Stigmergic Economy And Large-Scale, Decentralized Networks - Matan Field (720p_30fps_H264-192kbit_AAC)
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And I remember him fondly for the dinner we had yesterday
and I remember he told me he is a
a theoretical physicists
and he is now working with blockchain
the technology behind bitcoin
and he told me that string theory
is smaller than blockchain
so we will have to hear more about this one
Ok, thank you Cosimo
So, first of all let me thank Network society
and specially David Orban for inviting me here
It's really exciting and inspiring to see
all those networks that are now rising
and growing, and extending and spreading
and all speaking the same language
similarl agendas, Ideas that actually
making me optimistic about being able to
revolutionize the way we will live here on the planet
Great stuff
I changed a little bit my title to adapt
this specific congress
So, it's about Stigmergic Network society
So really how I see the paradigm of Network society works
and I will talk about my vision of that Network Society
a quick observation from nature
and a little bit of history of mankind
some of the new means
to deploy this kind of paradigm
and some examples
so i will start with the vision
for that we will need to engage with a little bit of immagination
So imagine a world
completely governed by networks
self organizing networks
imagine facebook network but without facebook inc
imagine people renting appartements
with no Airbnb in the middle
imagin "right" applications with no Uber or Lyft
millions of people ensuring each other
spontaneously
and maybe millions of people building startups together
so this is the world that I would like to see
So for that, let's take one step backward
and look in Nature for a phenomenon called Stigmergy
isn't it beautiful
So Stigmergy is indirect spontaneous coordination
of agents
or in Wikipedia is a mechanism of indirect coordination
between agents or actions
the principle is that a trace left in the environment
by an action, stimulates the performance of a next action
by the same or a different agent
in that way subsequent actions tends to
reinforce and build on each other
leading spontaneaous emergence of coherent
apparentrly systematic activity
Stygmergy is a form of self organization
it produces complex, seemingly intelligent structures
without need of any planning control
or even direct communication between the agents
such it supports efficient collaboration between
extremely simple agents, who lack any memory, intelligence
or even individual awereness
So, how would we implement that logic
to billions of people
so what is Stigmergy?
basically different agents in a network can emit
by indirect i mean it is signal based
there is no direct interaction between agents
there is a signal mediating
actions of agents
so agents emit signals and then
agents decisions are also biased by the same signals
and the Bias is designed to induce synchronicity of actions
to induce cooperation
now, by design I mean that nature
have designed this for millions of years
to induce cooperation
but now when we are going to talk about people
the question is: How do we want to design those rules
in order to induce cooperation
and no agent has control of anything
but notice one thing
that this Stigmergy as it appears in Nature
is unstable to self aware, exploiting agents
so in that sense it is semi resilient
still an agent if it was self aware
could basically hack the system
for it's own profit
so Stigmargy in Nature works for very simple agents
who lack self awereness
So then the question: How do we improve Stigmargy
paradigm for people?
so this is one example in Nature of Ants
this is of course just an algorithm
or simulation in run on a computer
and in fact a very known problem of finding
the optimal minimal path between two point
on any topology
is known to be solved algorithmically
in best way by just mimicking the algorithm of Ants
which is very simple
this is just an example of finding the shortest path
this is another frame from a real simulation
where you can see that
you starting basically with a random walk
of Ants and with some extra rules
this is the stigmargy
and you see how eventually the Ants converge
on the shortest path
and this is just for the expression
in fact, Stigmargy is the only large scale
coordination known in Nature
it fits very well, simple algorithmic agents
they are basically
fully automated in a way
already in their DNA
and because of that, there is no need for incentive or trust
because a simple agent do not try to hack the system
So in that sense cooperation is the winning strategy
but actually is almost the winning strategy
you can actually have better
so to say selfish strategy
for more complex agents
as I said is unstable to self aware agents
so how do we apply those ideas to people
So let's discuss a little bit
the evolution of human large scale coordination
so it started with centralized
architecture
then it evolved to federated architecture
then to distributed architecture
but with local consensus
and finally i woul like to tell you more about
distributed architecture with global consensus
and you can use these notions for
for information distribution, for value distribution
or for governance
Ok, so Rigid coordination you know very well
it's a linear process of information
it can take very rapid decisions
but it can only efficiently work very static conditions
it's not adaptable to rapid changes in the environment
it's highly vulnerable to rapid changes
and also highly vulnerable to critical mistakes
like you have one agent, taking the decision
there is high odds it will take wrong decision
while as if you have millions of nodes taking decisions
some of them will take the right decisions
So federated coordination for example democracy
and the internet
