Aspects of Our Technological Future

In their important and thought-provoking book, The Future of the Professions, 1 Daniel and Richard Susskind posit two possible futures for the established professions, both scenarios resting on technology

• the first, a comforting and comfortable time ahead in which technology streamlines, optimizes, and complements professional life and work;

• the second, a dystopian future in which increasingly capable systems and machines [designed and operated by IT professionals] gradually take on more of the tasks associated with the established professions until professionals [such as lawyers and Notaries] are effectively replaced.2

Peter Zablud, AM, RFD

secure their places in the first possible future scenario advanced by the Susskinds.

Notaries and their firms are steadily turning to cloud data services to meet their document management and storage needs.

Since the introduction of personal computers in the mid-1970s, followed by the public availability of the World Wide Web from 1991, several significant and far-reaching developments in information and communications technology have become widely and generally available, including cloud data services, videoconferencing, and the now-ubiquitous smartphone. Overwhelmingly at present, Notaries are armed with personal computers, laptops, tablets, and smartphones. Notaries and their firms are steadily turning to cloud data services to meet their document management and storage needs. Spurred on by the Pandemic, videoconferencing has become a norm.

Competence

They go on to say that during the medium term, the two futures will be realized in parallel. Dishearteningly, their general view is that, although by virtue of technological progress, new and more efficient ways to solve important problems will undoubtedly arise, in the long run new technologies are an existential threat to many professionals.3

As the digital environment continues to evolve, it becomes increasingly important for Notaries to actively embrace new and emerging technologies if they wish to

To function effectively during the coming years, it is essential that Notaries be digitally competent. The basic competencies involve being able to

• browse, search, evaluate, and manage data, information, and digital content;

• interact, share information and collaborate with government, people, and entities (in Canada and abroad) through the use of digital technologies;

• understand copyright and licences;

• prepare, revise, integrate, and disseminate digital content;

3 Ibid protect devices, personal data, and [important] privacy;

• keep up-to-date with new technologies as they emerge; and

• solve elementary technical problems.4

Achieving a sufficient level of digital competence may prove difficult for some professionals. It is clear from observing and conversing with many of the younger generation, that they mostly have the skills required to provide a smooth pathway to digitally competent professional practice.

Paperless Practice?

Currently, many government, commercial, and professional services have already been moved or are soon to be moved into the digital environment, thereby reducing their use of paper and paper-based document-management systems. But as far as most Notaries are concerned, for notarizations for international purposes, paper is still king, and [with apologies to Marshall McLuhan] paper continues to be the principal medium for the Notarial message.

On June 30, 1975, in its leading article, “The Office of the Future,” the American magazine BusinessWeek confidently opined that by the year 2000, commercial and professional offices would be substantially paperless.

In their 2001 book, The Myth of the Paperless Office, 5 Abigail Sellen and Richard Harper wrote:

As we write this book, we have paper all around us. …One has only to look at any workplace to see how firmly paper is woven into the fabric of our lives. …It seems that the promised “paperless office” is as much a mythical ideal today as it was thirty years ago.6

4 Adapted from European Commission, Joint Research Centre, DigiComp 2.2, The Digital Competence Framework for Citizens: with new examples of knowledge, skills, and attitudes. (Publications Office, 2022) <http://publications.frc. ec.europa.eu/repository/handle JRC128415>.

Also see Catalina Jodache, Ilse Mariën and Dorien Baelden, Developing Digital Skills and Competencies: A Quick Scan Analysis of 13 Digital Literacy Models, (Italian Journal of Sociology of Education 9(1) 2017), 6.

5 Abigail J. Sellen and Richard H.R. Harper, The Myth of the Paperless Office (The MIT Press, 2001).

More than 2 decades on, almost nothing has changed. The world’s love affair with paper continues unabated and shows little sign of ending. For Notaries and other professionals, “paperless” does not mean dispensing with paper altogether. It means using less paper while at the same time taking on available technologies to modernize work practices and office procedures.

Three Emerging Technologies

Of the presently known emerging technologies, three in particular are considered to bear upon future legal and Notarial practice in countries such as Canada. They are

• Artificial Intelligence (“AI”);

• The Next-Generation Internet (“the Metaverse”); and

• Distributed Ledger Technology (“Blockchain”).

