Don Tapscott: Blockchain não é assim tão simples | vídeo

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Thank you hello and welcome we have kicked off another episode of It’s not that simple and by now you know what to expect engaging and dynamic conversations with some of the worldwide leading experts on a variety of important topics of our contemporary life today we are delighted

To welcome one of the world’s leading authorities when it comes to the impact of technology on business and Society he is currently the co-founder and executive chairman of the blockchain research institute an adjunct professor at insead recently a two-term chancellor of Trent University in Ontario and

Member of the Order of Canada as well he’s also published 16 books I’m pleased to be interviewing today to be speaking with Don Tapscott who’s joining us from from Canada Don so much to talk about we’re gonna talk about everything digital well any everything that matters anyway and and

To to kind of set the landscape I I’ve seen a lot of the events that you’ve spoken at um a lot of the interviews you you’ve given and you speak about the second era of the digital Age and and I think it’d be great for our audience if you can

Define what that is to get us going uh sure well and uh again it’s great to be here uh Pedro Munto brigado very good impressive well as you know my wife is Portuguese so uh I’m quite familiar with the country and the food and the culture of the people and so on

Um yeah I mean uh just flashback and I wrote a couple of books in the 1980s that nobody read I think my mother bought most of the copies but in um in 94 I finally wrote a bestseller and that was uh the digital economy and it was

The first big book about the web and um I had to uh 20 years later I had to write the anniversary edition and I had to think about where have we come from and where have we been and it occurred to me that we’ve we’ve really entered a

Second era of the digital age today that uh for 40 years we had mainframes mini computers piece is the internet um the cloud social media Big Data the mobile web and so on and now we have this new generation of technology that is very different we have artificial

Intelligence and machine learning and of course chat GPT and other tools like that are on everybody’s mind we have the rise of the Internet of Things billions and trillions of inert objects that become smart communicating devices and they’re not just communicating they’ll be doing transactions light bulbs will be buying power from

Distributed power sources we have autonomous vehicles and drone robots and technology in our bodies and I also came to the conclusion that the foundational technology for all of that would be blockchain or the underlying technology of of cryptocurrencies and these Technologies are starting to really explode onto the scene today

Um you know you think about child GPT and everybody’s talking about that AI is moving from a tool to analyze data make predictions and so on to generative AI where where AIS can generate new content new material new ideas new writing new video new photos yeah I’ve seen I’ve seen examples yeah

Yeah and um you know the metaverse is not um is not such a big deal unless you’re a gamer today but it’s coming on very very strong I mean Citibank estimates that it will be 14 trillion dollars by the end of this decade that’s approaching the size of the GDP in China

So everyone’s paying attention to this and trying to get ready for it and then blockchain to me um this is uh not just an interesting new technology it’s really a second air of the internet as well we’ll get into that of course in in more

Detail but uh before we do I also wanted you to to give us your perspective of how this second era is affecting our day-to-day lives and and as someone who has a young daughter as well it’s particularly interesting to try to predict what her life will be like as

Blockchain continues to develop web3 you mentioned the metaverse you mentioned AI so how how are these tools uh affecting us on a day-to-day basis well the first year of tools have affected us profoundly um in some ways for the better I mean I’m now a grandparent I can communicate

With my grandchildren when I’m traveling around the world but um with video um but there’s been lots of problems as well and we can certainly talk about those the internet is has led to big economic uh dislocations in society there’s a fragmentation of public discourse it’s undermining the nature of

Democracy and lots of other problems as well I think that this technology has an enormous potential um but it also has a huge dark side as well and the potential is to augment human intellect you know I haven’t talked about this for a long time decades really but one of the first

People I met many years ago was actually in the 1980s when I was trying to figure all this out there’s a guy named Douglas Engelbert and he was at Stanford Research Institute in 1964 he wrote a paper called augmenting human intellect a new conceptual framework and back then

