Blockchain Singularities

San Francisco CA, Aug 28, 2016
Slides: http://slideshare.net/LaBlogga
Melanie Swan
Philosophy & Economic Theory
New School for Social Research, NY NY
melanie@BlockchainStudies.org
Blockchain Singularities
Blockchain 101: the Automation Economy and the Future of Money
Part of a Series on Cryptophilosophy
cryptophilosophy

Aug 28, 2016
Blockchain Singularities 1
Melanie Swan, Blockchain Futurist
 Philosophy and Economic Theory, New School
for Social Research, New York NY
 Founder, Institute for Blockchain Studies
 Singularity University Instructor; Institute for Ethics and
Emerging Technology Affiliate Scholar; EDGE
Essayist; FQXi Advisor (Foundational Questions Inst)
Traditional Markets Background Economic Theory Leadership
New Economies research group
Source: http://www.melanieswan.com, http://blockchainstudies.org/NSNE.pdf, http://blockchainstudies.org/Metaphilosophy_CFP.pdf
https://www.facebook.com/groups/NewEconomies

Aug 28, 2016
Blockchain
2
Source: http://www.amazon.com/Bitcoin-Blueprint-New-World-Currency/dp/1491920491

Aug 28, 2016
Agenda
I. Blockchain technology: What is it?
 Basic: definition and status
 Advanced: automation economy
II. Singularity-class applications
 Friendly AI
 Brain as a DAC
 Bio-cryptoeconomy
 Blockchains in Space
 Nanotech/Synbio
III. Conclusion: Singularity futures
3

Aug 28, 2016
Thesis Statement
4
Beyond digitalizing money, payments,
economics, and finance, blockchains are a
singularity-class technology that enables the
secure, trackable, automated coordination of
very large-scale projects, fleets, and swarms
The implications could be an orderly transition
to the automation economy and trust-rich
human-machine collaboration in the digital
smartnetwork societies of the future

Aug 28, 2016
Blockchain Technology: What is it?
5
 Blockchain technology is the secure distributed ledger
software that underlies cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin
 Bitcoin Internet of Money: Skype is an app allowing phone calls
via Internet without POTS; Bitcoin is an app allowing money
transfer via the Internet without banks; ‘decentralized Paypal’
Internet
(decentralized network)
Blockchain
Bitcoin
Application
Layer
Protocol
Layer
Infrastructure
Layer
SMTP
Email
VoIP
Phone
calls
OSI Protocol Stack

Aug 28, 2016
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
6
Source: https://blockexplorer.com

Aug 28, 2016
Blockchains: secure transfer of money
7
 Phase I: transfer information
 Modernize publishing, music, news;
content, information
 Phase 2: transfer money, property
 Modernize of economics and finance
 Digital payments layer the Internet
never had
 Baking the qualitative good of trust
into the infrastructure
 Moving up the stack, pushing different
qualitative states through the Internet
pipes, building future smartnetworks

Aug 28, 2016
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, finance,
economics, and currency
 Access to economic and financial
systems (credit) as a basic human
right (4 billion unbanked)
 Long-tail economics: any two
parties can transact on the
network
8

Aug 28, 2016
Issue: hierarchy is not scalable
9
Sources: 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

Aug 28, 2016
Economic Principles: not just for Economics
10
Economic Principles
 Traditional Deployment
 Buy/sell transactions
 Financial markets
 Blockchain Deployment
 Any interaction is a discovery
and exchange process
 Decentralized models
supplement hierarchy
 Demurrage: incitatory potential
and resource redistribution
across network nodes
 Reciprocal mining communities
(smarthome IOT, brain BCI)
Blockchain technology is prompting
a rethinking of economic principles
and concepts (resources,
exchange, allocation, pricing,
distribution, markets) to apply in
non-monetary contexts

Aug 28, 2016
Blockchain Economics and Finance
11
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

Aug 28, 2016
Decentralized Economics and Finance
12
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 Fulfillment
3. 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 Ownership
2. Topological Ranges instead
of Point Values
3. Assurity instead of
Insufficiency
Source: New School New Economies and Finance Working Group: http://blockchainstudies.org/NSNE.pdf
Economics Finance
Present FutureTemporality
Regime

Aug 28, 2016
Abundance Philosophy of Economics:
decentralized economics and finance
13
Source: Swan, M. "Automation Economy: An Abundance Philosophy of Economics" In Emerging Technology and
Unemployment. Palgrave Macmillan. Forthcoming.
 Phase I: transition to Automation Economy
 Phase II: transition to Actualization Economy
A
B
C

