Blockchain for science and knowledge creation: An intro and overview
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Transcript: English(auto-generated)
00:04
So I'm going to talk about blockchain for science. I could also name it blockchain for open science. And I founded a think tank on blockchain for science. And I'm an advisor at the blockchain hub and I associated research at the Humboldt Institute for Internet Society in Berlin.
00:21
Okay, so let's start with the introduction. When you go to panels at conferences and people are giving introductions about blockchain, they usually ask the question, who understood the blockchain? And I'm going to ask the same question here. Who of you understood the blockchain?
00:41
Okay, very good. Excellent, excellent. So I mean, these kind of questions are a nice introduction, but that's all. I mean, it's like as asking like who understood the internet of you? I mean, there are so many aspects and so many things. Okay, it's like we can see like blockchain. Well, in the very beginning blockchain is actually a chain of blocks.
01:04
And it's just a stupid data structure that was like described in the early 90s. So you have a data block and you have a link to the earlier data block by a hash. So if you change some bit somewhere, you need to change all the other blocks as well.
01:22
It's kind of like not very exciting and not very useful in like daily life, this data structure. So I didn't even mention it here, but that's where the name blockchain comes from. Well, it's used as a ledger in Bitcoin that tells you like where every Bitcoin is, like who owns which Bitcoin.
01:41
And like the way Bitcoin is like finding a consensus has some way to do that it's done in blocks. So the miners that are securing the network create a block and then they link it to the earlier blocks, okay? But I think a better definition is blockchain is a new computer protocol involving cryptography.
02:00
We have computer protocols and we have computer protocols that involve cryptography. It's one way of being blockchain. Well, and it's a new way of looking at databases. Like databases are like everywhere in daily life. Like web pages, Facebook is a database, right? We all know that. And I think like this different definition is like,
02:21
oh, sorry, it's like the best for our use. It's a social, legal, cultural, economical, political, evolution or revolution. We will see, okay? So many aspects of our society of like how we think about money, how we think about trust and everything like this is like extended, evolutionized, maybe revolutionized.
02:45
We'll see. And like the last thing is, many of you have maybe thought about it. Well, blockchain is just a hype, right? It's just a hype. And this could be like actually true because it's the first technology that has the interest, the self-interest in being hyped
03:03
because there are like all these tokens like Bitcoin, for example, Ethereum, setcash, Monero, to name a few that are running on a blockchain. And if they are like mentioned in the news media, the value increases. Like with Trump, it doesn't matter whether it's a good context or a bad context.
03:21
This thing is mentioned. It's like it increases the value. So maybe blockchain has an intrinsic value or intrinsic interest of being hyped. On the other side, a hype is not a bad thing. So if there's something like good within the new blockchain world, it could like make people look into blockchain
03:42
and maybe even like have like venture capital moving to the blockchain space by being a hype, okay? So it's not just a bad thing. And like hype become narratives, okay? So it might be a good thing as well to kickstart like the blockchain evolution. Okay, so what is like another view
04:02
of like looking at blockchain, yeah? Like today, we are using computers, servers, databases, and we know that whoever like controls the hardware in like most of the cases can basically technically alter the content of the computer service arbitrarily as he wants to.
04:22
We trust them not to do so. For example, we trust the banks not to just change our accounts. We trust eBay not to like change our like monetary value or the thing we have on stocks. We trust like scientific publishers or like data repositories not to change the journals that we like submitted there
04:40
or the data that we submitted there. It's so common for us. There's no other way of like thinking of it. We just trust them. We even trust our email provider not to change the emails that like we will receive, right? In blockchain world, this is different. We have like still like a service or sorry, that runs on computer hardware.
05:01
Obviously, it cannot run like in thin air, right? But on top, we have like computers, other services that provide cryptographic power to assure that this service works in a certain and proofable, externally proofable way. And if like a certain condition is fulfilled,
05:20
meaning that these are not compromised or like only a certain percentage of these being compromised, we can like know that this service is running at advertised. And as soon as this happens, we can actually put like monetary value in it because you cannot just change an Excel sheet who owns which bitcoin. You have to, the system like makes sure
05:43
that you can only change it if you have the private key to your bitcoin wallet. And this is like, so this is like the blockchain world thing. So blockchain is like, is a distributed service. You distribute it so there's no single point of failure that actually deletes, can delete something
06:01
or you can like censor it. It's decentralized. It is the same and it's not the same as distributed. And you have a database that's immutable that you can't change. Well, this is like kind of useless for a database, right? If you can't change it. So like real world meaning is it's an app-only database so you can only like add something
06:21
and if you like change something or delete something, you will always leave a track that you changed something. Like think of it like a piece of paper where you can like change some account, the value of account, but you always leave a track, okay? And it's like transparent, so you can always see who owns which bet coins if you want to, to have a transparent.
