Posts from June 2023

Software That You Can't Shut Down

The term “censorship resistant” is used a lot in the decentralized computing/web3/crypto space to talk about a core feature of these systems. I don’t love the term censorship resistant because it is a wonky term.

Software that is encoded in smart contracts (and other ways) on fully decentralized blockchains can’t be shut down or turned off.

So why is this a big deal?

Let’s make up a story:

Imagine that an AI is trained to teach children to read better than humans. But the powers that be decide that teaching children to read is something that humans need to do. So they make this AI illegal and block access to it.

Well if this AI is written in a smart contract on a fully decentralized blockchain, it can’t be shut down. As long as there are nodes somewhere around the world willing to maintain the blockchain, this AI will continue to run and anyone that has access to the Internet will be able to use it.

That’s a made-up story, but hopefully, you get the point. I picked AIs and education, but you could also go with self custody and your money. Or you could go with image detection and speeding cameras.

The point is that the powers that be have, from time to time, decided that certain things are bad and attempted to shut them down. Alcohol, for example. Or sex between two people who love each other, for example. Or books about racism, for example.

Fully decentralized blockchains offer something powerful. Software that can’t be turned off. Data that is open to everyone. AIs that can’t be shut down.

We are in a moment with enormous posibilities brought on by the computer science revolutions in machine learning, decentralized systems, and new user interfaces. It will be tempting for powerful entrenched interests to seek to put the genie back in the bottle on some of this stuff. But if the genie is deployed on a fully decentralized blockchain, there is no going back in the bottle.

#blockchain#crypto#machine learning#Web3

Voice Input

Smartphones have had voice input for over a decade now and yet I don’t know that many people who use voice input regularly.

I would guess that maybe 10 to 20% of smartphone users are using voice input regularly. That’s a guess based on absolutely no data other than observing friends, family, and colleagues.

However, in the last week I have started to use voice input a lot more as a result of a friend encouraging me to do it.

Also in the last week, I’ve suggested to my mom that she start using voice input on her phone and I recommended that the Gotham Gal start using voice input to text and email.

So why now?

I don’t think it is because voice input has gotten appreciably better in the last couple of years. I think it is because typing on a phone is annoying and I want to do it less.

What I have observed in the last week using voice input is that the speech-to-text recognition is almost perfect.

But I have yet to figure out how to format things the way I like with voice. For example, I don’t really know how to create new paragraphs or punctuation. I don’t know how to embed links or attach files or photos.

I like to write in a list format. I don’t know how to do that with voice.

So I have a lot to learn about speaking to my phone instead of typing on it. But I think voice input is going to stick for me because I can feel the habit starting to form.

I’m excited to start engaging with my phone in a completely different way and learning new tricks.

And I expect I’ll probably write more blog posts this way.

I wrote this one entirely by speaking to my phone.

#mobile#voice interfaces

Coming Back Up For Air

The last time I posted was May 23rd, three weeks ago.

There was a time when I wrote every day. When I had not yet posted on any day, I felt like something was missing, like I had not yet had my cup of coffee.

Clearly, I have moved on from that need to write every day.

I don’t think I have ever gone three weeks without posting in the almost twenty years I’ve been writing this blog. The 20th anniversary of AVC will be on September 23rd of this year.

So why did I go three weeks without posting?

First and foremost, I did not feel like writing.

There are reasons for that.

The last week of May was completely nuts with a ton of stuff coming at me, some planned like a move out of our family office, some expected like a family medical situation, and some completely unexpected. That week was nuts.

And then on the evening of May 31st, the Gotham Gal and I got on an overnight flight to Paris and took a long-planned two-week vacation in a city we’ve been going to for decades to rest, relax, reconnect, and enjoy Paris and each other.

I’ve always tended to write on vacation but on this vacation, I read.

I may write about what I read this vacation. Or maybe I won’t. But it was not about business, tech, or anything that I tend to write about here. I wanted to get out of that zone and take on some new territory. And I am glad I did.

I worked a bit on vacation. I always do. The VC business is about supporting people, teams, and companies. You can’t really take a vacation from that.

But you can cut back a lot on that and I did.

I also slept a lot. In Eruope, if you try to stay on NYC time, you can go to bed late at night and get up when it is almost noon. There is something decadent about that. Like going back to high school and college when there wasn’t always something waiting for you when you woke up. I also took a lot of naps.

We also walked a lot, rode bikes around town, and spent time wandering around a city we know well and love to explore.

It was a great break, one I needed, and I am mostly happy to be heading home. I am writing this on the flight back.

I don’t know if I will jump right back into writing once or twice a week but I hope so.

I like writing. It brings things out of me that I did not know I had. I don’t know any other way to get those things out of my brain and out into the open.

So hopefully you will see some new stuff from me next week. What it will be I have no clue. But I have never planned out my writing. I like to let it flow out of me in the moment.

In closing, I’d like to address this tweet from Liad, a longtime AVC reader:

I understand that a daily dose of anything is a great thing. I love my daily flat white (cortado in the summer).

But these are not dark times we are in. And I am not writing less because of a lack of excitement for the times we are in.

The combination of computer science advances in machine learning, decentralized systems (blockchains), and new forms of interacting with compute (chat interfaces, heads up displays, voice, etc) presents the most potent cocktail of innovation I have ever seen. We are also seeing amazing scientific advances in areas like renewable/clean energy, health and wellness (biotech), robotics, and many other areas.

These are bright times. As bright as they come.

I will try to write more often and shine a bright light on these things.

#Blogging On The Road