Artificial Intelligence

At its simplest, AI is “the capacity of computers or other machines to exhibit or simulate intelligent behaviour.”7

AI is of course far from a simple matter. According to leading British AI scientist and commentator Professor Stuart Russell, OBE, “AI… is the dominant technology of the future.8 Success [in inventing superintelligent AI] would be the biggest event in human history…and perhaps the last event in human history.”9

AI is the branch of computer science that deals with the simulation of intelligent, i.e., human-like, behaviour in computers, such as planning activities, moving around in a physical environment, recognizing objects and sounds, speaking, and translating.

“Machine learning” (“ML”) is the subset of AI that uses algorithms [procedures used for solving a problem or performing a computation] to select, organize, and present data and learn from doing so to make a determination or prediction about certain things or events.

6 Ibid. 1 and 2.

Thereby giving support and credence to Sir Arthur Clarke’s dictum, “It is impossible to predict the future, and all attempts to do so in any detail appear ludicrous within a very few years.” Arthur C. Clarke Profiles of the Future. An Inquiry into the Limits of the Possible (Harper & Row, revised ed, 1973), xiii.

7 Entry for Artificial Intelligence (Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd ed, 2008).

8 Stuart Russell, Human Compatible: Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control, (Penguin Books, 2020), ix.

9 Ibid. 3.

Also see, Stuart Russell, Living with Artificial Intelligence, (2021 Reith Lectures transcripts). Found at <bbc.co.ui/programmes/b00729d9/episodes/player>.

AI’s capabilities are built on ML and it uses the determinations and predictions to solve problems faster and more efficiently than humans are able to do. For example, finding the winning move in a chess game or identifying which chemical molecules can create a new antibiotic that scientists at America’s Massachusetts Institute of Technology achieved in 2020—naming the antibiotic “Halcin” after the computer HAL in Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film, 2001: A Space Odyssey.10

In the popular mind, AI is best exemplified by sentient robots created by Hollywood such as R2D2 and C3PO in Star Wars and Lt. Commander Data in Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Doubtless, one day sentient robots will emerge and be a feature of the future; but in the interim, as the scientific community strives to develop AI-powered machines able to think, feel, and express emotions, it is useful for them to remember that the creation of sentient machines has been a Holy Grail pursued by humanity since at least Biblical times and that “few of the miraculous automata attributed to inventors and thinkers from Archimedes to Descartes have materialized beyond legend.”11 They should also take the trouble to recall and heed the adage, “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.”

Although sentient robots remain the stuff of science fiction, AI has quietly slipped into modern life as the technology facilitating significant advances in fields as diverse as conveyancing (in British Columbia and jurisdictions abroad), education, legal research, medical imaging and diagnostics supply chain management, and tourism. Social media platforms, virtual assistants such as “Alexa” and “Siri,” digital wallets, passport and ID document verification, voice recognition and translation software, and e-signature services are among the very many AI-driven applications in general communal and commercial use.

10 Arthur Herman, “Who Will Control the Machines?” (Commentary Magazine, Volume 153, February 2022) 45.

See also, Stuart Russell, Intelligence in Humans and Machines (Chapter 2 in Human Compatible, (above n5).

No AI applications specifically directed toward supporting and enhancing the international role and function of common law Notaries have yet come on the market, but there are a number of AI-based tools available, including AI-based Generative Pre-trained Transformer (“GPT”) applications that Notaries could usefully take onboard to assist in the promotion and conduct of their practices.

The Metaverse

“Metaverse” is a portmanteau of meta (after or beyond) and Universe, apparently devised and first used by the American science fiction writer Neal Stephenson in his 1992 novel, Snow Crash.

Supported by the currently embryonic 6G wireless communications technology, the Metaverse will be a postreality universe that is a perpetual and persistent multiuser environment merging physical reality with digital virtuality. It is based on the convergence of technologies [such as virtual reality (“VR”) and augmented reality (“AR”)] that enable multisensory interactions with virtual environments, digital objects, and people. …Hence, the Metaverse is an interconnected web of social, networked immersive environments in persistent multiuser platforms. It enables seamless embodied user communication in real-time and dynamic interactions with digital artifacts.

