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On one hand, a few years ago no one could have predicted autonomous driving to become a subject so popular and already becoming a reality in a time so short. On the other, people now complain that the feature is not yet globally available and it’s only a beta version, attacking Elon Musk for predicting full self-drive (FSD) becoming ready each year until it actually did (at least the beta). He also predicted that one year after that, cars will become better drivers than humans, so are we already there? Currently, FSD beta, Tesla’s name for the full autonomous driving feature, is used by over 100,000 people. If we take the average statistics for U.S. drivers, there are 12.4 fatal accidents per year per 100,000 people and 163 accidents with injuries each month. FSD beta has been deployed to over 60,000 people for around 5 months now with the last month having over 100,000 users with no injury or fatality resulting accidents reported.

Of course, there have been many incidents with Tesla cars and a lot of accidents filmed (there have also been a lot of accidents prevented on camera by Tesla cars), but we will have to assume that FSD beta was probably not involved and stick to autonomous driving caused accident rate. With that being said, statistics do not represent the full story. Firstly, only 100,000 drivers use it as opposed to the U.S. population from which the 100,000 average was calculated which means the sample of drivers that use FSD beta could just be an outlier. Moreover, Tesla has carefully selected the drivers to whom they deployed the option to use FSD beta, choosing only those with the highest safety score, meaning they already had a much better average for avoiding accidents. Not only that, but we also have to consider that the sample of people that afford and buy Tesla cars are not at all representative of the U.S. population on average. These are mostly people over 30 years old with a good education and a responsible life overall. Taking all of these into account, we could say that the people that have and use FSD beta in no way are a yardstick for the average population and those statistics could be much different had FSD beta been released to a more diverse group of people. We can only wait for autonomous driving to be more widely deployed by both Tesla and other car companies before we can make a fair comparison between humans and cars when it comes to driving safety.

References:
[1] Elon Musk updates timeline for a self-driving car, but how does Tesla play into it? (2017) https://electrek.co/2017/12/08/elon-musk-tesla-self-driving-timeline/
[2] Tesla Full Self Driving Actually Safer Than Human Drivers So Far (2022) https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2022/04/actual-safety-statistics-around-tesla-full-self-driving.html

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Blockchain. In the past 10 years, the term has become more and more popular thanks to the cryptocurrency known as Bitcoin. As the first and most popular cryptocurrency in the world, everyone came to know blockchain as the technology on which Bitcoin was based.

Six years after its release, around 2014, people began to separate blockchain technology from its original use and began exploring its potential in other ventures. Not long after, Ethereum was created, again highlighting the use for creating cryptocurrencies but now with the purpose of creating a blockchain system with the scope of further penetrating the financial industry with a technology now known as a smart contract.

So how does blockchain actually work?

Blockchain is a shared, immutable ledger that facilitates the process of recording transactions and tracking assets in a business network with the scope of making it immune to hacking or fraud. Although the process which makes it so secure and how it works is a bit more complicated, what is important to establish its possible applications is that it can record information that cannot be modified without all parties being able to see it, both the old and the new versions.

What are the possible uses for blockchain technology outside of cryptocurrency?

1. Public and Private information/records:
In 2021, around 42 million people in America were victims of identity fraud according to the AARP. This could be prevented by moving social security numbers, birth certificates, and other sensitive information on a decentralized blockchain ledger.

2. Healthcare Industry:
Similarly, health records and medical history of patients could be stored using blockchain technology, which could improve the collection and accessing of data, reducing costs for hospitals and saving time for medical personnel.

3. Blockchain Logistics:
Given the size of the worldwide supply chain and the number of stakeholders and participants, a blockchain ledger, alongside other blockchain technologies, could improve trust and efficiency in the industry. With records impossible to modify, there would be less stealing, fraud and delays. This can be connected with the supply system of retailers to further improve the process.

There are lot more applications that show promise or that haven’t been tested yet such as blockchain’s use in governmental institutions, media, commerce, payments, insurance, automotive, and manufacturing. In conclusion, I think blockchain has real potential when it comes to useful applications and although most people associate it with cryptocurrency, I think in the next decade more and more uses of blockchain will increase its popularity in real-world business problems.

Reference List:

[1] 34 Blockchain Applications and Real-World Use Cases. https://builtin.com/blockchain/blockchain-applications

[2] Applications of Blockchain Technologies. https://medium.com/@kalyanicynixit/applications-of-blockchain-technology-f1021a74613b

[3] History of Blockchain. https://www.icaew.com/technical/technology/blockchain-and-cryptoassets/blockchain-articles/what-is-blockchain/history

[4] What is blockchain technology? https://www.ibm.com/topics/what-is-blockchain

[5] Blockchain for industries. https://www.ibm.com/blockchain/industries