Vitalik Bugerin, co -founder of Ethereum, stopped to think where technology will lead in the coming decades to humanity.
In his analysis, he put the focus on the role that Internet plays and how, little by little, he ceased to be a separate space of reality to become his more direct extension.
“The Internet has become real life,” he said, convinced that this dynamic will continue to expand until they cover dimensions as sensitive as health, governments and even interaction between brain and computer.
In their words, the societies “that reject these technologies will first lose competitiveness and then sovereignty against those who adopt them”, including in their analysis a disturbing reflection:
The civilizations that benefited the most from the new waves of technology were not the ones that consumed technology, but those that produced it.
VITALIK BUTERIN, Ethereum co -founder.
For Buterin, the march of this process It has no return. The benefits it offers overcome the risks and make the difference between moving forward or lagged in a global scenario.
And although its conclusion is that this technological course cannot stop, consider that can be oriented towards a more equitable model:
«By default, we will have centralized and opaque digital infrastructures, optimized for a few. But we can work for an alternative based on opening, verifiability and local sovereignty«.
VITALIK BUTERIN, Ethereum co -founder.
Trends that mark the course, according to Vitalik Butein
In it document Published on September 24, the Russian-Canadian developer organizes their vision from a timeline that begins in the recent past and is projected towards the immediate future:
“It started with email and instant messaging … Then came the digitalization of traditional finances and the appearance of cryptocurrencies.”
VITALIK BUTERIN, Ethereum co -founder.
Additionally, in terms of technology and health, he indicated that mobile devices and smart watches made “all kinds of information about our bodies be processed by computers and networks »
From now on, he accentuated, the challenge will be to apply these tools in preventive medicine and in the early detection of pandemics.
One of the most disruptive projections was on the brain-computeing interfaces (BCI). These technologies will allow “increasing productivity, improving communication between people and even enabling safer paths towards advanced artificial intelligences.”
At the same time, he warns: “If your BCI is hacked, a hostile actor could read – or worse, write – in your mind.”
On the other hand, Bugerin hopes that in the next twenty years state processes (even vote) will become digital. The key will be that these systems are «Insurance, verifiable and open source»otherwise they will lose social legitimacy.
“Security is achieved less reviewing the entire world to ensure that there are no malefactors anywhere, and more making the world more robust at all levels.”
VITALIK BUTERIN, Ethereum co -founder.
Risks and the need for openness
The technological advance brings risks that, for Bugerin, must be addressed with two central principles: Opening and verifiability.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, he details, the “concentrated production of vaccines and the lack of communication transparency” generated inequality and distrust.
That example shows that when the technological infrastructure owns, the data and benefits are in the hands of A few corporations or governments.
On the other hand, open systems would allow to audit processes, reduce access asymmetries and prevent trust depending on a few actors.
It is true that the cryptocurrency ecosystem is affected daily by online attacks, hackers and other malicious behaviors. In that sense, the co -founder of Ethereum affirmed the following:
“This is a risk that the crypto space recognized early: the blockchain is without permissions and decentralized, so if you lose access to your funds, there is no resource, no” uncle in the sky “to which you can resort to help. They are not your keys, they are not your coins. For this reason, the crypto space was a pioneer in developing multisig portfoli Hardware ”.
VITALIK BUTERIN, Ethereum co -founder.
Concrete applications to avoid centralized digital future
BUTERIN highlights current examples in which the opening and verifiability are already decisive:
- Digital signatures: In contrast to expensive and slow bureaucratic procedures, an Ethereum transaction can be resolved “in five seconds and with minimal costs.”
- Advanced cryptography: technologies such as Zk-Snark (zero knowledge) and the Homomorphic encryption Total could sustain large -scale applications that preserve privacy.
- Digital governance: from voting to citizen assemblies, these tools require “common knowledge of security”, something that is only possible if the systems are open.
Finally, for the developer, the future of the Internet will not be limited to the digital economy, but will impact almost all aspects of everyday life.
“We want it to become a utopia and not a dystopia,” he summarized.