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Prof. David Chalmers NYU, New York NY, Nov 15, 2016 Slides: http://slideshare.net/LaBlogga Philosophy of Technology Melanie Swan Blockchain Theorist Philosophy & Economic Theory New School for Social Research, NY NY [email protected]
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Philosophy of Technology

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Page 1: Philosophy of Technology

Prof. David ChalmersNYU, New York NY, Nov 15, 2016Slides: http://slideshare.net/LaBlogga

Philosophy of Technology

Melanie SwanBlockchain Theorist

Philosophy & Economic TheoryNew School for Social Research, NY NY

[email protected]

Page 2: Philosophy of Technology

Nov 15, 2016Philosophy of Technology 2

Melanie Swan Blockchain Theorist, Philosophy and Economic

Theory, New School for Social Research, NY Founder, Institute for Blockchain Studies Instructor, Singularity University; Affiliate Scholar,

Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technology (IEET); Contributor, EDGE; Advisor FQXi

Traditional Markets Background Economic Theory Leadership

http://www.amazon.com/Bitcoin-Blueprint-New-World-Currency/dp/1491920491

Book: Blockchain: Blueprint for a New Economy

Page 3: Philosophy of Technology

Nov 15, 2016Philosophy of Technology

Agenda Contemporary Philosophy of

Technology Historical view and Capacity vs

Morphology Unthinkability Complexity Temporality Overall theme: composable reality

Philosophy of Blockchain

3One source: recent conferences: HSS: History of Science & Society, PSA: Philosophy of Science Association, SPEP: Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy

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Nov 15, 2016Philosophy of Technology

Central Issue in the Contemporary Philosophy of Technology

4http://www.robotandhwang.com/attorneys/

San Francisco CA law firm

Human-Machine Collaboration:

How might we develop human-machine collaborations that

empower both parties?

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Nov 15, 2016Philosophy of Technology

Human-Machine Collaboration Effectuating an orderly transition to the Automation

Economy and Technological Unemployment “Technological breakthroughs endanger up to 47% of

total employment in the US” – Carl Frey, Oxford, 2015 “Endanger jobs” or “invite opportunity”?

5Source: Book chapter: Swan, M. "Automation Economy: An Abundance Philosophy of Economics" In Surviving the Machine Economy. Eds. Hughes, LaGrandeur, Palgrave Macmillan. 2017.

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The Prosthetic RelationExtending body and brain into composable reality

6

I. Addition

Accepting the foreign into the body

Merging body-brain with the foreign

Blind man’s cane

Extending the reach of the physical body

Heart transplant

II. Integration III. Synthesis

BCI cloudminds

Time and space are fixed and immobile

Time and space start to become contingent

Time and space are fully contingent and composable

Melanie Swan, Philosophy, New School, Oct 29, 2016

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Human Integration Relation with Technology

7

1. The Prosthetic Relation 2. The Drone Relation

L’Intrus (The Intruder) – Jean-Luc Nancy Théorie du drone (Drone Theory) – Gregoire Chamayou

Impoverished relation:roving invisible Panopticon, never

safe from unseen eyes

Intimate relation: Accepting the foreign into our own body

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3. The Data Relation Cloud, background, crunching away,

silent tracking, continuous uploading Algorithms predicting and defining our

preferences What is our relation? Impoverished:

neither side has full mental model of the other (the very basis for conducive interaction with another) Data models humans as a sketch:

purchasing agent not aspirational being Humans have no way see, grasp or act

on big data, it acts on us (drone relation)

8

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Thinking through the problem of human-machine collaboration in one of the most vulnerable cases: opening brains up to big data in BCI Cloudminds

Cloudmind: digitally-linked minds (human or otherwise) in the Internet cloud for integrated processing , collaborative problem-solving, and idea generation. Source: Swan, Melanie. (2016). The Future of Brain-Computer Interfaces: Blockchaining Your Way into a Cloudmind, JET 26(2).

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Brain-Computer Interface applications A brain-computer interface (BCI) is any

technology linking the human brain to a computer A computational system implanted in the brain

that allows a person to control a computer using only brainwaves; for example reading the electrical signals from the brain as a person focuses on a computer screen

Key new functionality of BCIs 24-7 connectivity to the Internet and other

minds Implication: applications such as cloudminds

(linked human and machine minds)

10Source: http://www.asha.org/public/hearing/Cochlear-Implant-Frequently-Asked-Questions/

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Nov 15, 2016Philosophy of Technology

Short History of Philosophy of TechnologyHistorical Moments

11Source: Heidegger, M. The Question Concerning Technology, 1954.

