FinTech as we know it now is highly specialized and centralized. Blockchain and AI can be catalysts for FinTech 2.0 focusing on holistic solutions with increased transaction speeds, transparency, and security. Furthermore, DeFi may mean a larger pool of investors as more and more people gain access to financial markets. The more investors there are, the more data there will be that would be impossible to process without AI. Blockchain provides the foundation for smart contracts to improve transparency and data management, while AI may be leveraged to scale processes, accelerate transactions, and extract insights from large volumes of data.

While AI can lift competition and productivity, it also can act as a great leveler, putting smaller players on the same footing as goliaths. Take pharmaceutical research, for example. Large companies have the budget and resources to physically test millions of drug candidates, giving them an advantage over startups and researchers. But smaller labs can achieve similar results by harnessing neural networks that simulate how a potential drug molecule will bind with a target protein. Deep learning can help smaller companies and other researchers discover promising drug treatments by improving the speed and accuracy of molecular docking, the process of computationally predicting how and how well a molecule binds with a protein.

The romantic myth that'opposites attract' has been around for centuries. From Beauty and the Beast to the Little Mermaid, many popular fairy tales are centred around couples coming together in spite of their glaring differences. But according to decades of scientific research, opposites tend to find each other repulsive. In a piece for The Conversation, Professor Viren Swami, a social psychologist at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge, explores why opposites rarely attract. If you were brought up on a diet of Disney fairy tales, you might be forgiven for thinking that opposites attract.