Aug 28, 2016
Agenda
 Friendly AI
 Brain as a DAC
 Nanotech/Synbio
14

Aug 28, 2016
Blockchains help Singularity-class Problems
15
http://www.amazon.com/Bitcoin-Blueprint-New-World-Currency/dp/1491920491
 Properties: secure trackable automated
coordination of large-scale projects and
large numbers of things
 Fleets, swarms, and networks:
 IOT sensors, autonomous vehicles, synaptic
connections, deep-learners, social robotics,
medical nanorobots, planet terraformers, synbio
agents, environmental cleanup bots
 Implication: vast amount of self-
orchestrating network activity
 Automated system of checks and balances; all
“transactions” must confirm via reputation
confirmation, algorithmic trust and smartnetwork
consensus mechanisms

Aug 28, 2016
Blockchain AI Apps
Enact Friendly AI (Artificial Intelligence)
16
 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, even 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

Aug 28, 2016
Brain DACs applied to Thinking Machines
(Decentralized Autonomous Corporation (packages of smart contracts))
 Automate thinking process
 Thinking is computational: input-
processing-output
 Blockchain-based deep learners
 State storing: Recurrent neural nets
 Memory: modular machine learning
add-on (Neural Turing Machines)
 File-serving architecture, Internet’s
new plumbing: IPFS
 Predictability: structural equation
modeling, causal graphical models
 Example: Autonomous lab robots
 On-chain IP discovery tracking
17
Source: 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

Aug 28, 2016
Consciousness and the Brain as a DAC
1. Hard problem of consciousness
 What is it like to be a bat, me, you, etc.
 Consciousness and the human brain
 Need to connect information and meaning
 Use Brain DACs to automate modeling
 Big data needed for progress: Large-scale
databases of personal connectome files to
reveal brain structure, synaptic relations
2. Personal Thinking Chains (backup)
 Life-log memories, impute utility functions and
goals, generate QS biometric datastore
 Example: Oculus Rift–connectome integration
for experience sharing (SnapChat t+1)
18
Source: Swan, M. Blockchain Thinking: The Brain as a DAC (Decentralized Autonomous Corporation). Technology and
Society Magazine, IEEE 2015; 34(4): 41-52.

Aug 28, 2016
Large possibility space of Intelligence
19
Source: Yudkovsky, E. In Roman V. Yampolskiy. Artificial Superintelligence. 2015.

Aug 28, 2016
Blockchain Singularities 20
Future of Diverse Thinking Entities
Autonomous
Car
Smart Contract
DAOs/DACs
Enhanced Human
IOT/M2M
Smartnetworks
Whole Brain
Emulations
Hybrid
Classic Human
Source: http://futurememes.blogspot.com/2015/01/blockchain-thinking-transition-to.html
Neocortical
Column Arrays
Deep-Learning
Clusters
Machine Learning
Algorithms
Simulated
Minds
High-frequency
Trading Networks
Real-time Bidding
Arrays
Brain-computer
Interfaces
Digital Mindfile
Uploads
Artificial Life
Synthetic BiologyDesigned
Life
Cellular
Automata
Supercomputers AI
Agents
Expert Systems
Autonomic
Computing
Natural Language
Processors
Brain Scans
Animals
Personal
Robotics
Smarthome
Networks

Aug 28, 2016
VR DACs: metaverse chains & prototyping
 Blockchains automate VR world-building
 Simulations, models: QFT, entropy, etc.
 VR exceeds IRL limitations
 Entertainment, challenge, fun, meaningful
activity, 10,000 gaming hours; VR is
composable and rewarding in ways the
physical world is not; Simulation
 VR/IRL interplay and embedded world
 Computational universe embedded in
physical universe (all objects “smart”; ARG:
Pokémon Go, Ingress)
 Physical universe in the computational
universe (living in VR)
21
Source: http://futurememes.blogspot.com/2015/09/vr-chains-and-dac-brains-upload-your.html
http://www.nature.com/nphys/journal/v11/n2/abs/nphys3230.html

Aug 28, 2016
Social Robotics
 Personal voice assistants,
social robotics
 All apps become voice-activated,
interactive
 Cross-cloud accessibility (IOT
smarthome, connected car,
smartcity)
 Fleet coordination functionality:
 Automated, secure,
tracking/logging, remunerative
structure, transaction coordination,
apps/processes (smart contracts),
coordination (updates), audit log
22
Source: Swan, M. Philosophy of Social Robotics: Abundance Economics. Sociorobotics, 2016.
http://www.melanieswan.com/documents/SocialRobotics.pdf.