“Our attunement to technology as an enabling background helps us see the

possibilities for the true meaningfulness of our being”

From the farther future how did we get here?

Aristotle: distinguishes between technology and nature Always-already technological: making tools out of tools

Heidegger: warns of the danger, right-wrong relation

Spinoza: capacity vs morphology

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Spinoza and Conatus

12

Conatus: perseverance as our “vital [life] force” in interacting with the

environment we encounter, our “actual essence,” where as individuals, we strive to sustain and increase our

power of acting in the world, to “affect and be affected by”

Not about what we are (classification); it is about our capacity for action in the world

Source: Spinoza, The Collected Works of Spinoza, vol. 1, 1985, Ethics, IVP18S, IVP35c2

Spinoza, Dutch Philosopher1632-1677

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Short History of Philosophy of TechnologyModern Moments Cybernetics, Systems Theory, French Theorists

George Canguilhem, "Machine and Organism," 1947 Norbert Wiener, Cybernetics, 1948 Gilbert Simondon, On the Mode of Existence

of Technical Objects, 1958 Cyborg

Manfred Clynes & Nathan Kline, “Cyborgs and Space,” 1960

Donna Haraway, “A Cyborg Manifesto,” 1985 Kevin Warwick, I, Cyborg, 2002

Posthumanism, Transhumanism Cary Wolfe, What is Posthumanism?, 2009 Rosi Braidotti, The Posthuman, 2013

13

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Not all Reality is Thinkable Problem of Unthinkability

Becoming aware of and coming to terms with phenomena that are “bigger” than humans

Features of the world that are outside our perceptual and experiential domains

Existing situations Quantum physics, black holes, global

warming, the Florida everglades, the biosphere, derivatives, capitalism, neuroscience, big data, blockchains

Radically-different future-tech situations Life extension, digital societies, cloudminds

14

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Thinking Unthinkability

15

Need new models for conceiving the correspondence between internal experience and the external world like radical contingency Ancestrality (Meillassoux), hyperobjects (Morton), superjects

(Hansen), object-oriented ontologies (Harman), black swans and convexification (linear regression) (Taleb)

Result: human existence decentered

Page 16: Philosophy of Technology

Nov 15, 2016Philosophy of Technology

Agenda Contemporary Philosophy of

Technology Historical view and Capacity vs

Morphology Unthinkability Complexity Temporality Overall theme: composable reality

Philosophy of Blockchain

16One source: recent conferences: HSS: History of Science & Society, PSA: Philosophy of Science Association, SPEP: Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy

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Systems Theory Interdisciplinary study of the abstract organization of

complex phenomena, independent of their substance, type, or spatial-temporal scale of

existence, investigating and describing principles common to all complex

entities or systems of behavior

17Source: http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/systheor.html

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Complexity Systems that are non-

linear, dynamic, emergent, open, unknowable at the outset, interdependent, self-organizing

18Sources: Morin, Edgar. (2007). "Restricted complexity, general complexity." Trans. C. Gershenson. In Worldviews, Science

and Us: Philosophy and Complexity, ed. C. Gershenson, D. Aerts, and B. Edmonds, 5–29. World Scientific, Singapore.

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Big Data: Complexity and Machine Learning

19

1. Science and Biology become a

math problem

2. Simple Machine Learning algorithms running over large

data corpora

3. Deep-learning algorithms: real-time image & video processing, lip-reading

transcription, emotion-recognition

Sources: http://arxiv.org/abs/1112.6209, http://karpathy.github.io

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Complexity and Big Data Analytics

20Source: https://medium.com/@akelleh/if-correlation-doesnt-imply-causation-then-what-does-c74f20d26438#.mrmot5t7t

Contemporary era: Algorithmic reality, big data, machine learning analytics

Similar goals in causal analysis frameworks Whether structural equation modeling, causal

graphical models, potential outcomes… ...mindset shift from Causality to Predictability

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Relational Processes Beyond the morphology-capacity binary

The relations between entities, and the effects produced by interactions are more relevant than the underlying substance, morphology, or classification

Relational Ontology (Barad): replace agential realist conceptions of causality

Process Philosophy (Alfred North Whitehead): substance is temporary patterns produced by processes

Assemblages (Deleuze and Guattari) Fusion of horizons (Gadamer)

21Source: Barad, K. (2003). Posthumanist Performativity

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Nov 15, 2016Philosophy of Technology

