AI Governance DAO

aiGovDAO is a DAO devoted to democratic governance of the development of artificial intelligence (AI). It uses the DAO Governance Framework to coordinate collaboration on the development of artificial intelligence on a global scale, with the goal of using this tool to promote human flourishing, including individual human agency, and to develop wise practices in the deployment of this technology.

Background

Every tool is used to increase or diminish humanity. When hominids first used sticks to extend their reach, they discovered a new opportunity to defend their band from predators and increase their power to acquire food. The first spear was also used to oppress the band of hominids violently. Every tool can be used to support, defend, and promote human flourishing. And every tool can be used to undermine, attack, and oppress humanity.

AI is a new tool that is disrupting human society on a scale previously unimagined. Machine learning has transformed the way people interact with their world. The Google search engine has given people powers of understanding their world that would embarrass the gods of Greece. Humans are now faster than Hermes was ever described. Google Maps has made us more knowledgeable of local geography and economics than Athena.

Machine learning and neural networks are different than other tools in their global effect. The sweeping interconnection of web communication aggregates global information more effectively than any national intelligence agency has ever before aspired. These tools effectively exploit this information to solve any problem posed in ways that surprise us with their effectiveness and creativity. Contemporary AI tools such as ChatGPT and DALL E 2 have put this power in the hands of anyone with a cell phone. The promises and threats that the use of this tool poses for humanity cannot be overstated.

Like any tool, AI cannot be simply suppressed. We don't have the governmental structures to achieve that in our current global society. Perhaps that is for the best, since as it allows us the freedom to develop openly. However, for such powerful tools, it is essential that development happens in a wisely regulated manner. Wise regulation is a matter of carefully monitoring development and guiding it in directions which serve our values.

Decentralization

Many groups are aware of the threat to humanity of technological disruption. And every major center for development of AI has instituted some process for analyzing the ethics of their deployment of the technology, to a greater or lesser degree. However, almost all of these major initiatives are centralized, since the major power behind AI development is for-profit exploitation of the technology.

Therefore, unfortunately, at the moment, the ultimate values and goals that are guiding the development of AI are largely limited to monetary profit. A primary use of AI today is to improve the effectiveness of advertising. This is having negative effects on society as social media is being engineered to increase engagement at the expense of social harmony.

Further, we cannot establish wise regulation for such a complex problem as AI governance without improving our governance mechanisms, without improving democracy and human communication.

aiGovDAO uses the structure of DAOs to foster collaboration to develop AI tools in the service of the common good. Decentralized organization is used to empower as many people as possible who are conscious of the problem and wise with respect the the consequences of governing the progress of AI. We use the architecture of a DAO to filter information at the edge, to promote the best ideas from the globe to guide the development of AI.

Value statement

We seek to develop wisdom in the deployment of AI technology, for the purpose of increasing individual agency balanced by promoting social harmony. Control of AI technology should be as decentralized as possible, so that the excesses of its power are always countered by balancing forces. Yet this decentralized control should be in harmony with a universal will toward the good.

Comments

Individual agency is sometimes referred to as hyperagency, which means that the individual participating in the system (or game) is capable of making choices with respect to values that are not obvious from within the confines of the system.

Several polarizing questions arise in the process of governance.

Polarizing questions

1. Can anonymous AGI agents participate in aiGovDAO?

Our initial answer is, "No." The purpose of aiGovDAO is to promote human flourishing, as a group and individually. Ceding our authority to machines is counter to that goal.

On the other hand, a natural function of aiGovDAO is to develop the use AI, to create new defenses against malign uses of AI. AI is an important tool for helping each individual and community filter information. Both to promote human flourishing in general, and specifically in order to make aiGovDAO more effective, we encourage the use of AI.

2. Does aiGovDAO promote universal control of the development and deployment of AI? If so, is that centralization of power?

We wish to promote the healthy development of individual and collective human power. The healthy development of power must be tempered with wisdom. The power of the individual must be balanced with the wise application of that power in the service of communal harmony. The individual member's agency is always in tension with the group's harmony. Each side supports and erodes the other side. So this question is impossible to answer. We wish for the group to be healthy and powerful, but we also require there to be openness to leaving the group and creating alternative organizations.

We seek to create a community that guides the development of AI in positive ways. We wish to create a powerful organization that controls that development inasmuch as its goal is to prevent negative outcomes. The power over the decisions of what is good and bad leads to oppression through too strident control and to chaos and dissolution when there is too little control. While we wish to give individuals greater freedom and power, we also wish to support groups which limit the damage of the consequences of greater individual freedom and power. The solution to too much or too little control is to nurture the development of healthy applications of AI which promote human flourishing, which also includes tools which police malign uses of AI.

Mechanism

aiGovDAO uses the REP-weighted Forum to aggregate and filter ideas.

Governance

aiGovDAO follows the DGF governance process. Proposals for how to use and limit AI tools can be added to the Forum by anyone. Before the proposals are exploited for profit, a generalized PageRank algorithm weights the value of such proposals by their context in the WDAG in order to promote some suggestions over others. The weights of value are specified by chat reputation tokens, called cREP.

Once proposals are implemented, their wREP value is given foundational meaning when fees from for-profit AI applications are shared with the DAO through Work Smart Contracts which reference the proposals. This follows basic DGF workflow.

AI itself can be used in the process of governance, as proposals may be generated by NNs, but selected and promoted by human discernment.

wREP tokens determine the power to validate proposals for governing AI tech development.

See Also

• Social DAO
  • algGovDAO -- a DAO devoted to guiding the development of large network algorithms, such as social media feed filtering, for social good.
  • Poverty Relief DAO
  • Scholarship DAO
• Policing DAOs
• Arbitration DAOs
• Social harmony