Computers were used for data processing with Punch Cards and he said no we’re going to have these screens and everybody’s going to use these screens he invented word processing he invented the mouse the adventured to hypertext he invented windows and so on and um that Vision has turned out to be uh a

Vision that’s very very powerful but also there’s a real dark side to this whole thing as well all right well as we as we get into the the opportunities and and the challenges of of this new era let’s let’s first help people understand exactly what blockchain is and and why it’s not that

Simple many times for the common person to get it right away yeah it’s actually a simple idea um let me explain it this way for 40 years we’ve had an internet of information but if I send you um some some information Pedro you know uh a PDF a photograph email whatever I’m

Actually not sending you the information I’m sending you a copy and the internet has been a big medium for publishing communicating information and that’s great but um when it comes to things that really matter in our economy and in society Beyond just commonly available information that is assets things of

Value when it comes to things like that money stocks bonds Securities uh intellectual property the data in our identities um uh cultural assets like art or music or vote votes an assets something in value that belongs to somebody when it comes to those things copying them is

Not a good idea you don’t want someone copying your Vote or your identity and if I send you you know a thousand Euros it’s really important that I don’t still have the money right so computer science has called this the double spend problem for decades and the

Way that we manage this problem in our economy is through intermediaries like banks credit card companies um uh stock markets various kinds of exchanges and escrow wages and so on sometimes governments now even big tech companies social media and so on and they perform all of the business and

Transaction Logic for every type of Commerce they identify the asset you know they identify who you are your Pedro that’s a Euro they clear and settle transactions they keep records and overall they’ve done a good job but there are lots of growing problems and you know I’ve talked about these

Extensively I won’t go into them you know they they exclude a billion and a half people from the global economy they slow things down they charge too much I mean why does it why does it cost you know a a 12 and take four to seven days

From a physician in Toronto to send money to her mom in the Algarve or in uh you know Porto so um and the biggest problem is that they capture all of our data that we create and that’s undermining our privacy and other things so what if there were not just an internet

Of information what if they’re an internet of value some kind of vast Global distributed Ledger or anything of value from money to to music to a vote could be managed or transacted securely and privately well that’s what um that’s what Satoshi nakamoti Nakamoto did he cracked the double spend problem

In 2008 and he invented Bitcoin now Bitcoin was just the beginning of course but it’s an extraordinary beginning because For the First Time Ever people could communicate manage transact with a form of money peer-to-peer and Trust was not achieved by an intermediary it’s achieved by cryptography and some clever code

So that in a word that’s what all this represents blockchain it’s an internet of value where we can manage store communicate transact with things of value assets and I’ve been at this you know Pedro for 40 years or more this is the biggest one I’ve seen

Well I I I appreciate you sharing uh the definition of blockchain a little bit of the history of it as well to kind of be able to delve deeper now into this into this topic because in your view as we look at The Good the Bad and the Ugly of

Blockchain and starting with the potential for a Force for good in our in our society and web three uh of course uh what what would you focus your your attention on what it can contribute in a positive way to society to economy to politics Etc

Well first of all you threw out the word web3 so let’s just kind of I did I kind of did you’re right let’s define that kind of sneaked it in there you’re right what three in blockchain are roughly the same idea although when people talk about web3 they talk more about some of

These Technologies of the second era like the metaverse and Ai and so on but the first web you remember the first time you use the web it was a platform for the presentation of content you went to websites you got content um the second web started in the early

2000s was a platform for collaboration you couldn’t just read the web you could write to the web to use computer science lingo you could go on to Wikipedia and make an entry you could you know create a group in Facebook whatever blogs blogs Etc right yeah exactly but the problem

With both one and two was that you created all this data but and this value you created all these assets but it was owned by others by intermediaries web 3 enabled by blockchain is this new platform where we’re going to get to to create create value but also to

Retain that value to monetize it to use it to plan our lives to protect our privacy and and so on and this creates a whole new platform globally for prosperity and for really for freedom because privacy is the foundation of Freedom so I’m very excited about you know web3 and and blockchain