Agenda Contemporary Philosophy of

Technology Historical view and Capacity vs

Morphology Unthinkability Complexity Temporality Overall theme: composable reality

Philosophy of Blockchain

22One source: recent conferences: HSS: History of Science & Society, PSA: Philosophy of Science Association, SPEP: Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy

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Humans and machines are running different temporality paradigms Human-time

Continuous flow of physics-biology time Compute-time: computing clocktime eras

1. General: time becomes stoppable and malleable

2. Machine learning/big data temporality: time becomes future-addressable All human and natural patterns modeled Shifts focus from reactive response to proactive

attending to the real-time present and future3. Blocktime: time becomes future-assignable,

future-creatable with blockchain-based smart contracts

23

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Inspiration: Light’s Wave-Particle Duality The first ever photograph

of light as both a particle and wave (Mar 2015)

Light's wave-particle duality imaged in physical reality for the first time

Schrödinger's cat: dead or alive?

24Source: http://phys.org/news/2015-03-particle.html, http://actu.epfl.ch/news/the-first-ever-photograph-of-light-as-both-a-parti

The bottom 'slice' of the image shows the particles, while the top

image shows light as a wave

Particle

Wave

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1. Retention 1. Protention

Present Now

Primal Impression

2. Recollection(Discrete) (Discrete)

A middle kind of time: time as a ‘raw material’ existing uncollapsed as simultaneously discrete and continuous; a snapshot and a flow (like light as a superposition of a particle and a wave); a perdurant khôra-spacing; time is an

uncollapsed raw material until deployed into a specific situation

Adds to our conceptual model of time

(Continuous) (Continuous)

Husserl’s Internal Time ConsciousnessAdding a New Kind of Time

Husserl’s Missing Middle Third time term

3. X-tention 3. X-tention

2. Expectation

(Discrete and Continuous) (Discrete and Continuous)

Source: Extended from Husserl, Edmund. (1991, 1964). On the Phenomenology of the Consciousness of Internal Time (1893-1917). Kluwer Academic Publishers: Dordrecht NL.

Past Future

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Composability of Physical Time Information Theory

Formulate spacetime as simultaneously discrete and continuous (Shannon’s sampling)

Time and matter are composable at small scales Matter at the atomic scale

(1×10−9) via positional nanoassembly (actual)

Possibly time and matter at the Planck scale (1×10−35) via Lego-like time fabric bricks (loop quantum gravity) (theoretical)

26Source: http://www.dedoimedo.com/physics/what-is-time.html, Kempf, Achim. (2010). “Spacetime could be simultaneously continuous and discrete, in the same way that information can be.” New Journal of Physics. 12.

Atomic-scale Positional Nanoassembly of Matter

Planck-scale ‘Lego-like’ Assembly of Spacetime

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Future Temporalities

Radically-different situations Life extension, digital societies, cloudminds

Temporality and spatiality have been the fundamental organizing parameter in the physical world but less relevant in digital situations Example: “location” not among 20 features in WoW

event-recording software Prat Need new models for correspondence between

internal mind/experience and external objects Meillassoux: conceptual grounds for the necessary

contingency of reality

27Source: WoW = World of Warcraft http://www.wowace.com/addons/prat-3-0

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“More time” Parallelism Argument Conjecture: make more time

Any compute-time creates a differential with human-time

Since there are multiple time regimes, one can experience “more time” by accessing events in other time trajectories

History is a form of time parallelism Time parallelism already exists via history

where we access events pre-dating and existing outside of our own direct experience of time as individuals

28Source: Carr, D. (2014). Experience and History: Phenomenological Perspectives on the Historical World.

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More philosophical questions raised… Do we need “more time”? How can we experience the

benefit and meaning of more time and alternative time trajectories?

How to integrate myriad subjective time regimes and event trajectories?

Moore’s Law for time? Limits of computational

complexity and time?

