker 3: 31:08

Yeah, I think it's going to happen. I think Microsoft is really leading the way. Office 365 is everywhere inside the federal government. Really, the integration of Copilot and with Office 365, that's going to drive a lot of that, because now people want to use what they have at home and they want to be able to go in the office and be able to use it. If they can't go into the office, they want to stay remote so they can continue to use some of those things on their personal devices. It's going to happen. How quickly it happens? There are some pilots going on today inside of the DoD, as well as the civilian agencies looking at that.

Speaker 3: 31:57

It's just, these things really take time. They have so many different accreditation and processes that they have to go through. It just does take an awful lot of time. I will say this from a large language model perspective. I've demonstrated to a lot of government agencies and even commercial clients that you don't have to be in a rush because if you do it wrong, it's going to get access to something that you probably don't want it to have access to. It's going to cause you an awful lot of pain. Get your ducks in a row and then deploy it. I think the government is just by nature going to do that. They're not going to jump the gun, but maybe they'll be a little bit slower than a lot of folks 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 to adopt technology, but at the end they do come around. It sounds like there are some positive keynotes to take away from that. Let's transition and really want to talk about getting your insights into the tech, entrepreneurship and innovation space. Tell me a little bit about your journey in the tech industry and talk about some of the experiences around how you're talking to other startups around emerging trends and transformational technologies.

Speaker 3: 33:29

Yeah, it's been an interesting journey. If you look at my background, I started out with getting my PhD in computational fluid dynamics and then I went to work for the CDC and then became a federal contractor. There were always ideas that I would have let's spend a little bit of time outside of my normal activities and let's see what we can do. That led to starting a consulting company where I helped use that kind of technology for Newell Rubbermaid and helping apply some things that I learned, actually in the Department of Defense, toward a mop bucket. Believe it or not, I got a patent with them and the wave break mop bucket. I helped do some of the simulations on it in the design very early on. A lot of fun. Trying to take these technologies and apply them in a commercial way to areas that folks have never even thought of is something that I think is a lot of fun.

Speaker 3: 34:43

What I tell people, especially with AI today, I try to describe it as though that now you have a tool that you really can apply everywhere and for any type of business that you want to start, the only thing that you have to do is have an idea. The best way to think about it is I'm probably the worst artist I won't say necessarily in the world, but I would probably be in the top five. I'm a stick figure kind of guy. Unless it's an engineering diagram, I have some very interesting ideas and visions when it comes to art. I can't paint, but guess what? Now I have a tool that, if I can describe what I want, it will do it for me. It's the exact same thing from a business perspective.

Speaker 3: 35:41

If you have an idea but you don't know how to start a business, then you say you can go out to one of the models. There's 140 of them, 148, I think, available as of today. You can go out to any one of those and say write me a business plan, help me develop what a roadmap looks like. All the things that you need to do from an administrative perspective can be handled by AI so you can actually focus on maturing your idea, your widget, whatever that's going to be and really attack the marketplace.

Speaker 3: 36:18

No other time have we in human history have we had such power to go out and start something on our own, with the aid of think about it as a lawyer that can help you. Think about it as a banker that can help you get financing. All that stuff is now at people's fingertips. If they would just embrace it and try it and use it for something other than write me a joke or write me a poem or something like that, then there are huge opportunities. That's really what I am trying to get out there for folks is that try it, use it in ways that you've never thought of, use it in ways that you've or things that you've never done before, and when you get familiar with the 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 to basically have an idea. They want to be able to pursue self entrepreneurship, and it really does help level the playing field because now you don't need to assemble the full team, you don't have to work to build your own startup. You can be your own independent startup as a one-person show. That's right.

Speaker 3: 37:40

What's amazing is I left my previous job in early summer, started my consulting company and also started a software company and myself, my partner and my AI, my own large language model that I trained to do some software development. We have developed together a ton of code that will be releasing soon. It's that kind of capability you really have an edge if you're not afraid to use it, because it can scale what your capabilities are so far beyond what you can comprehend, that if you don't use it, your competitor 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 of the ethics and the security pieces around is it going to take my job? Is AI going to replace me? And my response to folks right now is that AI is not going to replace you with somebody that knows how to use the AI will, and so what I tell people is that it doesn't matter what your age is. This is a tool that is really agnostic, as long as you know how to use a computer or a phone or something like that.

