“The best way to predict the future is to invent it” — Alan Kay.

The Internet of Things is still in the beginning stages of adoption among the consumer and enterprise facets. There are currently more devices connected to the Internet than humans, and this trend is predicted to continue at an accelerated rate. Analysts estimate that by 2020, 26 billion “things” will be connected to the Internet. Robots no longer exist among humans, and are slowly beginning to inhabit the world of machines.

With all of IoT’s cool features that continually enhance our lives we tend to severely underestimate or even completely disregard the potential threats coupled with advanced, tech-enabled living. Our smart devices surround us on a daily basis and accumulate an abundance of data. From our financial information to physical location, all this data is extremely valuable and sensitive. Imagine if this exploitable data was to end up in the wrong hands. What happens if a person or a company to whom you entrusted your smart devices’ operations decides to quit the business?

The more likely scenario takes place when you lose one of the devices connected to the entire IoT infrastructure of your apartment. Since this device stores access to the network of your smart gadgets, it can serve as an entry point for a potential attack. This could grant an attacker access to sensitive data like your bank account information, pictures stored on your phone, contact details of your address book, your mailbox access or even social networks login information. Depending on how integrated to the digital world you are the list continues, and you may not even be aware of some of the information you share.

Data security is only a part of a bigger question about how to meaningfully integrate smart devices to our economic relationships; beyond just cool and geeky features at home. How do we configure human-to-robot or robot-to-robot interactions in a practical way that would take us one step closer to a tech-enabled future with no security tradeoffs or vulnerabilities? How do we enable automation without a single party controlling the processes that we establish and data that we generate?

The video explores these questions:

Video explaining robot economy

Up until recently, people could directly control robots performing specific tasks with their help. But today Cyber Physical Systems comprised of robots are becoming more complex and the level of involvement of robots into human economy increases every day. Same questions people answer when they form market relationships with each other — what kind of work needs to be performed and at what price — are the questions relevant for robots that start integrating in the economy. With creation of smart contracts, robots can address these questions in a decentralized manner. They can now interact with ownership rights and liabilities, create value, and satisfy their own needs. The infrastructure organizing the process of maintaining interactions between robots and people becomes the economy of robots. Robonomics Protocol that Airalab team has been working on for the last two years, enables that economy.