29

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Temporality Thesis Statement

30

A concept of temporality is needed that is adequate to the future; a model that has an open possibility space for both the form and content of time; that is multiple and complex; discrete and continuous;

and integrates the unstoppable flow of physics and biology human-time with manipulable compute-time

Page 31: Philosophy of Technology

Nov 15, 2016Philosophy of Technology

Agenda Contemporary Philosophy of

Technology Historical view and Capacity vs

Morphology Unthinkability Complexity Temporality Overall theme: composable reality

Philosophy of Blockchain

31One source: recent conferences: HSS: History of Science & Society, PSA: Philosophy of Science Association, SPEP: Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy

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Blockchain

32Source: http://www.amazon.com/Bitcoin-Blueprint-New-World-Currency/dp/1491920491

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Thesis StatementBlockchain: a Singularity-class technology No other technology has the power to…1. …uplift 2 billion people out of poverty

overnight intermediary-free international remittance

2. …produce a safe and orderly transition to the automation economy humans and machines in collaboration,

friendly artificial intelligence enacted

3. …fundamentally transform the only remaining sectors not yet re-engineered for the Internet era: economics and politics

33Source: Blockchain Singularities :http://www.slideshare.net/lablogga/blockchain-singularities-65443340

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Agenda

I. Blockchain technology: What is it? Automation economy

II. Singularity-class applications Farther-future

Friendly AI Bio-cryptoeconomy Nanotech/Synbio Blockchains in Space

Nearer-term Financial services, Energy, Logistics IOT, Health, Economic Development

III. Conclusion: our Singularity futures

34

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Blockchain Technology: What is it?

35

Blockchain technology is the secure distributed ledger software that underlies cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin “Internet of Money” leapfrog technology; Skype is an app

allowing phone calls via Internet without POTS; Bitcoin is an app allowing money transfer via Internet without banks; ‘decentralized Paypal’

Internet(decentralized network)

Blockchain

Bitcoin

Source: http://www.amazon.com/Bitcoin-Blueprint-New-World-Currency/dp/1491920491

ApplicationLayer

Protocol Layer

InfrastructureLayer

SMTP

Email

VoIP

Phone calls

OSI Protocol Stack:

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Blockchain (not Bitcoin) is the revolution

36

Internet phase transitions

Phase I: transfer information Modernize publishing, books, music,

news, information Phase 2: transfer value (money,

property) Modernize of economics and finance Providing the digital payments layer the

Internet never had Instantiating the qualitative good of

trust in the infrastructure

Source: http://www.amazon.com/Bitcoin-Blueprint-New-World-Currency/dp/1491920491

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Smartnetwork visionPushing more complexity through the Internet pipes

37

Information

Source: http://www.amazon.com/Bitcoin-Blueprint-New-World-Currency/dp/1491920491Sci-fi inspiration: Accelerando, Lady of Mazes, Blindsight, The Golden Age, Glasshouse

Confirmation of Automated Distribution of

Transfer of

Growing classes of activities for smartnetwork execution I: Information; II: Money, finance, economics; energy; supply chain, logistics,

transportation; health; IOT; III: identity, preference, intangible resources

Value Identity Preference

Registration of

20161990 2025e 2050e 2075e

Automated Propagation of

VotingPolicy

OpinionParticipation

GBIEnergyTrust

AutonomyRecognition

Economics Politics

IdeasHealth

Collaboration opportunitiesInstantiation

Upload integrity

Smart-resources

Smart-currencies

2090e

Internet Smartnetwork

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Currency

Source: http://www.amazon.com/Bitcoin-Blueprint-New-World-Currency/dp/1491920491

Property: Assets

InventorySecurities: stocks, bonds, government issue, futures and

options, FX contracts

Hard assets: cars, houses, global supply chain, medical inventories; Intangible assets: IP

Money, digital payments, remittanceProgrammable smartmoney

Fundamental enabling infrastructure

Economics

Governance& Legal Services

Global-scale projects

Politics

Singularity

All contractual arrangements

Blockchain’s vast reach beyond currency

Financial instruments: mortgage, loans

Million-person genome banks, supply chain management, autonomous driving fleets

Voting, identity, citizenship, civic servicesLegal documents, contracts, wills, agreements

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Why is it called blockchain?Blockchain: a chain of transaction blocks Every 10 minutes, the latest

block of submitted transactions is validated (by cryptographic mining) and posted to a single distributed ledger

Each new block of transactions calls the last block, so that the transactions are chained together sequentially, hence the word blockchain

39Source: Satoshi Nakamoto whitepaper: https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf, https://blockexplorer.com

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Permissioned (identity-known) and Permissionless (anonymous) Ledgers

40Source: Swan, M. Blockchain Consensus Protocols. http://www.slideshare.net/lablogga/blockchain-consensus-protocols extended from: Swanson, T. (2015). Consensus as a service: a brief report on the emergence of permissioned, distributed ledger systems

New car: Enduser freedom• Censorship-resistant• ‘Brave new world’ apps• Anonymous validators (network

vulnerable to anonymous attack)

Better horse: Enterprise efficiency• Identity-confirmed• ‘Reinvent the existing world’

improvement apps• Official legal registry

Stellar

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Blockchain crucial for the Singularity-class project: Financial Inclusion Just as the Printing Press and

the Internet flattened access to communicating information...