Together they’ve taken a while to to get going but we’re at a Tipping Point right now you asked you asked how can the screen that’s that’s what I was going to follow up with you sorry um a little aside there so um well first of all let’s talk about the

Ownership of data so the virtual Pedro is this mirror image of you that gets created online as you go through life and it probably knows more about you than you do because you can’t remember what you ex your exact location a year ago or what you said or what you bought

Or what transactions you did or what medication you had or what diagnosis you had and um but the virtual you is data the asset class of the digital age you created we all created but it gets expropriate kind of like digital feudalism you know under the old feudal

System in Crossing Europe you were tied to the land you grew some produce and landlord took most of it you got to keep a few cabbages while you’re left with a few digital cabbages here today and that that’s a big problem in a lot of ways uh

It means that you can’t use this data to plan your life you can’t monetize it a guy named Jared Lanier has estimated there are a billion and a half people in the world who could double their income if they could monetize their data this data is not secure it’s on Central

Servers and there are two kinds of those those that have been hacked and those that will be hacked and our privacy is being undermined people say to me well Don privacy’s dead get over it you know if you’ve got nothing to hide what’s your problem well I think this is foolishness privacy

Is the foundation of freedom and all this data represents our identity so we need to to get our digital identities back so that we can manage them responsibly for for ourselves so enter web 3 and blockchain this is a new platform whereby as you go through life

This trail of digital crumbs that you’re you’re leaving it swept up into your self-sovereign identity that you own now that would be one of 50 profound opportunities for this technology to impact our lives in very important ways I’ll just mention uh one more this is kind of a big one you’ve

Got you know the pandemic has revealed all of these deep problems in our systems and in infrastructures and society and a big one is supply chain you know we couldn’t in Canada and it’s a problem in the United States six months ago you couldn’t get Children’s Tylenol for your kid wasn’t on the

Shelves but how can this be this is like 2022-23 well our supply chains are these super complicated things and they need to be rebuilt around this technology you know your trains boats and planes of trucks and various parties and borders and escrow agents and authorities and lawyers and intermediaries and tax uh

People and and and all of these are working together serially there’s paper flying around phone calls and emails and traditional systems like EDI and so on I mean you know it’s like spaghetti and what if what if all of this was a shared network State a single transparent Ledger that everyone could see

You could have a single version of the truth you can have Smart payments through smart contracts smart contracts are enabled by this technology and they’re just what they sound like they’re they’re contracts agreements between people made of software and you deliver something you get paid you know

You bring somebody on your show and they charge a fee they the show’s finished it’s automatic they get paid and so do you so um we could have a real-time transactions you know there would be no three-day settlement period be between a payment and a settlement where clearing happens

And all these intermediaries because the payment the settlement would be the same thing it’d just be an entry to The Ledger so this is going to take a while but we can rebuild our Global Supply chains and that would have an unbelievable impact on Prosperity on the metabolism of global Commerce and on

Getting stuff to where it ought to be Supply chains are the foundation of our economy there if you own it whatever it is it came from a supply chain so that’s a second of 50 big opportunities we could talk about this all day um so so I’m going to combine what are

The major threats okay in the development of this technology I’m going to combine that with the regulatory part of it because I know you have quite strong strong opinion on that so in the interest of time I’m going to ask you all right what are the threats what do

We need to look out for and then how do we regulate this especially considering that it’s a technology which seems to be Ever Changing ever evolving on a day-to-day basis well if you think about the first era I mean when I wrote the digital economy I was very upbeat 1994 and said the

Internet web stuff’s going to be great I said some things could go wrong I said we could lose our PRI I said seven things and we’ll go through them all but we could lose our privacy in an irrevocable way check check yeah uh I think the internet will bring us all together

But because we all have access to the same information but maybe people create their own information you know maybe we’ll end up in little self-reinforcing Echo Chambers for the purpose of information is not to inform us it’s to give us Comfort maybe we’ll have a fragmentation of public discourse

