Google's Untrendy Play to Make the Blockchain Actually Useful

Google's Untrendy Play to Make the Blockchain Actually Useful
AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez, File

For Silicon Valley, the headline was sweet nectar: Google DeepMind, the world's hottest artificial intelligence lab, embraces the blockchain, the endlessly fascinating idea at the heart of the bitcoin digital currency.

But the buzzwords bely the reality. The lab's re-imagining of the blockchain has very little to do with AI—or the blockchain, for that matter. If you want AI crossed with the blockchain, try wrapping your head around Numerai, the world's strangest hedge fund. To DeepMind's credit, its new project depends less on trendy ideas than an apparent desire to solve a real problem in the real world—one that involves the most private and personal information.

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