Those are some of the main takeaways from this week’s episode of “Bitcoin Class with Satoshi,” a series of video masterclasses between teacher Dr.
The episode’s title is “DFAs and Financial Contracts.” DFA are “deterministic finite automata,” and Dr.
Wright dislikes this term, calling it “misleading at best, coming close to fraudulent at worst.” A smart contract, he said, cannot be called “smart.” “A mechanical elevator button from 100 years ago is as ‘smart’ as any blockchain,” he says.
Bitcoin is basically a much better and more complex form of EDI; more automatable and with a permanent proof trail.
A machine’s job is to act on the instructions it is given, and even if it appears to be “thinking” for itself, it’s still simply acting on the algorithms and processes it was originally given.
Partial automation is entirely possible, though the Bitcoin blockchain itself is simply the ledger of what has occurred.
But if some computation is performed off-chain, how do you know someone has/hasn’t cheated? There are several ways, using a combination of programmable processes and some very-human economic or social incentives to do the right thing.
There’s also a discussion of scenarios where all this might be needed, from horse races to promises to swap coins using processes on other blockchains outside Bitcoin, depending on price.
The mixture of how humans interact, or should interact, with the technology they use is an interesting feature of this Class.