Interview with Alfred Shaffir, co-founder at iOlite Foundation

iOlite Foundation recently introduced a smart human-machine translator to convert code back and forth between blockchain virtual machine code and various interfaces. In short, it’s now easier to create smart contracts on the blockchain; plus, you don’t need to learn a specific programming language. We talked with Alfred Shaffir, co-founder at iOlite Foundation about all this and more.

JAXenter: iOlite Foundation just launched a smart human-machine translator to convert code back and forth between blockchain virtual machine code and various interfaces, include popular programming languages. Which languages are we talking about?

Alfred Shaffir: If you are not good at Solidity, you can use your own language to create smart contracts! To assist those who want to build smart contracts, iOlite intends to build a platform that will allow anyone to write high-quality smart contracts using various languages, both spoken (like English or Russian) and programming (like Java, C++, Python, etc.) This platform will utilize blockchain and machine learning technologies that will accept text in any language as an input, and then instantly convert it into smart contracts with the help of iOlite’s Fast Adoption Engine (FAE.)”

JAXenter: Is this basically Google Translate for blockchain-powered smart contracts? How would that work?

Alfred Shaffir: Translator is not the best word as it is more of a converter. We’ve officially called a Fast Adaptation Engine. iOlite is a blockchain-based platform that simplifies the human-machine interface and also makes it easier to create smart contracts. Our organization, iOlite Foundation, is a non-profit that aims to make smart contracts adaptable in the real world, by converting smart contracts written in other programming languages, such as JavaScript or C++, into smart contract languages such as Solidity. We are also working on the conversion of input text in natural languages into smart contract code using its Fast Adaptation Engine (FAE). We ultimately want to create a pool of vocabularies (word structure definitions) and solutions for various contracts used for different applications.

JAXenter: What is the immediate benefit of having a smart human-machine translator?

Alfred Shaffir: An immediate increase in operational efficiency. Processes that required the involvement of a programmer, such as BOT creation, website, app etc, will now be created by the very people that needed them in the first place. Saving time and money. It allows rapid prototyping as well and gives business who are using iOlite the opportunity to create new business models based on our FAE technology.

SEE ALSO: Making smart contracts safe with Hyperledger Sawtooth

JAXenter: Before this translator, what was the best programming language to create smart contracts on the blockchain?

Alfred Shaffir: The currently unrivaled smart contracts programming language is Solidity for the Ethereum blockchain.

JAXenter: iOlite is motivated by major achievements within the machine learning industry. What do you mean by that?

Alfred Shaffir: We are using the Stanford NLP engine which is a very strong piece of ML.

Game which uses this engine (we made a derived version with tokens on the blockchain). Here’s the research paper on Stanford NLP.

JAXenter: How can we bridge the gap between mainstream developers and blockchain specialists?How easy/hard is it for developers to write their own smart contracts?

Alfred Shaffir: It’s not easy if it is a centralized solution or created by a centralized organization. This is because leading programming languages are changing and to cover a full language it would be practically impossible due endless updates and possibilities, e.g. today it’s Solidity for Ethereum tomorrow it will be another trending blockchain with its own programming language.

On the other hand, when the language required to be “gapped” is being required by the community, the same community out of which experts are assisting in creating the necessary “bridging”, this would have the necessary flexibility and generic solution that will work.

SEE ALSO: From Java to blockchain: How to become a blockchain developer

JAXenter: How much value is stored in smart contracts? What can they actually do and what are the misconceptions about them?

Alfred Shaffir: A smart contract is a relatively very small program. An app that is executed/running at the same time on a distributed network of processing units, nodes, i.e a Blockchain.

The value stored in these smart contracts is derived from the underlying deal which they represent. The simplest example would be different contribution levels during a token sale event. Some smart contracts will have bigger amounts than others.

One of the misconceptions about smart contracts is that they are “Smart.” Smart contracts are pretty simple programs with well defined logical conditions. They are as smart and the programmers that wrote and audited them.

Thank you!

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