AI + Web3 & the Zero effect
Learning is an infinitely invigorating process.
Context: my education (not learning, cause I learnt a lot more about life in those years) got impacted early in life. My father died in a car accident when I was 8. To cut it short, just about managed to get my undergrad in mech engineering done, and then barely finished my MBA post grad just when the last tranche of my father’s life insurance money dwindled away. My two sisters and I grew up running to courts and banks to save the house on our heads, thanks to a warped (& corrupt) financial & banking system. My career took me in an awesomely different direction — doing mergers & acquistions across the world. Till I decided to quit my job in London and head back to India to start up Milk Mantra — a purpose driven company to solve consumer trust deficit in dairy foods, and structure an ethical sourcing network that impacts millions of farmers’ lives. Today, Milk Mantra is a leading consumer foods co in Eastern India, with a much loved premium brand. We used applied technology across the value chain to make remarkable change at both ends of the supply chain — I’m proud of what our MooTeam has achieved!
When Tech is in your Soul : However, I had a deep interest in fundamental tech and especially computer science [I used to code at grade 10 level when I was in grade 7 :) ], and I always ached to get back to it and catch up on what I missed out on. Almost two decades later, when I got time to re-explore and immerse myself back into fundamental tech — I discovered the world of AI and Web3, and was immediately fascinated in the workings of crypto — which is at the intersection of computer science, game theory, and cryptography. The construct and philosophy of decentralization resonated further with my belief system, and I realized that we were at the cusp of something big & good. I went deeper into machine learning & deep learning at the sametime to get a good enough understanding — as it dawned on me that the convergence of Web3 and AI could be a multiplier for a decentralized and autonomous future, and redefinition of fundamental primitives which could reconstruct a better and more participative financial future.
Going deep: So, I go deeper and explore further, and in this process I started writing and sharing some interesting learnings, and some of my own thoughts & insights. This, I find, is a great way to be continuously learning, at one frontier of tech — which I believe is at the convergence of AI + Web3.
We all try to engineer non zero-sum outcomes, but it’s hard. Trust and proof are vital for establishing non zero-sum outcomes. Sometime back, I understood more about Zero Knowledge Proof Protocol — and thought I’d share some learnings today — something that still involves solving trust deficit, but now with a trustless architecture.
Zero Knowledge Protocol >>
The concept of proof is crucial to social & economic transactions. Often in business, we rely on interactions based on zero-knowledge proof with other parties. The use case in crypto is obviously fascinating. So, what factors determine if we should put our trust in a deal, from a ZK perspective?
> What is Zero Knowledge Proof?
In a ZK proof system, the prover is able to prove to the verifier that they have the knowledge of a particular piece of information without revealing the information itself.
A ZK proof must fulfil two basic requirements > completeness and soundness.
Being absolute: if the statement is true, an honest verifier who is following the protocol properly will be convinced of this fact by an honest prover.
Soundness: if the statement is false, no cheating prover can convince an honest verifier that it is true, except with some small probability, which is enough for doubt to dominate the decision.
And it’s Zero-knowledge: if the statement is true, no verifier can learn anything other than the fact that the statement is true. So, just knowing the statement, not the secret, is sufficient to imagine a situation showing that the prover knows the secret.
We have been using such authentication systems where one party wants to prove its identity to a second party via some secret information (such as a password) but doesn’t want the second party to learn anything about this secret. I found this paper interesting and simple to comprehend ZK: https://www.boazbarak.org/cs127spring16/chap14_zero_knowledge.pdf
We can differentiate various zero-knowledge protocols based on their levels of transparency, universality, plausible post-quantum security, and programming paradigm.
Zero-knowledge-based protocols fortify privacy by allowing blockchain networks to validate transactions without disclosing data other than time and date on the blockchain. Only the two parties involved in a transaction can access further details regarding a transaction.
It’s been fascinating learning about ZK, and I thought I’d share this as I move ahead in learning more everyday at the frontier of tech!