…blockchains are giving the power of the printing press to banking, credit, and money Access to economic and financial

systems (credit) as a basic human right (4 billion under-banked)

Long-tail economics: eBay of money

Blockcerts, digital academic certifications, MIT Media Lab

41Source: http://www.amazon.com/Bitcoin-Blueprint-New-World-Currency/dp/1491920491, https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/mit-media-lab-releases-blockcerts-blockchain-credential-brian-ahier

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Issue: hierarchy is not scalable

42Sources: What is Decentralization? http://futurememes.blogspot.com/search?q=datt.co, http://blog.midem.com/2016/04/blockchain-broken-music-industry/

Blockchains are a form of trust-making technology A system of checks and balances that is universal and

planetary-scale (Kardashev-level) New tiers of scalability are needed

Million-genome repositories (largest is 3700 currently), connectome databases to reveal brain structure

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Smartnetwork theme: design Optimality Optimal mix of centralized and

decentralized models Rethinking Coase’s firm size

Manufacturing reorganization per electricity; industries rethought per decentralized networks Tighter supply chain integration Complexity design principles

Decentralization here to stay Proven decentralized scalability

paradigm: Internet Bitcoin, blockchain, decentralization

43Sources: Coase, RH, The Nature of The Firm, 1937, http://www3.nccu.edu.tw/~jsfeng/CPEC11.pdf

Decentralization

Blockchain

Bitcoin

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Blockchain Economics and FinanceApparatus for constituting the present and the future

44

Bitcoin, Crypto-currencies Smart Contracts

Economics Finance

Spot, Cash Market Futures, Options Market

Present Future

Source: http://www.slideshare.net/lablogga/blockchain-payment-systems, http://www.slideshare.net/lablogga/blockchain-financial-networks, http://www.slideshare.net/lablogga/blockchain-temporality-smart-contract-timespecifiability-with-blocktime

Real-time payments Utility Settlement Coin (USC) (8/24/16)

Temporality Regime

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Decentralized Economics and FinanceCurrent mode is one kind of system for organizing access to resources

45

The organizing assumption of economic systems has been scarcity; an orientation to the

production and distribution of scarce material goods. This no longer holds in an era of digital services, non-rival

goods, and complementarity

Mindset Shifts: 1. Scarcity to Abundance

2. Labor to Fulfillment3. Hierarchy to Decentralization

The organizing assumption of financial systems has been the control or at least prediction of the future value of assets and

liabilities; finance = credit (credit is really about trust). Also no

longer holding.

Mindset Shifts: 1. Access instead of Ownership2. Topological Ranges instead

of Point Values3. Assurity instead of

Insufficiency

Sources: http://futurememes.blogspot.com/2016/09/defining-blockchain-economy-what-is.html and New Economies and Finance at the New School: http://blockchainstudies.org/NSNE.pdf

Economics Finance

Present FutureTemporality Regime

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Agenda

I. Blockchain technology: What is it? Automation economy

II. Singularity-class applications Farther-future

Friendly AI Bio-cryptoeconomy Nanotech/Synbio Blockchains in Space

Nearer-term Financial services, Energy, Logistics IOT, Health, Economic Development

III. Conclusion: our Singularity futures

46

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Singularity-class Problems (Kardashev-scale; impact 1 billion people within 10 years)

47

Artificial Intelligence and deep learning Friendly AI and “What is consciousness?” Multi-species intelligence BCI cloudmind collaborations (>1 thinking)

Virtual reality Integrating virtual and physical reality

Nanotechnology and synthetic biology Space settlement Automation economy

Autonomous driving Medical nanorobotics Manufacturing and social robotics

Source: Blockchain Singularities :http://www.slideshare.net/lablogga/blockchain-singularities-65443340 BCI: brain computer interface

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Argument: Blockchain can help all Singularity-class Problems

48Source: Blockchain Singularities :http://www.slideshare.net/lablogga/blockchain-singularities-65443340

Any significant future operation running on digital smartnetworks, needing coordination

Blockchain properties Secure, trackable, automated coordination of

large-scale projects with many items Automated system of checks and balances; all

transactions must confirm via smartnetwork Moves any sort of quantized/unitized packets on

the smartnetwork: energy, cars, synapse firings Fleet management

Autonomous vehicles, IOT sensors, social robotics, synaptic connections, deep-learners, medical nanorobots, planet terraformers, synbio agents, environmental cleanup bots