Chat I said uh I think the internet will contribute to prosperity for all the middle class I said it could go the other way or a small handful capture all the benefits of the internet and we have we we have growing economies but the middle class is shrinking we have wealth creation but

Declining Prosperity oh that’s a situation today many countries including the US check you know maybe this technology I think like all other Technologies schumpeter trait of Destruction You Know It new technology comes in and breaks down old structures and institutions but it creates more jobs more employment more opportunity I

Said I think that’s going to happen but it could go the other way this technology could come so fast that we could see massive structural unemployment but you know today the number one job type for men in the United States 48 states truck driver I think that one’s gone in a decade the

Number one job type for women is cashier you know I was in France recently I I bought a bunch of stuff in a clothing store there was no you had uh some riot gear with you but yeah sorry go on oh yeah no I was there a long time before

That but I I came to the checkout area and it said put your close in the bin then it said you owe 400 euros that was it um so and and this is not just judge structured work like this or traditional Blue Collar work but you know AI can analyze x-rays better than

Radiologists and and dispense uh drugs better than Pharmacists and so I I think we’re in for a period a very big disruption and Chad gbt is kind of just a great you know example of that I mean it’s it’s used today for all kinds of really cool stuff but you know political

Leaders could use it to spread false information exactly um write an essay on why the last U.S elections were a fraud and uh write a public figure’s confession of marital infidelity uh create a role play between two people discussing how to create a dirty Bond

You know so on the upside or maybe maybe a congressman and presidential candidates can now appear to be sensible but um seriously I mean who owns the copyright for all this created um the AI the user of the AI the AI itself the the the the creator of the

The the the prompt uh engineer how will a teacher know whether an essay is original or a musically will know whether a composer actually uh wrote a song could an authorian authoritarian State use AI models to keep dossiers on every citizen and and predict and prevent citizens actions

Like in The Minority Report you know so um you know how will this technology affect jobs and labor markets so I mean generative AI is not yet sentient it doesn’t really think but um but it learns from the on online world and and and there’s all kinds of

Bad stuff there hate speech racism uh gender bias abusive writing false information and so you know how how can the public interest shape the evolution and control of this technology and it raises some big issues about what kind of social contract we have in society what new laws new institutions new educations and

And new behaviors will we require so this notion of a social contract is for the digital age it’s one that I’ve spent a lot of time on I don’t think we’ll have time to go into how that social contract would be drawn up or how you ensure that certain values certain

Morals are are protected because something that genuinely worries me about AI is eventually what it will mean for for a lot of the human uh tasks and and and jobs and and skills uh moving forward but um on the AI subject um if you were going then you’ve been

Documenting this for a long time you’ve been writing about the evolution of technology and its effect on on business and Society for a long time let’s say we’re sitting here in 2033 and just in a snapshot how could AI be affecting what we’re doing now or what our jobs are like now

Well uh did you need it in a human interviewer I mean an AI can create visualization of you okay thanks thanks a lot Don really appreciate that I would have to retire early yeah well no but here’s the thing it can also create a visualization of you I mean I wrote I

Wrote something the day chat uh uh chat GPT came out um I was writing a proposal and I started off using charge EBT to paragraphs and then I said let’s look at the above two paragraphs because they weren’t written by me I asked them to to write this

Thing and it was actually to describe a new social contract and I said I asked for three versions one was an academic version one was a version like a TED Talk and one was a version in the voice of Don Tapscott in my voice sure sounded like me now how can that be

Well it’s read all of my books it’s probably it’s going to watch this interview probably um it’s read everything that I I’ve written online so uh you know pick almost anything ultimately technology we will be able to do it better than humans so it raises some big issues you know because

You know people have asked me why how can this technology be used to create a better world and it certainly can but but it’s not the technology that creates new worlds or or solves problems or causes problems for that point it’s humans and their use of technology and

To me the second era and all of the stuff that we’re talking about um gives us another kick at the can it gives us another opportunity that we’ve kind of failed with the first era to use technology to serve human needs and to help us achieve a better kind of