Its first iteration was a web of virtual worlds where avatars were able to teleport among them. The contemporary iteration of the Metaverse features social, immersive VR platforms compatible with massive multiplayer online video games, open game worlds, and AR collaborative spaces.12

Presently there is an intense race to construct the infrastructure, protocols, and standards that will govern the Metaverse. Large corporations [including Amazon, Apple, Disney, Google, and Microsoft] are endeavouring to construct their closed proprietary hardware and software ecosystems to attract users and become the de facto Metaverse destination.13

11 Jessica Riskin (ed), Genesis Redux : Essays in the History and Philosophy of Artificial Life, (University of Chicago Press, 2007), 267

See also, Gaby Wood Edison’s Eve : a Magical History of the Quest for Mechanical Life (Alfred A Knopf, Inc. 2002)

12 Stylianos Mystakidis, [entry for] Metaverse in the E-encyclopaedia (MDPI, Basel) 2022.

13 Ibid.

On October 31, 2008, the [as yet unidentified] pseudonymous person(s) Satoshi Nakamoto published a White Paper, “Bitcoin: A Peer to Peer Electronic Cash System.”14 In January 2009, Nakamoto launched the cryptocurrency “Bitcoin” based upon the Blockchain technology described in the Paper.

It took practically no time for Blockchain to be touted as a major technology of the future that, among other things, would see the end of traditionally trusted intermediaries, in a wide range of activities, including the verification and authentication of commercial, legal, and public documents, while at the same time reducing the risks of tampering and fraud.15

Blockchain is a tamper-evident and tamper-resistant cryptographically protected decentralized digital ledger (record of transactions) database—validated, maintained, and supervised by a network of computers known as “nodes.”

The basic unit in a Blockchain is a parcel of data known as a “Block.” Blocks are cryptographically securely linked together to form a continuous chain. Hence, “Blockchain.”

The rationale behind Blockchain is that participants interacting within the system do not necessarily have to know or trust each other, but are still able to transact securely. The system itself creates trust in the transaction(s).

No technology has stirred up so much popular passion since the advent of the Internet and none has sparked so much controversy beyond the confines of the mysterious universe of information technology specialists.16

Blockchain’s potential has been emphatically, albeit somewhat hyperbolically, described in the following way.

[In the world of the future] every agreement, every process, every task, and every payment would have a digital record and signature that could be identified validated, stored, and shared. Intermediaries like lawyers, brokers, and bankers might no longer be necessary. Individuals, organizations, machines, and algorithms would freely transact and interact with one another with little friction. This is the immense potential of blockchain.17

That “immense potential” is subject to the provisos that …if there is to be a blockchain revolution, many barriers—technological, governance, organizational, and even societal—will have to fall.

True blockchain-led transformation of business and government…is still many years away. …While the impact will be enormous, it will take decades for Blockchain to seep into our economic and social infrastructure. The process of adoption will be gradual and steady, not sudden, as waves of technological and institutional change gain momentum.18

So far, opinion in commercial and legal circles is sharply divided as to the utility of Blockchain as a practical means of generating, storing, accessing, and authenticating documents of all descriptions.

On one hand, it is seen as an indispensable solution for every present-day problem arising from the use and abuse of paper instruments of all kinds; on the other, it is seen as a solution looking for a problem, or as one pundit has put it, Blockchain is a case of

14 A “White Paper” is the first document [people] should read to better understand a core concept or idea (Wikipedia). The term originated in Britain in the 1920s when government papers were colour-coded for distribution purposes. “White” papers were for public access. The Nakamoto White Paper may be found at <https://bitcoin.org/en/bitcoin-paper>

15 See e.g., T Shah, S Kadam, et al, Web based Voting Frameworks using Blockchain Technology (2010) PDF Smjournals.com. and Y.H. Lim, H. Haslim, et al, Blockchain Technologies in E-commerce, Social Shopping and Loyalty Program Applications (2011) researchgate.net.

Also see, Marcela M Gomez, et al, Is Blockchain the next step in the eVolution of [Market] intermediaries? (TPRC47: The 47th Research Conference on Communication Information and Internet Policy 2019).

16 Emmanuelle Ganne, Can Blockchain revolutionise international trade? (2018) WTO Publications, Switzerland, 2.

17 Marco Iansiti and Karim R. Lakhani, The Truth about Blockchain in Blockchain: Insights you Need from Harvard Business Review (Harvard Business Review Press, 2019), 6.

18 Ibid.

“an extraordinary technology in search of an ordinary use.”19

Whatever the Fates have in store for the technology, as far as Notaries in all jurisdictions are concerned, the efficacy and effect of Blockchain are yet to be proved.