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Blockchain AI AppsEnact Friendly AI (Artificial Intelligence)

49

Digital intelligences running on consensus-managed smartnetworks Not in isolation

Good reputational standing required to conduct operations Transactions to access resources

(like fund-raising), provide services, enter into contracts, retire

Smartnetwork consensus only validates and records bonafide transactions from ‘good’ agents

Sources: http://cointelegraph.com/news/113368/blockchain-ai-5-top-reasons-the-blockchain-will-deliver-friendly-ai, http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/swan20141117

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Basic ApplicationDeep-thinkers Registry Register deep learners with

blockchains Tracking Security Remuneration

Examples Autonomous lab robots

On-chain IP discovery tracking Roving agricultural bots Manufacturing bots Intelligent gaming

Go-playing algorithms

50Source: Swan, M. Blockchain Thinking: The Brain as a DAC. Neural Turing Machines: https://arxiv.org/abs/1410.5401.IPFS (Benet): https://medium.com/@ConsenSys/an-introduction-to-ipfs-9bba4860abd0#.bgig18cgp

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Advanced ApplicationBCI Cloudminds and Chainbrains Cloudmind: cloud-based thinking

entity, comprised of >1 brains Problem: Safe collaboration of minds

Joining a cloudmind collaboration, blockchains (cryptographic ledgers) to administer cloudminds Line-item tracking and credit-

assignation (like Github, or SVN/CVS for brainstorming)

Privacy, security, remuneration Protect against personal identity loss

and absorption into a groupmind

51Source: http://www.slideshare.net/lablogga/blockchain-cloudminds-humanmachine-pooledmind-dacs; Mind’ is generally denoting an entity with some capacity for processing, not the volitionary action and free will of a consciousness agent

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Nanotech Grey Goo and runaway Synbio

52Source: Blockchain Singularities :http://www.slideshare.net/lablogga/blockchain-singularities-65443340

Worry: Grey Goo (unchecked nanotech proliferation), DNA-printed synthetic bio-plague Science fiction examples: Blood

Music, Prey Solution: signing logged to

blockchains As physical-world engineers sign

the bridges they build, likewise synbio engineers sign DNA and nanotech designs

Unavoidable “signing” per detectable origins

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Medical nanorobotics as the coming-onboard repair platform for the human body Vision: a nanorobot in every cell

Bio-Nano Repair DACs DAC: Decentralized Autonomous

Corporation (packages of smart contracts) Bio-cryptoeconomic principles

High number of agents and “transactions” Secure automation is obvious requirement Bio-Nano Repair DACs for secure,

trackable automation and coordination of medical nanorobotics for cellular repair

53Sources: Bio-Cryptoeconomy: Nanorobotic DACs for Cell Repair and Enhancement http://futurememes.blogspot.com/2016/08/bio-cryptoeconomy-nanorobotic-dacs-for.html

Bio-cryptoeconomy Medical nanorobotic DACs to coordinate cell repair

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Spacechains: Blockchains in Space

54Source: Blockchain Singularities :http://www.slideshare.net/lablogga/blockchain-singularities-65443340

Advances in space Launch: microsats, small rockets, commercial

launch (reusability, rocket design), regular Mars launches planned each 26 months with large-cargo drops, communications networks,

Light sail and optical propulsion Asteroid mining, space settlement, transport Exoplanet discovery in habitable zones (Alpha

Centauri, TRAPPIST-1) Singularity-class blockchain functionality

Secure, trackable, automated coordination of high numericity and dimensionality at scale

Autonomous entities, Bitsat backup network

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Blockchains and Singularity-class Problems Argument: smartnetworks thesis that

complex future operations will involve automated coordination via smartnetworks, using some kind of technology like blockchains

Blockchain smartnetwork properties: Asset registry and fleet coordination of

items (registry, ownership and transfer of “quantized” units)

Security Trackability Automation Coordination

55Source: Blockchain Singularities :http://www.slideshare.net/lablogga/blockchain-singularities-65443340

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Crypto-Enlightenment

56

“One ought to think autonomously, free of the

dictates of external authority”

- Immanuel Kant

Kant, I. "Answering the Question: What Is Enlightenment?" (German: Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung?). 1784.

