Bitcoin Global News (BGN)
April 24, 2018 -- ADVFN Crypto NewsWire -- How can we understand
something that’s named after a famous German novel and a popular
role-playing game monster, at the same time? First of all, it’s got
nothing to do with these things except in terms of how a golem can
be made from anything and the Golem
network hopes to be the platform for essentially
any technology project.
Second of all, the Golem network
has only been around since 2017, so its actually still in its early
stages. Despite this, there are a few implications that can be
drawn from the current information on the network that seem to be
quite promising for the future.
To begin, it’s designed to be,
according to the Golem team, “the Airbnb for computers.” This means
that it works like a sharing network for computers which are
willing to give up the processing space that they are not
using.
Essentially, part of the brain of
your computer is offered up for others to use in a connected
network of a large amount of computers that are willing to do the
same. When they are all connected, they theoretically form the
world’s most powerful computer or supercomputer.
In this way, at least in theory, a
lot of projects which would require considerably high budgets
as well as large amounts of resources, can be more efficiently, and
in cheaper ways.
Using the system is fairly simple
on the surface. To begin, users log on and use Golem tokens, which
is a native ERC20 token and plans to remain that way, to pay for
available computing power. Despite this easy beginning, the rest of
the process of connecting to other available computers is quite
technically involved and thus, quite suited for those with a vast
knowledge of computing.
Because the project is in its early
stages, again, a lot of this is theoretical, although the network
has one working product at this point. Users can get on to run
large-scale CGI projects without access to supercomputers. Thus,
time and money is being saved, directly, just based on these
considerations.
Judging by press on the network
related to its future plans, Golem has one of the most striking
visions in the space. Reportedly, they are working their way over
the long term towards enabling and facilitating the creation of
some sort of benevolent AI. In other words, there would be an
Artificial Intelligence system on the network that could learn from
the network and improve upon itself but based on how it would be
coded, it would be incapable of doing harm.
At this point, this is almost
simply supposition but it would be a striking development in any
industry. One road which could lead to the Golem team’s primary
goal coming about quickly would be thebeginnign of
widespread Quantum
computing.
For the purposes of brevity and
clarity, suffice it to say that Quantum computing will speed up our
existing computers by a significant amount as well as make all
networks and products obsolete that are not ready for it. On the
side of the Golem network, however, speeding up the network and
making it more efficient could lead to its rapid adoption as the
go-to solution for all ambitious technology projects. Even with
faster computers, Golem would stand as the logical addition to them
because it would push forward even Quantum computing’s
speed.
Despite these promising areas that
it already has and has mentioned, the Golem network does not exist
without internal and external risk factors. In short, some of the
biggest risks include the advent of edge
computing, which would bring the capability of all
computers existing mainly on a new type of local network. In short,
with edge computing, we wouldn’t quite need the Internet, all of
the time.
Secondly, Golem’s future rests with
the Ethereum network. The team has announced their intention to
stay with ERC20 tokens to fund the network. The product’s also
essentially an Ethereum-based application,
so with Ethereum’s failure comes Golem’s failure and vice-versa. A
final risk that is actually quite possible is that the Golem
network one day becomes too powerful and causes harm in some way.
Despite this possibility and despite Golem’s existence, it’s safe
to say that we don’t have to fear the coming of a Skynet, just yet.
By: BGN Editorial Staff