is Semi parallel but is very sensitive to corruption
because a lot of power is aggregated in some nodes
and still it's not adapting fast enough
in fact todays democracies cannot anymore adapt
to the technological changes that take place so rapidly
there is an even better architecture
is the Market or p2p coordination
so it's a subjective distribution
wich means that
it only optimizes according to p2p interaction
so it optimizes localy
the best example is just pure capitalism
so it does optimize locally but there is no global optimization
there is no global coordination
so that drives competition, it leads to twists
and eventually to severe inequalities
and as you all know it's non sustainable
I would like to build a world with Stigmeric coordination
where there is a distribution of power
a distribution of decision making, a distribution of value
which is inter subjective
and we call that DCO
Decentralized Collaborative organizations
This is the real network society that i have in mind
and it has the feature of Decentralization, Scalability
Resilience, Macro diversity, Micro homogeneyti
and most importantly and that's the big difference
from Stigmergic Nature
it has an incentive for cooperation
and that is the additional piece you need to add
for people, you need to have a built in incentive
to cooperate and not to corrupt the system
So with this additional incentive model
Cooperation truly becomes the winning strategy
and that's I think the world we all want to live at
So what will be the means for that
About a decade ago
people invented Distributed Hash Table or DHT
the canonical example is BitTorrent
and it's just a distributed architecture for file sharing
It is distributed but it cannot carry value
so there is no global consensus buil in this protocol
so you can distributedly share informations
you cannot make transactions on this protocol
So you cannot build an economy with this architecture
but that is the first
I would say block that stuck
and some example are BitTorrent
IPFS is a new example
and today there is even more advanced one called Synereo
which also incorporate social network features into it
and then about six years ago
some people
unknown people have invented the blockchain
which is a distributed consensus protocol
today the blockchain is much more than that
it's actually a distributed computer
but the important point is that
you have a consensus protocol
which means that the whole network can hold
objective consensus about a state
So imagine that: we all have a computer
that we all run together
each of us can give input to the software
and none of us can corrupt the software
and this will have dramatic effect on the ability to create
global coordination, global economy and Stigmergy
However the blockchains only based
on algorithmically verifiable input
so the only way to interact with the decentralized network
is via input which is algorithmically verifiable
such us the mechanisms that are called proof of work
proof of stake, proof of storage, proof of CPU
and so on..
proof of movement as well
the problem is that most of decentralized interaction
you can think of
requires also human interaction
for example let's say that we are now
a thousand of people in the room
and you want to write a piece of code together
this already takes place in the opensource community
right? Linux for example
the problem is how do you distribute the value of that cocreation?
Wikipedia for example
Today for Wikipedia there are two
Well it's amazing but still
there are two issues
Firstly, it's based only on voluntary actions
like people cannot actually work all of their time
and make revenues of that or salaries
and Secondly it is not really decentralized
It's based on administrated architecture
What will happen if you have completely decentralized Wikipedia?
that people can actually partecipate and get value from?
How much more scalable would that be?
or how he would look like if instead of that
you have the same network
that build some opensource technology
and so on
but the point is that
people are interacted with a network
by giving value in terms of code, design and what not
and the question is how do you distribute the value
of that cocreation among collaborators
so you have to rely on input
which is not algororithmically verifiable
but it can only be assisted by other humans
and that's when it enters the BACKFEED protocol
so is a distributed consensus protocol based on human input
which basically means that it incorporates
pear to pear evaluation mechanics
decentralized reputation system
decentralized value distribution system
and last incentive model for early cooperation
I'm saying early just to emphasize that built in the model
the early you are partecipating in the network
the more value will get
reflecting the higher risk you are taking
Because, the largest problem of the decentralized networks
and actually general networks as well
is creating the critical mass of participance
before the network actually caring real world value
So in order to incentivize people for early partecipation
before there is operation of value
basically people who partecipate the earlier
get more shares in a way in that creation
and tha indeed makes collaboration the winning strategy
so in a sense the backfeed protocol is the DNA
for decentralized collaborative organisations
or if you want is a DNA for Distributed Network society
so that's how the blockchain stack looks like
there's the DHT, the blockchain, the backfeed protocol
on top of that it will be a collaborative platform
and eventually a visual browser
immagine a browser
Today we are browsing the internet or Wikipedia
or anything, via links and clicks
but immagine that beyond this database
it exist a graph
So the internet is a graph
Wikipedia is a graph
every database that we know today is a graph
but why do we browse it through links?
