The Virtual Founder

WHEN THE BOSS IS A BOT

By the end of this current decade, some of you reading this will be employed by AIs.

I’m not kidding.

The sharing economy has created a vast swathe of individuals who are managed entirely by algorithm, and the trend is spilling into other sectors.

Recent advances in blockchain technology will soon allow for the deployment of self-enforcing smart contracts (such as joint savings accounts, FOREX markets, trust funds, insurance, and derivatives), as well as decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs) that subsist independently of any moral or legal entity.

These algorithmic entities are autonomous and self-sufficient: they charge users directly for services rendered, sustaining their own operations with no further assistance required. They may even hire humans to perform tasks for them, using an equivalent of Elance (since merged into Upwork).

Once deployed, DAOs are not controlled, owned, or operated by any given entity. They exist in a legal limbo: sovereign enough to hold property, yet a legal non-person with agency.

With agency comes responsibility and the potential for unethical practices, including committing tort. Enforcing judgment against such an entity will be profoundly difficult. There is real, imminent danger of facing challenges from DAOs in as little as 36 months from now.

There is a pressing need for a computational ethics engine that can guide DAOs in making just and equitable decisions (business ethics). It’s a difficult problem that needs serious effort.

The good news is that DAOs will powerfully disrupt many institutions we think of as irreplaceable today -- governmental functions that do verification and security. In the near future, founders with guts and vision will create literal engines of happiness; DAOs can fulfil the major functions of charitable trusts.

Moreover, it can pay real dividends to human shareholders. One can have a wide array of these machines operating in perfect competition, providing a true alternative to government welfare systems (not to mention providing some gainful human employment), yet still fitting into non-violent free market economics.

This does not even require Artificial General Intelligence -- a machine capable of dispensing funds can hire humans for the tasks it is bad at. If your AI boss has the right computational ethics framework behind it, it may even avoid being a jerk to you and others.

This hybrid model of human and AI interaction (what Garry Kasparov calls a ’Centaur’) will be the status quo for enterprise in the coming decades. It is a formidable blend of synthetic and organic qualities, and it will kick disruptive butt all across our society. Mentally adjust now, because it’s coming sooner than you think.