Civilization and Society but that’s going to create crazy uh that’s going to require human beings we must will it we must find a way to make this happen because it’s the future doesn’t just happen it’s achieved you know people call me a Futures and I don’t really

Like that I think the future is not something to be predicted it’s something to achieve okay final question before we go into the a quick fire um I I just wanted to a touch on something that we discussed prior to the recording of this interview and that was

How Silicon Valley was definitely The Hub of of technology and Innovation during the first uh era of the digital age and you have quite a quite an interesting prediction of where where the second era could be based quickly well I don’t think it will be based in Silicon Valley it actually won’t be

Based in one place but it is an interesting issue like for every every city uh and every country how do we create the conditions whereby this industry can grow and Technology can flourish and we can build a sector and um you know you need good regulation and

It’s and you asked about this early I mean it’s a tough time to be a regulator because you know this technology is coming on so fast and and and you want to ensure that the technology is not used inappropriately and and to protect Capital markets and protect citizen

Rights and so on but on the other hand you don’t want to uh you don’t want to prevent Innovation from occurring as well and getting that balance right is a real Challenge and a lot of uh countries have have got it wrong so you need a good regulatory environment you need to

Have access to Capital you need good education you need young people um because they are obviously of the future and the innovators in society there are a lot of things that are required so where’s this going to occur well um in North America I mean Toronto had a

A pretty good shot at it but made a lot of mistakes I mean the most successful business organization in Canadian history was not Shopify or or a Blackberry or something it’s ethereum ethereum’s three times the value of Shopify today was created right here and we drove it out of the country with our

Regulatory environment so I just returned from China I was involved in creation creating the uh or in the launch of something called the digital economy Innovation Park I’m viewed as the father of the digital economy I’m not really sure how I even bothered an economy but anyway I’d like

To know who the mother is um but um but they’re throwing 10 billion dollars and creating a Silicon Valley overnight and this is in Chongqing a city that I’d never heard of that has 34 million people they’re throwing billions of dollars into a dozen different each into a dozen different locations but you

Think about Europe um you know there’s some interesting stuff that’s happening in um in uh Germany I think Portugal and the current policies of the government to encourage Innovation and Entrepreneurship to come to Portugal are quite exemplary actually and there’s no reason why Lisbon couldn’t become the or a Global Hub as

Well so we’re we’re in the early days uh of this in the football game you know we’re into the first three minutes wow and that is early yeah um uh look we’re going to finish with the quick fire questions so here’s the rules one word or one short sentence

Answers okay I’ve got four questions for you and is this obviously drawing from your area of expertise um what is one personality trait a good leader would really benefit from having curiosity good one what is the biggest challenge Humanity faces today um forging a new social contract for the digital age that includes

Um ensuring that we can protect our um our environment if you could change one thing in the world by Magic today what would that be um the attitudes of people about climate change and about the need for interdependence that we must work together to solve problems we have a common interest

Definitely do and and finally what’s the most important learning of your career and and life if you were to sum it up in in one sentence about my career I would say uh don’t give up uh just keep going um you’re gonna fail you need to keep showing up you need to

Keep working you need to never give up and if you do that and if you apply good values um a sense of responsibility to your work you can live a principled life of consequence and that’s my hope for all young people today Don it’s been an absolute pleasure to

Have an opportunity to speak with you exchange thoughts learn from you as well continued success to yourself and and to your family I know your son also does does great work in this in this in this landscape so uh uh I know you’ll be coming to Portugal later later this year so

Um enjoy it enjoy it when that happens okay very well again uh absolute pleasure to speak with with Don Tapscott who’s uh broken down the second era of the digital age and given us valuable insights and shared his expertise as well on blockchain web3 touched a little

Bit on AI and what needs to happen to make sure this technology can be used to contribute positively to our society that’ll do it for this episode see you again soon on the it’s not that simple series Foreign