cannot we just browse it through the graph itself
So you imagine a visual browser
where you can actually travel the network
from the graph, seeing the graph
zooming in, zooming out and so on
So I'm claiming that this would actually be
a necessary tool for partecipation
such gigantic network
"this is under development yeah"
Where?
Where? there are various groups around the world
that are doing something similar to that
and we are basically taking that knowledge and code
and gradually incorporate that in a decentralized world
but for example some projects of this kind
one of them is called "risi"
and another one is called kumu
another one is called "napper"
So all those projects came in the same year
I think many people in the same time realized
the necessity of that
So this will be like the blockchain stack
this can be like ethereum BitCoin
and backfeed makes the protocol
there is application there and then the platform
or the visual browser layer
and it is very analogous to the internet stack
that we all know
in a sense we are building a new kind of internet
Imagine an Internet which is built in collaborative
UNCLEAR"So built in that in the Ethernet no zone in the network will cooperate"
and build things together
So very quickly I won't get into much details
but very quickly i just say that
the protocol works in a way that contributors
can make any sort of contribution
then any other node in the network
can evaluate and assess the quality of that contribution
each voice is basically weighted
by the reputation of each node
so each network has a different reputation score
and a different token score
the token score is like the finantial equity of that network
and the reputation score is kind of like
the influential equity of that network
the important point here is that
it is built in a way such that
those people who are
are shown to be alligned with the network
their reputation increases
where those people who are misaligned with the network
their reputation decreases
this means that when you are voting
on some others contribution
you are actually putting you reputation on a stake
which basically makes a feedback look
that drives the system into alignment
however those who are misaligned with the network
at any time can just fork it
like you fork a code on GitHub
they can fork the network, fork the reputation score
fork the token score and make a new network
in that way in a Natural selection evolution
you make network of networks
which basically, everything is opensource
this is a model for opensource technology
so basically they all share
the things that they agree about
and in a sense compete only about the things they disagree about
and basically probe all the space of possibilities
in a sistematic way
so it's again diversity at the macroscopic level
and homogeneity in the microscopic in network level
Let me just skip that and if I can go back later
into more details if you are interested
the way token are being distributed
and reputation as well
so what are the tokens good for?
basically the decentralized collaboration
is making something could be decentralizing insurance
decentralizing startup, decentralizing energy grid
or what not
and then there are those contributors above
that have gained tokens in the early days
and they can use them in order to facilitate
the new service or product of that network
but also there are many other users
that never gained tokens
and they need to gain those tokens in order to use the network
and they can do that in two ways
either, just purchase the tokens from the contributors
directly in the open market place
decentralized market place
or they can just purchase them directly from the network
which is kind of a decentralized reserve fund
and then the cash that is going into the reserve fund
I mean the tokens of the contributors can be redeemed
against that fund
so it's basically autonomous economy
which is designed to have a stabilized token and so on
and that gives the tokens that have been distribuited
in the early days
it gives them real world value
once the project succeed
So it goes like that
so initially it has no value
and then people in the succes of that network
and there is demand for the tokens
and then the value is increasing
at some point here the community
starts providing some goods or services to the public
and in order to facilitate
or enjoy those goods or services
you need to have those tokens
and then the tokens value is increasing up until it stabilizes
on some value
that's how this economy is designed
let me almost end with some examples
that are actually under development these days
So for example you can imagine
decentralized ride sharing network
So it's a gigantic network of pears driving over the place
where a rider and a driver can be matched
in complete pear to pear fashion
so you don't nead uber or lyft to match those
they can actually
the software that is running tha matching algorithm
is actually sitting on a blockchain
so you don't need any centralized server
to match the driver and the rider
and then the transaction is also directly p2p
between the two nodes
imagine decentralized journalism
we are actually now working with two companies
to implement that
like kind of reddit but completely decentralized
anyone can upload content
anyone can edit, suggest editions of others content
Right, but whent it kicks in the reputation score
so basically it means that many networks
you can have one huge database of content
but then many networks that looks at this database
from different angles
with different reputation score
So maybe your content will be higly valuable in one network
and less valuable in other networks
so each of these networks is self monitoring the quality
of the content
Right
Right, so basically
so basically
if in some network there is a content A
that will not be approved or endorced
in that network that content will just disappear
from the view of that network
but if another network actually endorce that content
it will be viewable in that network
so basically it's a self monitoring mechanism
In fact, you know one thing people ask
How do you
monitor spam?
