Global Social Governance - A spoonful of sugar
Giles, I love that artificial intelligence could be imagined as a critical element in our social operating system. We should recognize that the messy dynamic is already underway and has been since Bitcoin arrived on the digital scene. Bitcoin stands apart from other blockchain projects and cryptocurrencies in its ability to present voluntarily transparent, decentralized rules resistant to centralized control or oligarchic manipulation - unlike impotent bureaucratic institutions.
Bitcoin's programmed monetary policy and permissionless incentives make it the only genuinely robust and antifragile framework thus far capable of computationally enforcing governance standards without rent-seeking middlemen. While many "crypto" experiments may prove fanciful, Bitcoin relentlessly grows more resilient - its reliable open-source network unaffected by the machinations of ignorant officials who grasp at maintain control at the expense of many for a few.
We must consider Bitcoin's ethos of predictive transparency, decentralized power, and voluntary user engagement enfranchising the disenfranchised. Not legislators. Bitcoin is here to stay and rapidly change what national governance means. It’s one thing to establish rules and laws through a process mutually agreed upon, and a very different thing to adopt rules that come along with technology because I want to benefit from the technology.
In the case of Bitcoin, the rules have been established and coded into the base layer.
*) A fixed number of tokens in a fixed period forces a deflationary economic policy.
*) A Bearer Instrument - has implications for “Ownership” regardless of local laws and regulations.
*) Borderless Global Money
*) Transparent codes or rules are available for anyone to inspect and validate.
*) Decentralized - no leader of central point of failure
These are some of the rules accepted by Bitcoin users. These rules replace some critical national control, which an algorithm enforces. Governments do not like losing control of anything. However, as Microsoft learned, when decentralized open source challenged its monopoly, it was a battle that a centralized entity could not win. China also learned this when confronted with capital flight through Bitcoin.
when a radically new form of borderless, decentralized digital money emerges, the implications are systemic and widespread. Thomas Jefferson and other political philosophers would have loved Bitcoin's coded architecture, transparent ledger, and independence from state control as it has the potential to transform governance profoundly.
The current puppet master holding the US dollar strings is still slashing at windmills while those burned by their folly are lining up behind anything that changes the rules (BRICS, Bitcoin, stablecoins). The change is messy but inevitable.
Bitcoin rules do not require us to agree on anything except that we want the benefit of using hard money not controlled by any third party. Yet, if adopted at scale, there are profound implications for nation-state governance that are not immediately apparent.
The future of AI governance can see a glimpse of what the mess will be like in the current struggle of Bitcoin today. Bitcoin governance is a long and messy process involving a multitude of stakeholders but so far it's sweet.