This interview is the long-form version of a conversation with Roger Wattenhofer, Professor in Distributed Systems at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH). disco.ethz.ch
Roger Wattenhofer, Professor in Distributed Systems at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), explains the underlying technology of the blockchain and bitcoin. He is a Professor in Distributed Systems at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. disco.ethz.ch
Clips from the interview
What is the blockchain?
“Two ingredients make the blockchain: cryptography and fault-tolerant systems.”
Bitcoin and blockchain
“Some people think the blockchain is equal to bitcoin. Personally I think this is a much older topic, dating back to the 70s/80s, where people were interested in making machines fault-tolerant.”
Blockchain and trust
“We can build systems where you don’t have to trust anybody. This is a huge advantage. I wish banks would offer me this deal and not what I currently get where I have to trust them.”
Blockchain hype
“There is a huge hype for the word blockchain, but there is something deeper here that is not a hype: Technology will change business.”
Blockchain and industries
“Distributed systems will change industries. I never understood why we have so many jobs in finance, banking. I am pessimistic about them. You are better off studying a technical degree, learning the tools to build systems. This will be important in the next decade or so.”
Blockchain revolution
“I don’t think blockchain is a revolution, it has been done since the 70’s which is forever in computer science. The real revolution or evolution is that jobs will change. Computers will do a lot of the manual labor we still see in service domains today. Society must figure out what to do about this. You can have a dystopia or utopia, depending on how society decides.”
Machines and humans
“When machines are as good as humans why shouldn’t machines decide? Deep learning, AI will replace many jobs and will be more disruptive than blockchain. Machines can do amazing things. The development in the past few years made sure things are going to come. Just listen to Google’s speech synthesis. I wish we could have a robot talk for me, it would turn out much better.”