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Level 1: the new literacy: digital literacy Manage private key access

Back-up your money Manage digital identity, EMR health wallet

Level 2: self-authority taking Designing personalized long-tail economic,

political, and social systems Civic project participations (P2P micropolis),

provide peergrid resources

Digital Cryptocitizen Sensibility

57Source: Swan, M. Crypto Enlightenment: A Social Theory of Blockchains http://www.slideshare.net/lablogga/the-crypto-enlightenment-social-theory-of-blockchains; EMR: electronic medical record; P2P: peer-to-peer

Sense of duty in serving the republic

Civic Duty Civic CollaborationGreek Statesman Cryptocitizen

Sense of meaning in sustaining community

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Agenda

I. Blockchain technology: What is it? Automation economy

II. Singularity-class applications Farther-future

Friendly AI Bio-cryptoeconomy Nanotech/Synbio Blockchains in Space

Nearer-term Financial services, Energy, Logistics IOT, Health, Economic Development

III. Conclusion: our Singularity futures

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Financial Services Distributed ledger

Instant transaction validation Settlement, clearing, audit Simpler, more secure, less

expensive financial services Use case applications

Industry-wide collaboration Securities asset registries Value chain efficiency:

custody, titling, insurance Financial-inclusion

addressable market Digital identity, banking

59Source: https://www.cbinsights.com/blog/financial-services-corporate-blockchain-investments

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Energy grid smartnetworks Concept: the power grid of every

continent is an energy Internet “Quantized units” are energy:

kWh/kWm Use case applications

Automatic markets: off-hour and lowest cost demand fulfillment

Smart grid management Energy price and trade validation Resource self-pricing Source fungibility: wind, solar power P2P microgrid infrastructure

60Sources: Rifkin, J. The Zero Marginal Cost Society; https://www.newscientist.com/article/2079334-blockchain-based-microgrid-gives-power-to-consumers-in-new-york/

Cryptosustainability Micropolis Example:Peer-to-peer Microgrids

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Supply chain & logistics grid smartnetworks Tamper-proof record-keeping

Register assets and inventory Assure provenance, custody Track quantity and transfer of assets

(pallets, trailers, containers) moving through supply chain nodes

Track purchase orders, change orders, receipts, shipment notifications

Assign and verify custody and product certification

Link physical goods to serial numbers, bar codes, RFID tags

Virtual reality rapid simulation and event-history keeping (>transactions)

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Autonomous Driving Fleet coordination of “quantized

units” of km/miles and vehicles Autonomous passenger cars

Singapore self-driving taxis - 8/24/16 Uber’s first self-driving fleet arrives in

Pittsburgh – Aug 2016 Commercial trucking

“Autonomous Driving Long-Distance Trucks within Ten Years” - 2014

62Source: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/25/hail-progress-singapore-launches-worlds-first-self-driving-taxi-service, http://truckyeah.jalopnik.com/autonomous-driving-long-distance-trucks-will-be-a-reali-1603746933http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-08-18/uber-s-first-self-driving-fleet-arrives-in-pittsburgh-this-month-is06r7on

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Blockchain IOT

63Sources: http://www.zdnet.com/article/internet-of-things-market-to-hit-7-1-trillion-by-2020-idc/, http://www.amazon.com/Bitcoin-Blueprint-New-World-Currency/dp/1491920491

Blockchain-based IOT connected objects M2M/IOT Bitcoin payment network to

enable the machine economy IOT 2020: 26 bn devices in a $7 tn market

The economic layer the web never had Smarthome IOT networks

Self-mining ecologies Privacy orchestration: devices, robotics, digital

personal health assistants Blockchains: economic principle-driven

large-scale resource allocation and coordination mechanism Smartcity Connected

Car Coordination

Smarthome IOT and Personal Robotics

Coordination

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Blockchain Social Robotics Personal voice assistants, social

robotics Implication: voice interfaces, all apps

become voice-activated and interactive; “My Dad, the App”

Requirements: security, financial transactability, liability tracking

Cross-cloud interconnection (IOT smarthome, connected car, smartcity)

Fleet coordination functionality Automated, secure, tracking/logging,

remuneration, transaction coordination, apps/processes (smart contracts), coordination (updates), audit log

64Source: Swan, M. Philosophy of Social Robotics: Abundance Economics. Sociorobotics, 2016. http://www.melanieswan.com/documents/SocialRobotics.pdf.

