How do the two technologies of blockchain and artificial intelligence actualize and, crucially, automatize the cognition of time? These kinds of machines are increasingly part of both our contemporary present and our prospective future, but how do we really define a present and a future? And more importantly, how do these machines themselves understand, know, and sense time? Can machines really think about the present and dream the future in an autonomous way? In order to unravel these questions, this book follows the “emerging life adventures and experiences” of Sophia, a robot animated by blockchain and AI, to present a study in temporal automation.

How do the two technologies of blockchain and artificial intelligence actualize and, crucially, automatize the cognition of time? These kinds of machines are increasingly part of both our contemporary present and our prospective future, but how do we really define a present and a future? And more importantly, how do these machines themselves understand, know, and sense time? Can machines really think about the present and dream the future in an autonomous way? In order to unravel these questions, this book follows the “emerging life adventures and experiences” of Sophia, a robot animated by blockchain and AI, to present a study in temporal automation.