06:42
And it's like provable, as I said. You can only change it in a certain and very defined manner. Okay, another interesting thing that is like related to a blockchain are smart contracts. So these are computer programs that actually run on the blockchain. Ethereum is a very interesting example and they are basically unstoppable.
07:01
So as long as the same conditions are fulfilled as I mentioned before, there are computers that like provide the cryptographic power, you can't stop this computer program. And the computer programs are unchangeable and transparent. So everybody can see like what's happening. For example, you can say like, if so and so much money is in this account, we will give it as a crowdfunding campaign
07:21
to like a service provider to like work on a program for us, okay? We don't have to write the contract down on paper anymore. It's like out there and it's like unstoppable, okay? Unchangeable. Okay, so where are the application enzymes? Like the first thing like I remember,
07:40
like after the first Bitcoin bubble, I don't think it's a bubble at the moment. The first Bitcoin bubble, we like shared it on Skype and we said like, well, there's this Bitcoin thing out. Let's have a blockchain or like a Bitcoin for science. So what do we want to do? I mean, we just like track every change that somebody does on a Wikipedia article.
08:02
So it's like immutable and unchangeable and we can always prove who came up with the idea. So this was like the first seed of like blockchain designs. And I'm like kind of organizing this around the research cycle in this presentation. You all know this like famous circle, yeah? So we have data acquisition somewhere in the research, yeah?
08:24
And why don't we like store the research data in a blockchain database? Internet of research things, you know? This was result in that we have like the data timestamped and we would have a immutable proof of the data acquisition. If you don't like the data, we just can't drop it.
08:41
If you like say like this mouse doesn't fit our narrative, we drop it today. Maybe the mouse has a cold or something, yeah? And we can't do this anymore because like in the future like researchers could ask us like why did you drop this mouse out of like this? The data set, right? But if you do this, you always have like the fundamental problem
09:02
that we have always you need to like trust the sensor, right? So you have to like trust it in this microcode, it's actually a cell that you described. Or that the sensor is like measuring the right stuff. And this is like a fundamental problem we can't easily solve. But I think it's like a big difference of a researcher like forging this hardware of a microscope
09:23
in contrast to just like deleting this little value in the Excel sheet if it doesn't fit in. So this is a big difference, okay? And then we have like we can do all the data processing instead of all computers in our like we trust the environment, we can do it in a blockchain environment. So we can prove to the outside that we actually did the data processing
09:44
in this like certain and well-defined way. So we talked a lot about computer programs. Why don't have them run on a blockchain? This would be the equivalent to like smart contract. So we have like a data processing trail that we can store on the blockchain.
10:01
And this brings us to another thing. It's like we can call this smart evidence. So why don't we just like publish our research conditions when we accept a hypothesis or like reject it on a blockchain, then collect the data. And as soon as we like hit a certain condition, we will like accept the hypothesis or we will reject the hypothesis.
10:21
This could be very interesting for pharmaceutical or like approval studies. You submit the conditions, collect the data on the blockchain, and then prove it to the outside that you actually have a working drug that's doing something good. Okay, so blockchain, if I could be seen like as a new extension of open science.
10:42
Like we have like the standard science where we like in the end publish the traditional science paper. Then we have like pre-registered study science. Also we have like open data science where we not only publish a final paper, a description of the data, but we publish like all the data, the final data set that we actually like.
11:04
And then we have pre-registered study science that we like submit the study, outline everything like design. And then we like are like in the valley of trust. So we just like do things and then we come up with a result. If we would like do everything like in a blockchain environment,
11:20
we would have like blockchain-ified design. So this like goes through the whole time and we would leave a trail of everything. And I think like the nice idea is like, why don't we use this smart contracts to look at research data and review them that they only like have like patient data and analyze it only in a certain way.
11:42
They only release the results, for example blood pressure of patients, if a certain condition is met that like preserves their privacy. So this would be a good way. We actually like review smart contracts to look at the data instead of we decide in ethical commissions like who will be able to like look at the data.
12:01
This could be a new way like thinking about subject privacy and like health care research for example. And even in the situation where like the subject identification is within the data, for example in genomes they have like fingerprints like everybody has like its own very individual genome or in face CT scans.
12:23
We just like have smart contracts that don't look at it. They only look at certain gene positions. So this is a completely new way of looking at like data and data analysis. Well, then we have like of course we can like store research data in a cloud and this can be done in a blockchain-ified cloud.
12:41
We don't have to trust a cloud provider anymore. We can like just trust a decentralized system that is like running on computers and the data is encrypted so nobody has access to this data. And this leaves the problem, solves the problem of like we have certain cloud services now,
13:01
Center for Open Science for example, and they actually put up some money like millions of dollars to like assure that once a company is gone that they are like still somebody like taking care of the data. They do it with like standard contracts. They are like systems out in a series form, for example they put stakes on the data on the blockchain.