in such networks
because you know in a centralized
you know we already have evaluation
ranking systems, i mean Google pagerank
is a system, Quora and we have many others
Amazon So why just not using that on a decentralized architecture?
that's one question, the second question is
How do you monitor spamming?
like bad behaviour on decentralized architecture
because it is so hard on a centralized architecture
the answer is that, and it's for the two questions
if you just take centralized evaluation systems
and put them on decentralized topology
they are miserably failing
and the reason is because you can easily hack
the systems and spam it
so you need to have complete no notion
of violation system, a complete no notion of reputation and so on
and that's also the answer for the second question
in fact the answer is that is actually easier
to control spamming on a decentralized network
because you don't have one monitoring authority
each network has n nodes
it has n monitoring authorities
so yeah it's much easier
to control spamming
Yeah
I will finish in one or two slides
So you can imagine decentralizing insurance network
like bilions of people insuring completely p2p each other
with this technology that i'm telling you about
there is no reason for insurance companies
I mean once these cases are deployed
Insurance companies will not be able to suggest
anything better than that
it will be more fair, it will be more aligned
nodes on these networks will be more aligned
it will be cheaper
and it will scale
centralized companies will simply won't be able to compete
with that
you can immagine decentralized makers
decentralized startups
What would happen if millions of people
actually build a startup together?
How this will look like?
decentralize VC
but in one room
a decentralized environmental movement
actually related to the previous talk
we are in touchg with several organizations
and I would like to get in touch with
the last speaker as well
about making a large scale decentralized environmental movement
and of course decentralized social network
So just before finishing
just to tell you that there are many beautiful people
that are responsable for this dream
to become true
and this is (unclear) not updated
(unclear) all the time
but these guys here are
most of them are full time dedicated
to this project
and let me just end
with one
last sentence
So basically, i just want to tell you
Welcome aboard to the transition
that is going to take place
for humanity
Be prepared and most importantly don't worry
because nothing is under control
Thank you
Thank you Matan
we still have like two minutes for questions
like really short questions
really short answers
and then we will have to go forward
First thank you very much for the great presentation
I have a question reguarding the blockchain
How do you look at the blockchain growth
versus computing storage, computing power
versus availability for decentralization
So this indeed an excellent question
I mean scalability is the largest problem
or the biggest problem for blockchain
is called scalability problem
and i think that is the only problem left in order to complete
that technology
So this is inprogress
I can tell you what the solutions look like
it's not yet completed
but what are the ways people are taking
it's a little bit technical though
but the idea is that you don't need
you don't need to register everything on the blockchains
you can register a lot of things
on other typologies like DHT
and just
in a wat zip them and just register the zip
on the blockchain that's one direction
and the other direction is that
the point is that
Why blockchain is so expensive?
in terms of computing power
it goes together with the consensus protocol
the consensus protocol works because all the nodes
in a network are repeating the same actions
that's what brings the consensus
but on the other hand
it's very expensive because all nodes of the network
are doing the same actions, the same computation
So the way to kind of resolve that tension
is by having not all nodes of the network
observing each and every transaction
but then doing that in a complicated
complexe manners so that hackers cannot kind of track
the changes of typologies that look and observe
the network
and basically attack it
So actually we have dealt with the same problems
in the backfeed protocol and resolved them
in the same way
So this is kind of the direction
but now you need to turn those words in algorithms
and functions
and machine much more complicated
but very smart people are working on this
in these very days
Unfortunately we do not have time for anymore questions
I'm sure Matan will be available for answering those
and chatting about it later on
Thank you Matan for the speach
and let's hear it