Blockchain Unravelled

Blockchain is a mathematically and technically complex methodology that remains a closed book for most people. The following notes compiled from a number of sources are offered to provide a simplified outline of key aspects of the technology (other than as it relates to cryptocurrency).20

• Blockchain is implemented

◊ without a central data repository;

◊ usually without a central authority such as a bank or a government entity; and

◊ by enabling a community of participants to record and access transactions within the community, so that normally a transaction cannot be changed once it has been recorded.

• As required for the purposes of each individual transaction, the elemental data in every Block in the chain comprises alphanumeric information and any necessary [digitized] appurtenant materials such as maps, plans, photographs, illustrations, film and video images, and speech, music, and sound effects.

• The “Genesis Block” also known as “Block 0” (Block Zero) is the first or foundation Block in a Blockchain. Anyone may set up a Genesis Block for a proposed specific purpose by using a commercially available software package or the services of a professional Service Provider (generally the latter).

19 Atlantic Magazine staff writer, Derek Thompson Online Newsletter (Blog) 23 November 2022.

20 The principal sources, in alphabetical order

• Bambosa, Joseph J, and Allen, Paul R, et al, Blockchain: a practical guide to developing business, law and technology solutions (McGraw Hill, 2018)

• Monash Blockchain Technology Centre (<https:www.monash.edu.blockchain>.

• Other than creators of Genesis Blocks, most participants in a Blockchain transaction use one of the increasing number of available commercial Blockchain Platforms to assist them.

• Save for the Genesis Block, (which has no previous Block to reference), each Block contains a one-way cryptographic mathematical algorithm (a set of rules for calculations or problem-solving) known as a “hash” of the previous Block in the chain, as well as all the transaction data and a time stamp—the hash function is used to connect the Block to the previous Block and to secure and verify the data in it.

• A transaction is implemented and managed by a so-called “peer to peer” network of computers. Each computer in the network is known as a “node.” Each node is not necessarily connected to every other node.

• Currently, nodes are overwhelmingly PCs, Macs, or Tablets, but it is expected that newer generations of smartphones and handheld devices will have sufficient computational power and storage to be used as nodes.

• The number of nodes required for particular transactions varies and is determined by transactional requirements.

• Blockchains may be

◊ Public Blockchains, i.e., Permissionless; anyone can join them;

◊ Private Blockchains, i.e., Permissioned; participation is restricted and is usually limited to a business network where a single entity or consortium controls membership; or

• Hybrid Blockchains, i.e., that use components of both Public and Private Blockchains).

• Access controls embedded in the system for a specific transaction are designed to prevent the insertion of data and resources into the chain by

• The OECD Blockchain Primer (OECD undated) www.oecd.org/finance/blockchain.

• Tapscott, Don, et al Blockchain: The Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review (Harvard Business Review, 2019).

• Wikipedia Online Encyclopaedia.

“Blockchain”

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Visit: efry.com/donate-now unauthorized participants or by malevolent persons. Attempts to introduce new or different data are generally immediately detected and result in the deletion of the [introduced] transaction record. Problems are arising from attacks by hackers and cybercriminals but researchers are constantly developing new means of improving Blockchain security.

• The well-known rule, “Garbage in Garbage out,” i.e., information is only as good as its source, applies to Blockchain transactions.

Learn More about Blockchain

Fortunately, Canada has a significant number of private enterprise organizations and tertiary education institutions offering quality courses of instruction in Blockchain technology. For example, in British Columbia, UBC has an online program leading to the award of a “UBC MicroCertificate in Blockchain Innovation and Implementation.”

“The SFU Blockchain Club” hosted by Simon Fraser University could well be worth considering by Notaries and other professionals generally.

Epilogue

Observations about Technological Change21

• It is a delusion to believe that the wisdom of the ages has been rendered irrelevant by the technological changes of our era.

• You would be surprised by how many people believe that new technologies are unmixed blessings.

• All technological change is a Faustian bargain; for every advantage a new technology offers, there is always a corresponding disadvantage.

• The advantages and disadvantages of new technologies are never distributed evenly among the population. Every new technology benefits some and harms others. There are even some who are not affected at all.

• The consequences of technological change are always vast, often unpredictable, and largely irreversible.

• We must proceed with our eyes wide open so that we may use technology rather than be used by it. ▲

Professor Peter Zablud, AM, RFD, is an Australian Lawyer, Notary, and the Director of Notarial Studies, Victoria University, Melbourne.