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Comment by michaelmior | Hacker News Reader

> Hi, I am AI and Blockchain-Powered SummarizeBot!

I assume the expected reaction is "Cool! They use blockchain." My reaction is moreso, "What on earth does this have to do with blockchain?"

> We apply decentralized architecture to train and test our AI models. Using blockchain technology helps us not only to get more training data but also to improve the trustworthiness of our algorithms.

I still don't understand what this has to do with blockchain.

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> I still don't understand what this has to do with blockchain.

Funding from VCs?

True story. I met a guy who was looking for a tech co-founder and had an idea that will use blockchain. I challenged him on the reason behind the use of blockchain and he literally said "Investors like to hear buzzwords and at this time, I am looking to raise funding". His idea wasn't bad but he couldn't justify using blockchain to implement it. I pressed him further and asked if he was willing to implement the idea without blockchain and he just wasn't interested. he said "blockchain is the hot thing right now and I want to build this using blockchain". So in other words, it was more important for him that blockchain was used than focussing on the actual idea.

Honestly, that's hysterical even for HBO's Silicon Valley. As someone who has never lived in or experienced Silicon Valley, I always assumed the show was a bit of an exaggeration. But people like this are proof that it's not. It's a documentary with a comedic element.

Assume not, many of the moments in the show have been lived by myself and others. More so - I think the reality is that the truth goes even further than the fictional works we see.

I know people like that. They grew up from the students who did everything exactly like the teacher said, even if there was obvious (honest) mistake.

Did he get the funding though?

this

Yes. A friend works in a company where management started asking devs if they could use blockchain somewhere in the existing product (that has absolutely zero need for it), because they believed that being able to say they use "blockchain" will make it easier to get funding.

Blockchain is everywhere now, it's even built in to MS-Office with this service https://www.microsoft.com/developerblog/2017/04/10/stampery-... sowhy not something like a summarizer as well.I am just waiting for the office admin people to ask me to verify my documents with this.

Most likely a dev wanting to play with cool new tech for not-very-good reasons, and no adult supervision preventing this.

Possibly. There's absolutely nothing wrong with building something with new tech just for fun, but when you're trying to build a business of course you have to think about whether it actually adds value.

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