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1. EMRs (electronic medical records) Personal health record access and administration Users key-permission doctors into records

2. Health insurance billing chains Blockchain-based health insurance claims processing:

automated proof of identity and insurance; claims payment Enable ahead of time service price-quoting

3. Digital health wallet Private key identity + EMR (medications) + health insurance info

+ payment data + basic income health plan administration Doctor vendor RFP services; preventive longevity treatments

4. Health Data Research Commons Biobanks, QS (DNA.bits), genome and connectome files

65Source: http://futurememes.blogspot.fr/2014/09/blockchain-health-remunerative-health.html

Blockchain Health

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Bitcoin MOOCsLong-tail of learning

Blockchain-based “Kiva for literacy” Long-tail peer-to-peer learning contracts Literacy beyond reading

Technical, agricultural, vocational literacy Blockchain-based personal development

contracts QS-biometric utility function imputation and tracking Maslow chains, subjectivation and actualization chains

Development Economics 2.0: CoinDrops Literacy contracts, remittances, blockchain-tracked

aid, microcredit, decentralized credit bureaus Open-source FICO scores Peer-vouched reputation

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Politics: Legal services and Governance

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High impact, low current activity Local government RFPs for title registries

Legal services: IP, contract registry, attestation Register contracts, agreements, wills, IP

Functionality: hash + timestamp + blockchain record

Voting: electronic ballot, identity confirmation Futarchy, delegative democracy, random sample

elections Opt-in personalized governance services

Composting vs education; digital identity system, voting, dispute resolution, basic income distribution, public document registry

Blockchain weddings (Bitcoin, Ethereum)

Sources: http://merkle.com/papers/DAOdemocracyDraft.pdf, http://www.proofofexistence.com/, https://bitnation.co/ , World’s First Blockchain Marriage: David Mondrus and Joyce Bayo, 10/5/14, ConsenSys wedding : Kim Jackson and Zach LeBeau, 11/2/15

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Agenda

I. Blockchain technology: What is it? Automation economy

II. Singularity-class applications Farther-future

Friendly AI Bio-cryptoeconomy Nanotech/Synbio Blockchains in Space

Nearer-term Financial services, Energy, Logistics IOT, Health, Economic Development

III. Conclusion: our Singularity futures

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Blockchain downside and risks?ISSUE

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Satoshi Roundtable #3: Scaling Bitcoin Milan Oct 8-9, 2016

Hacking ScandalsMt Gox, Ethereum DAO, Bitfinex

Silk Road, drug dealers, terrorists, criminals

Scalability, evolution Block size, sidechains

Mining Centralization

RESPONSE

Centralization temporary; wide-spread at higher-scale; move to 16 nm, solar/hydro-powered chips

Building resilient system constantly under open attack 24/7 (remember early Internet DNS attacks)

Blockchains are a universal technology available to all; non-criminal activity predominates

Early Internet: “this will never scale, insecure, not resilient;” Yahoo, AltaVista down for days due to DNS attacksSource: http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-scaling-conference-italy

Technology Risk

Perception Risk

Regulatory Risk, Economic Risk

National government regulation, bans

Governments modernizing economic infrastructure with blockchains too; licensing, open dialogue

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Thesis StatementBlockchain: a Singularity-class technology No other technology has the power to…1. …uplift 2 billion people out of poverty

overnight intermediary-free international remittances

2. …produce a safe and orderly transition to the automation economy humans and machines in collaboration,

friendly artificial intelligence enacted

3. …fundamentally transform the only remaining sectors not yet re-engineered for the Internet era: economics and politics

71Source: Blockchain Singularities :http://www.slideshare.net/lablogga/blockchain-singularities-65443340

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Decentralized Economics and Finance

Blockchain academic collaboration New Economies and Finance at the New School

Mission statement: http://blockchainstudies.org/NSNE.pdf Join: https://www.facebook.com/groups/NewEconomies

CFPs: books, special journal issues, conferences Decentralized Blockchain Economics and Finance

http://futurememes.blogspot.com/2016/09/defining-blockchain-economy-what-is.html

“Blockchain Philosophy” 4,000 words, Wiley and Sons, Metaphilosophy

http://blockchainstudies.org/Metaphilosophy_CFP.pdf Events: NY and CA

Rethink/ECONOMICS, Thursday, September 15, 7-9 pm http://www.meetup.com/NYC_Ethereum/events/233643675/

72Sources: http://blockchainstudies.org and http://blockchainstudies.org/NSNE.pdf

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Prof. David ChalmersNYU, New York NY, Nov 15, 2016Slides: http://slideshare.net/LaBlogga

Philosophy of Technology

Melanie SwanBlockchain Theorist

Philosophy & Economic TheoryNew School for Social Research, NY NY

[email protected]

Thank You! Questions?