What is FarmaTrust?

Catastrophic accidents happen each year because of mistakes with pharmaceutical drugs, which includes errors in their transportation.

How can we create more transparency as well as reliability in pharmaceutical supply chains?

Farmatrust is a platform that believes it can solve this issue and more, with a little help from AI and a platform called “Zoi.”

The Tech

Zoi will be a secure, encrypted, and decentralized global tracking system for the Pharmaceutical industry which uses a combination of the Blockchain, AI, and big data analysis to enhance a company’s operational efficiencies in certain ways.

Because we’re here to speak about all things AI, above all, we’ll stick to this part of Farmatrust’s technical offering, although this will also include the specific areas that may be seen as enhancing or improving AI performance. Firstly, they’ve built in Machine Learning algorithms which are designed to improve the supply chain efficiency of the companies that use the platform. Secondly, predictive algorithms have been built in with the express purpose of making sure that all shipments of medicine get delivered on time. The exact way that all of this is possible is a bit involved. It all begins with Zoi’s predictive algorithms which provide accurate, real-time ideas of what supply levels companies have and will have, across their supply chain. At this time, little public information exists as to what periods of time will be able to be predicted, but one could reasonably assume that Farmatrust will provide typical, reasonable options that companies usually need. For example, almost every company measures its’ key areas including supply levels, by quarter or by year. On the subject of Farmatrust’s predictive algorithms, they add in their white paper that what they call their “predictive supply service,” will also be able to tell their clients what medicines need to be sent to what place, at what time, and in what quantity.

How Farmatrust’s Blockchain could improve their AI

Little more has been published about their usage of AI on Zoi, at this time. Despite this, through a basic understanding of how the platform plans to use the Blockchain, the possibility of future AI additions could also be extrapolated.

In the future, Farmatrust claims that Zoi will be available to law enforcement agencies, regulators, and even governments, at the highest possible levels. If this proves true, then it may be argued that the need for security to be prioritized across Zoi is more important than any other feature. When private data is involved, if part of the platform is compromised, everything fails as we’ve seen with major hacks like the Coincheck hack in the Cryptocurrency space as well as a wealth of others. One could also claim, at the same time, that the platform will fail if its Blockchain fails, since all of the partner data will be stored on it. Above all, zero-knowledge proofs are the key technology that will be used to anonymize this data, just as Zcash and similar cryptocurrencies do to anonymize their transactions. In their white paper, Farmatrust claims that zero-knowledge proofs can be relied upon consistently and since little information exists to dispute this claim, the opposite can’t reliably be argued. With zero knowledge proofs, on a user by user basis, all data is completely encrypted and cannot be decrypted or made readable, except by the data’s owner.

For the owner to do this, he or she has to also possess a set of seed words, similar to what are given to Crypto-wallet users when they open a wallet for the first time. Just like Crypto-wallet users only need these words when they lose their passwords, Zoi users only need them when they want to make their data available. The biggest risk related to using seed words in this way is that if they are lost, then one can reasonably assume that the data that was connected to them is also lost. In the case of companies that participate in Zoi, this means that their data is theoretically never compromised until it reaches a party that they trust with it. All in all, this signifies that Farmatrust appears to be promising trustworthy, end-to-end encryption.

What do these security features mean for the future of AI on Zoi?

Currently, it’s difficult to say but with Zero-knowledge proofs and reasonably comprehensive encryption, it will be difficult to hack the platform and even more difficult to remotely change the Machine Learning algorithms that lie below the surface and drive the “thinking” of the system. As Zoi is tested on the open market, more specific insights will arise as to its strengths and on the other side, its vulnerabilities as well.

Looking Forward

Until Zoi not only goes live but also adds major partners, it is impossible to say whether it will hold up when it has been “battle tested.” Once this experience is behind us, it would be very interesting to run an analysis based on the live Zoi platform that adds real-world basis to these currently, theoretical use cases. If Zoi’s Machine Learning algorithms work like they should, then it is reasonable to say that Farmatrust just might consider giving AI an even bigger role in Zoi, as everything plays out.

If you’re also interested in understanding the utility of Zero Knowledge Proofs, according to today’s experts, look no further than the references list below. In our next pieces, stay tuned for more illuminating breakdowns of Artificial Intelligence projects that are using the Blockchain. Until then, also make sure to browse the suggested pieces below related to the connection between the Blockchain and AI industries, to bring yourself up to speed on some of the latest developments that have been taking place.