It is fiendishly difficult to get lots of people to make decisions and work together both non-hierarchically and effectively. Because blockchain technology enables decentralized consensus at scale, the implications for human decision-making and coordination are immensely promising; if we can use it
Holographic consensus—part 1
Decentralized governance is the field of protocols that coordinate large number of agents into a collective action, implemented with smart…
Notes on Blockchain Governance | HackerNoon
In which I argue that “tightly coupled” on-chain voting is overrated, the status quo of “informal governance” as practiced by Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Zcash and similar systems is much less bad than commonly thought, that people who think that the purpose of blockchains is to completely expunge soft mushy human intuitions and feelings in favor of completely algorithmic governance (emphasis on “completely”) are absolutely crazy, and loosely coupled voting as done by Carbonvotes and similar systems is underrated, as well as describe what framework should be used when thinking about blockchain governance in the first place.See also: https://medium.com/@Vlad_Zamfir/against-on-chain-governance-a4ceacd040ca
Blockchain Governance: Programming Our Future
This post describes why blockchain governance design is one of the most important problems out there, its critical components, current…
Collective action strategies in the age of AI w/ Nick Vincent from Data Leverage - The Blockchain Socialist
I spoke to Nick Vincent, assistant professor of computing science at Simon Fraser University and author of the Data Leverage substack, about what it actually means that AI systems are built on the collective output of humanity’s digital labor and what we can do about it. Nick has spent years researching how data functions as a bargaining tool, […]
Digital Democracy in Decentralised Autonomous Organisations
Decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs) are institutional technologies that enable democratic governance innovation. They inherit key democratic principles such as procedural transparency and immutable records from being based on blockchain technology. This paper conducts a systematic literature review to examine governance mechanisms and challenges of digital democracy in DAOs. While issues like power concentration and coordination failures exist in current implementations, we argue that the concept of DAOs offers new opportunities for transparent governance and participatory decision-making. As testbeds for governance experiments, we find that DAOs have the potential to reshape democratic processes and foster innovative governance models in the digital era. Calling for interdisciplinary collaboration, further research is needed around Sybil-resistant voting mechanisms, ideological path dependencies and deliberation mechanisms.
A Roadmap to Democratic AI — The Collective Intelligence Project
Our roadmap outlines concrete steps that can be taken in 2024 to build a more democratic AI ecosystem that is adaptive, accountable, processes decentralized information, provides public goods, and safeguards human wellbeing. We describe what the ecosystem could build, research, advocate for, and fun
The network science of collective intelligence
In the last few years, breakthroughs in computational and experimental techniques have produced several key discoveries in the science of networks and human collective intelligence. This review presents the latest scientific findings from two key fields of research: collective problem-solving and the wisdom of the crowd. I demonstrate the core theoretical tensions separating these research traditions and show how recent findings offer a new synthesis for understanding how network dynamics alter collective intelligence, both positively and negatively.
Collective action strategies in the age of AI w/ Nick Vincent from Data Leverage
Podcast Episode · The Blockchain Socialist · March 4 · 1h 3m
The knowledge layer for collective intelligence
A portable data substrate for humans and their tools to think together.
The knowledge layer for collective intelligence
A portable data substrate for humans and their tools to think together.
The knowledge layer for collective intelligence
A portable data substrate for humans and their tools to think together.
The knowledge layer for collective intelligence
A portable data substrate for humans and their tools to think together.
Harnessing Collective Intelligence better than LLMs w/ Sean Geobey
AI and the knowledge commons
Democratizing AI Companies — The Collective Intelligence Project
As AI reshapes society, the companies behind these technologies face a critical challenge: how to build corporate governance structures that prioritize public benefit over profit maximization;.
Online Governance Surfaces and Attention Economies
This paper considers the intersection of governance and attention in digital contexts. In particular, it argues for the relevance of ‘attention economies’, or the analysis of human attention as a resource, to ‘governance surfaces’, or the means available for organisational adaptation and action. Existing theoretical frameworks for the governance of community-managed resources lack adequate consideration for how people’s attention is engaged and directed. To address this gap, this paper proposes heuristics that assess how attention relates to governance in online organisations. The heuristics are informed by literature on attention economies and governance, as well as three case studies that consider recent attempts to address attention in the design of governance surfaces in blockchain-based systems. The resulting heuristics serve as analytical and normative tools to enable researchers and system designers to better understand attention in a governance system. They invite consideration of whether the structure of attention in a system is appropriate, efficient, and just.