13:21
Little stakes so you can assure that if this stake is still there, the data will always be there. You know, the blockchain system is taking care of it no matter how the hardware is doing or how a central entity like a company is doing. And then we have like very weird new ideas out there. They are like far out, you know.
13:40
We have like real blockchain tokens that can be used, new reputation systems that can be decentralized like a science marketplace you can like compete for like who will do the analysis and so on and so on. And a decentralized academic endorsement system. So think of an impact factor in a decentralized way. Nobody can like manipulate it, stop it and so on.
14:00
Actually, this brought me to another thing. It's like thinking about anonymous publications. Why don't we publish research on new ideas anonymously? Scientists are like in a construct, in like an environment and they might be afraid of like this new idea to being like too far off from the main team narrative
14:21
so they keep it for themselves, right? They can't experiment with it. Well, they could like publish this in some blogs or anonymously on the internet. They will never ever get money for it or reputations for it in nowadays world. But in a blockchain environment, it would be possible to pseudonymously publish your crazy idea and if people like it, even get money for it.
14:42
And you don't have to like do this on like a server that you trust like a company that if it like fails, you can get like cryptographic proofs that you can keep your anonymity. And I was like, somebody actually did this. They didn't use a blockchain but they like publish it anonymously and they publish about blockchain, use of blockchain
15:02
for a scientific reputation system. And it wasn't me. Seriously, it wasn't me. I just like, I like when I saw this, I fall off the chair, you know? Like somebody did and if you would have a blockchain world nowadays, I could like prove to you that it wasn't me. But since we don't have it, you have to trust me that it wasn't me.
15:21
And this is like a very interesting concept. So he has like an impact factor system based on the blockchain. So and I think like this anonymous publication are good thing to like break with the things that Max Planck once said. Like science advances a funeral a time. So if the old guys die out,
15:41
you have like room for new things. But if you like, even the old guys can like experiment with like things like that are like out of the mean. And like if they do good, they can get money for it. And we could like maybe like make have science doing like faster results and be faster. Okay, so I see like blockchain for science
16:03
will have like the standard well-established science where you do analysis, statistics by like immutable data acquisition, post-processing, you have smart evidence, you can like cryptographically assure subject privacy. Maybe smart contracts can like help you with like research, subject privacy,
16:23
transparent approval studies, like for new drugs. And this could result in more reproducible in two results. And then you have like this other kind of science, this like crazy science, like where you are like in the shower and have a new idea, but you are like, forget it. And you kind of, I mean, why should I put it out?
16:41
I cannot get any money or anything for it. And we can like think about new ways of incentivizing research instead of like having grants. And application and review process. We could like for the first time, maybe like distribute research money according to likes. At the moment, we can't do it because we know that these people who are like providing the service just can't change the likes.
17:02
If there would be money on the likes, they just like go to the server room and change it. In a blockchain world, that's no longer possible. And we can like change the scientific incentivization system easily. So system gamers cannot adopt it. They don't know what's next year's like incentivization method will be. If it's like easily changeable.
17:20
So I think this will lead to more innovation and more discovery. Okay. Well, people ask like what problem is being solved with blockchain? And I completely agree with you. If you would have a trusted, very well equipped third party that would provide a service and they're agnostic of monetary values
17:41
that goes through their system and everything like this, there's no problems that blockchain is solving that like a trusted third party is not being able to serve, to solve, yeah? A server system, a company. But it's like asking for the Liviatan, the benevolent, like powerful king that is like good for everybody.
18:01
We don't have this, right? So we have like, the world is not as perfect as we wish it to be. So, and we are like so used to like designs in a non-blockchain world because we didn't have these abilities available yet that we are like saying, well, there's no problem. Blockchain is can solve, right? Because I mean, we are doing science, right?
18:21
Okay. And, okay. I see like blockchain and science the same. It's like a socio-legal, cultural, economical, political evolution. Of course, it's a multi-stakeholder process. It bears huge potential. It like goes along. I mean, it's everywhere ongoing, the developments. Like DAO, like new concepts in blockchain world
18:44
and it goes along with like web 3.0 developments. And another interesting thing is like new business models, crowdfunding system, ICOs are developing and maybe they can be used in science too. And blockchain in science is not a hype yet.
19:02
Maybe it will change, we'll see. Okay. And thank you very much for your attention and we are working on like a living document and if you have like, it's not only me or like our think tank that is like coming up with this idea. There are actually references to other people that think about it, yeah?
19:21
As well. And you feel free to like add, like reuse it and like if you have any concerns or if you like things. Okay. Thank you very much for your attention. Okay. I didn't want to show. Okay. Thank you.