HI folks - I am coming into this particular thread late, so I may be missing the initial point. Begging folks' indulgence if this is a "fork"(I hope it is not) - on the prior couple of points, query whether the AI and bots "use" the smart contracts or, instead, do the smart contracts actually "compose/comprise" the distributed AI (and "good bot") system? In other words, will smart contracts be the "synapses" of AI/SI systems?
Stated otherwise, are standard smart contracts a way of hybridizing AI with SI (see below on "SI" concept), where the synthesis of multiple instantiations of the identical smart contracts across nodes (a la "distributed ledger") enables a form of suppression (self-regulation?) of errant smart contract application that might reflect intentional or accidental out-of-bounds activity on a network?
Might standard contracts be used to establish a form of system "self" (albeit an intangible form of system "self") that can distinguish system "other" (like learned immunity systems), and police (and enforce) terms to reify the "self" that is reflective of the optimal system function (at least optimal as programmed in the smart contracts!)
Are P2P networks a form of "SI" (Synthetic Intelligence) that is synthesized into a form of system intelligence that is greater than the sum of its parts, and which reflects an additional potential architecture for distributed AI?
Part of our challenge in these sorts of distributed intelligence settings is , from a graph theory perspective, to get each "node" to be singing off the same song sheet. When those nodes are people, narratives (such as from religion, politics, social norms, economic incentives, ethical constructions, etc.) are the "song sheet/programming" of the nodes.
When those nodes are commercial organizations, then economic goals (as required by their respective state laws of formation, articles, bylaws and contracts) and regulatory constraints are the "song sheet/programming" of the nodes.
As an aside, a fundamental challenge of the Internet is that it is a shared infrastructure among groups that are singing off different song sheets. For example, when people are pursuing advice online about a social/emotional challenge (for example), they are also (below their awareness) sharing the communication space (and the communication) with commercial actors which (under current TOU/TOS arrangements, etc.) are able to access their communication and hence glean insight into that person's behavior/motivations and sell them some "placebo/face cream/whatever" that is offered to help fill the voids (both epidermic and existential, etc.) which fulfills the commercial goal of generating revenue, etc. Smart contracts will provide a mechanism for us to calibrate, normalize (and analyze, and improve) the balance of "information arbitrage" that is currently skewed in these shared spaces. Those imbalances are currently an artifact of yesterday's power relationships and its technical and legal embodiment in the Internet.
Based on the foregoing observations/quasi-rant, it seems likely that smart contracts will find initial deployment in the simplest (lowest risk) contract settings - those with few input variables (called "conditions" in law) and applied in innocuous settings.
For example, is a useful model of these "distributed smart contract" deployments the old (distributed) mechanical parking meter system, where each parking meter is built/programmed to register a certain amount of time for a given payment, and is constrained in its pre-programmed flexibility. The parking meter system, in gross, represents a form of mechanistic "neighborhood watch," but not against various crimes, but only the specific violation of unpaid parking. Simple, few variables, innocuous - reliable.
Standard contracts (such as the fedex(tm) standard shipping terms, or the standard forms of PCI-DSS conformant credit card terms) create an intrinsic distributed (albeit intangible) risk-sharing topology that is reified with the serial agreements of its participants. In other words, every contracting party becomes an interested party in the reliability of the system when they sign up and hence depend on that system. This is particularly so in executory contract settings, or those with minimal signing ceremonies (i.e., "click to accept"), the recruitment of participants into the constraints of the agreement is made as simple as possible (so as not to distract the raw system recruit from their enthusiastic information-seeking behavior!)
All of this is intended to convey the suggestion that there are strategies that can help to address the (appropriately) perceived dangers of "smart contracts" being enforced in inappropriate settings, or despite the failure of party expectations. Settings in which "Dumb contracts" (like mechanical parking meters, shipping agreements, etc.,) are already successfully applied at large scales may provide favorable piloting circumstances.
The constraint of the system is a source of security, since it means that a parking meter cannot, for example, be accidentally or intentionally reprogrammed to do less innocuous things. Can smart contracts be "hardened" against such reprogramming? Perhaps (in the alternative) the immediate "externality" of the smart contract can detect and dampen functional drift of a given smart contract? One similar idea that we have been fussing with in some security discussions is a P2P "neighborhood watch" AMONG IoT devices. Distributed solutions for distributed challenges.
But I digress. . .
Kind regards,
Scott
Scott L. David
Director of Policy
Center for Information Assurance and Cybersecurity
University of Washington - Applied Physics Laboratory
w- 206-897-1466
m- 206-715-0859
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