Speaker 3: 39:19

To try something that is small first meaning, hey, go in and filter my email and if I get something from Judy, to put it into the spam, something like that try something very easy and then expand on what those capabilities are because, like I said earlier, the folks that are going to lose out are the ones that are refusing to try it because they think that they can do it better. The reality is, you may be able to do it better, but if I can do it faster and it's maybe not quite as good as you, but maybe a notch down I can put a business out of existence with that kind of capability. Because we've all seen most of the time. First, the market is very important, getting the word out very important, keeping the word out very important and having AI do that just scales exponentially what your workforce becomes, and so folks that 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 that kind of move and displace people, but it also starts to present and emerge a new set of leaders and innovators and people who can really think and use the technologies and pair those together. 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 that allow 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 their workforce can do. And you are taking somebody that may be excellent at their job, but now they are excellent and they are extraordinarily fast, and that combination is really scary. But then, from a manager perspective, at the same time, being able to manage a workforce is not easy, right, but now you're combining what I'm calling 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 use the tool, a manager that's willing to play with it, understand it and then understand the dynamics of what his team and their attitudes are.

Speaker 3: 42:06

Because if you're an introvert and you've got AI, the problem is now you want to ask 50 different check GPTs or versions of check GPT, because you want to just reinforce what that position is. But if you are not that way and you are more of a, I guess I would say there's a lot of different ways to classify that person that you know has a very strong opinion about something, but when you give them AI, that just bolsters their confidence and their ego. And then I've seen it where some of the folks have become a little bit of a bully and dominate the discussions and those kind of things, and so again, it goes back to being able to manage a new workforce. That is, granted, it's better, it's scalable, but it is now emotionally different than what folks are used to seeing.

Speaker 2: 43:06

Interesting, so real quick and as we wrap up here is kind of give us your insights and expertise and give us a five year prediction on kind of what you foresee, kind of how we start to wrap around this new world of blockchain, metaverse, ai, virtual reality, cryptocurrency, kind of like what's kind of the real vision you 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 technology and unless people feel comfortable with it, they have a good experience with it and it is, I guess, what I would say personally rewarding in some fashion. I think these technologies or these algorithms are just going to fall by the wayside. I think it's going to be folks that focus on the user experience. That relationship between human and AI or human and how it can apply to the blockchain, is going to start to dominate, and I think that's where we will start to see more investment and more research dollars and more venture capitalist dollars as we move forward, because we've seen how fast things are changing today.

Speaker 3: 44:32

You're getting a new methodology for these generative models just about every single day, and if you only focus on one, you're in trouble, because one day you're flying high, the next day you're out of business and you're trying to figure out what you're going to do next. That's how quickly these things are changing, but if you are consistently focusing on the experience of your customers, then all these become plug and play. How can I use this now with what I'm doing? How can I use this to make my customers' lives better, easier, more transparent, those kind of things. That's where I think we'll be in three to five years, and when you start to combine VR with the metaverse, with AI, with the digital experience, and then that relationship, that is an exceptionally strong story that I think is going to really start to dominate.

Speaker 2: 45:29

Incredible. It definitely is an incredible world that we're about to embrace. I'm very excited for the journey and it seems like there's a limitless amount of possibilities, both just from the technology side, from all the applications that are going to impact the end user experience, from things like hotel check-in to self-automated cars I mean I can go on and on but I think that it's an incredible journey. I think we're just starting to see just the first wave of that happening. It's coming. But, alan, I want to express my sincere gratitude for you coming on Tech Travels today. Your insights on blockchain and entrepreneurship has really added immense value to our journey today and thank you for sharing this. We're very honored to have you on as a guest. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and for making this an invariate-riching episode for our 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 the channel if you would like to be notified when new shows are posted. If you want to share this show with your friends, please share on your preferred social media platform. I would love your help to bring awareness to this channel. You can follow me on Twitter at theTechChannel. Join us next time as we venture into the future, into the realms of technology. Until then, stay curious, stay informed. 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 be sure to follow us and subscribe on the Apple podcast and Spotify platforms. We'll see you next time.