The way artificial intelligence can write software has already prompted many companies to introduce code-generating products, so it’s no surprise that SettleMint, a low-code blockchain programming tool for enterprises, recently added an AI assistant to its platform.
The AI assistant, which arrived about nine months after SettleMint announced its €16 million Series A funding round, promises to help developers create smart contracts, integrate data, and enhance quality assurance (QA) testing.
Despite a climate where digital currency prices have nosedived, the seven-year-old Belgium company is seeing steady user growth as more enterprises are recognizing the benefits of blockchain technology but lack the technical skills to bring their ideas to fruition.
In a survey done by the programmer Q&A site Stack Overflow, only 1% of the respondents reported having done extensive work in Solidity, the programming language used to write smart contracts, which are self-executing digital contracts built on blockchains, normally Ethereum.
SettleMint didn’t create the AI assistant to replace humans, said Roderik van der Veer, co-founder and CTO at SettleMint. The AI could help draft smart contracts, but its real value is explaining what each line of code does.
“If you understand a piece of code, you know where you get it wrong,” said van der Veer. “So instead of having to look at the screen and trying to Google whatever you see, and processing all [the information on] the internet in your mind and [use] your Google skills to form a conclusion of what could be wrong, it does it for you.”
While the AI assistant can suggest modifications to avoid vulnerabilities, the code won’t be bug-free, said van der Veer. Technical audits are still necessary, especially given the complexity of blockchain systems. But having SettleMint as the first layer of screening means auditors can spend more time on the “non-trivial” parts of the code to debug, the founder suggested.
