There exist few projects in the cryptocurrency universe that are as exciting and carry as much potential as our partner Neuromation. By combining blockchain technology, distributed computing systems, and a democratized platform, they present a solution that could have dramatic impact in every industry around the globe. The Neuromation team burst into 2018 by raising over 73 million dollars, hitting their hardcap goal in less than a day during their ICO. They have received a variety of positive press coverage from major news outlets and have already launched a functioning version of their revolutionary platform, and things have only just begun.
To grasp the full potential of Neuromation, it is important to understand some key concepts about the nature of what their team is offering with the platform that they have built. In the realm of AI, the phrase deep learning has attained nearly buzz-word status, with little elaboration to the layman about what it actually is. In its simplest form, deep learning is the process of feeding a computer a vast amount of data, and then the computer uses it to make decisions about other data. This brings us to our next often used phrase, neural networks. The previously mentioned data is fed through neural networks, which are sets of algorithms designed to recognize patterns, whether they be text, sound, images, etc. Combining these two together and you get deep neural networks, which are networks that are complex enough to deal with classifying enormous datasets.
The inherent issue with such enormous datasets is that the process of labeling them alone requires immense manpower and large time investments. For Neuromation to scale across the globe and across industries, the process of labeling large amounts of gathered data would need to be greatly expedited to a point beyond human capability. This hurdle led to the ultimate decision of training deep neural networks using synthetic data. Synthetic data presents several benefits over real data in that rather than having to manually label a large number of real images, a 3D model is rendered once, and different textures (surfaces) can be applied to the model. The synthetic modeling also gives complete control of the scene, and thus provides the ability to provide labeling that would be impossible to do by hand, such as knowing the exact distance from the camera to every object.
However, even with the switch to synthetic data, great numbers of 3D scenes will need to be rendered, and then the deep neural networks must be trained on these images. These processes both require an immense amount of computational power. Simply purchasing an adequate number of GPUs to power the platform would be impossible and renting cloud-based systems that provide computational power is costly. Enter the world of blockchain and crypto-mining. Neuromation solves the issue of computational power by utilizing distributed computing, along with blockchain proof-of-work tokens, to completely revolutionize AI model development. Currently, crypto-miners earn much less than rentable, cloud-based GPU farms. The Neuromation platform was created to unite miners seeking to earn more on their equipment and AI startups, researchers, and any companies with a need for processing large datasets or training of modern machine learning models. Miners are able to earn 3 to 5 times more from “knowledge mining” on the Neuromation platform than with traditional cryptocurrency mining. In turn, this will provide companies with access to algorithmic training structures that could otherwise not afford it.
The Neuromation platform has game-changing implications in nearly every industry imaginable. For example, the team first began with object detection in retail. Large brands pay to ensure their products remain on shelves, even in specific places on shelves, and retailers employ large staffs to make sure that all items are stocked and displayed correctly. The Neuromation answer to those laborious and costly process would be to install inexpensive cameras that capture images, perhaps a single frame per minute, and transmit them to a server, where a recognition model verifies brands and placement. While a single image every minute does not seem like a lot, consider that it would be virtually impossible to have this sort of check going on utilizing human labor, especially across many stores.
In the realm of healthcare, Neuromation has already announced an exciting partnership with Longenesis, a blockchain-based Life Data Marketplace. Longensis aims to empower individuals, rather than corporations, to store and monetize their personal data such as medical history, lab work results, and other sensitive, valuable information in a blockchain system. This will allow healthcare application developers direct access to secure, personalized data. Additionally, it will provide higher security and privacy to patients, as well as a reduction in administrative work for doctors, allowing them to focus more on patient care. Together, Neuromation and Longenesis will provide both the data and computational power necessary to train AI models to dramatically improve healthcare throughout the world.
The possibilities and implications for the Neuromation technology are nearly endless. By creating a platform that allows miners to make better use of their rigs for more profit, while simultaneously providing AI researchers and entrepreneurs a much more affordable means of harnessing vast computer power for implementation of their ideas, Neuromation is propelling us into the future of democratized artificial intelligence. We at HappyMod could not be more excited to be so closely affiliated with their wonderful team. Our team witnessed firsthand through handling their ICO the amount of interest and passion surrounding this project and look forward to continue working with them. There is much to come from the Neuromation and HappyMod camps soon that we cannot wait to show you.