Aug 28, 2016
Nanotech Grey Goo and Runaway Synbio
23
 Worry: Grey Goo (unchecked
nanotech proliferation), DNA-
printed synthetic bio-plague
 Solution: signing; as physical-
world engineers sign the
bridges they build, likewise
synbio engineers sign DNA
and nanotech designs
(unavoidable signing per
detectable origins)

Aug 28, 2016
Instead of grey goo, blockchain Utility Fog
 Blockchain-based nano-
compilers create and manage
on-demand utility fog
 Utility fog: a collection of
nanorobots that can replicate
a physical structure on-
demand
 Info probe, shield, control buffer,
assessment tool, in-situ resource
cloud
 Example: auto-chair DAC for
diabetic patients
24

Aug 28, 2016
 Bio-cryptoeconomics for secure
automation and coordination of medical
nanorobotics for cellular repair
 Secure crypto-transaction tracking
 Automated coordination
 Medical nanorobotics as coming-onboard
repair platform for the human body
 Activity coordinated, tracked, monitored
 High number of agents and “transactions”
 Secure automation is obvious requirement
 Crypto-tracking DAC coordinates medical
nanorobotic cell repair
25
Sources: 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

Aug 28, 2016
Bio-cryptoeconomy
Bio-Nano Repair DACs
 In-cell repair DACs monitoring individual cell
health and facilitating augmentation
(enhancement platform)
 Bio-DACs manage physical health and mental
performance as a demurrage (action-inciting)
health currency
 Idea-tracking
 BCI-interfacing
26
Sources: Bio-Cryptoeconomy: Nanorobotic DACs for Cell Repair and Enhancement
http://futurememes.blogspot.com/2016/08/bio-cryptoeconomy-nanorobotic-dacs-for.html

Aug 28, 2016
BCI Cloudminds and Chainbrains
 Cloudmind: cloud-based thinker
or thinking entity
 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
27
Source: 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

Aug 28, 2016
Spacechains: Blockchains in Space
28
 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)
 Relevant blockchain functionality
 Secure, track-able automation and
coordination of numerous items (units and
parameters) at very-large scale
 Autonomous entities, Bitsat backup network

Aug 28, 2016
Blockchain IOT
29
Sources: http://www.zdnet.com/article/internet-of-things-market-to-hit-7-1-trillion-by-2020-idc/,
 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 mechanisms
Smartcity Connected
Car Coordination
Smarthome IOT and
Personal Robotics
Coordination

Aug 28, 2016
Blockchain Health
 Blockchain technology in health-related applications
1. EMRs: Personal Health Record Storage and Access
 Personal health records stored and administered via blockchain
 Users key-permission doctors and other parties into records
2. Health Research Commons
 Aggregated personal medical records, quantified self data
commons (DNA.bits), genome and connectome files
3. Health Document Notary Services
 Proof-of-insurance, test results, prescriptions, status, condition,
treatment, physician referrals
4. Doctor Vendor RFP Services
 (Like Uber drivers) doctors and health practices bid to supply
medical services; automated bidding via tradenets
30
Source: http://futurememes.blogspot.fr/2014/09/blockchain-health-remunerative-health.html

Aug 28, 2016
Cryptocurrency design features
 Economics as a design tool
 Cryptocurrencies for non-monetary purposes
 Example: demurrage property, a built-in
mechanism for spend/action-taking
 Anti-inflationary, supply can be set to expire, redistribute,
etc. at certain moments
 Good for systems where want full consumption: drug,
neuro-transmitters, idea propagation, GBIs (Guaranteed
Basic Income)
 GBHA (Guaranteed Basic Health Initiative): paid out and
payable in HealthCoin; HSA (Health Savings Account) 2.0
 Fitbit is a demurrage health currency by encouraging
action
31

Aug 28, 2016
Cryptocurrency design features
 Health itself as a demurrage currency, a
continually auto-redistributing commodity
among synapses, cells, humans; body and
brain as a DAO/DAC AI
 Cognitive enhancement drugs work this way,
maximize distribution in the neuro-stack:
piracetams, CILTEP
 Concept: demurrage resource-allocation +
Đapp (blockchain-based distributed app)
 Automatic redistribution of any commodity within a system
(brain or mindfile (potentiation, optogenetic stimulation)), body
(‘health’ (oxygen, waste removal nanobots, circulating lab-on-
chips)), work team (ideas), society (liberty)
32

Aug 28, 2016
Blockchain Genomics
33
 Jurisdictional regulation prevents
individuals from having access to
their own genetic data
http://genomesunzipped.org/2011/03/people-have-a-right-to-access-their-own-genetic-information.php

Aug 28, 2016
Bitcoin MOOCs
 Blockchain-based “Kiva for literacy”
 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
34

Aug 28, 2016
Digital Cryptocitizen Sensibility
 The new literacy: digital literacy
 Cryptocitizen: back-up your money
 Self-responsibility-taking; designing
personalized economic, political, and
social systems
 Governance services vs. being governed
 Monetary, economic, financial, and legal
services (example: self-designed mortgage)
35
Source: Swan, M. Crypto Enlightenment: A Social Theory of Blockchains http://www.slideshare.net/lablogga/the-crypto-
enlightenment-social-theory-of-blockchains

Aug 28, 2016
Agenda
 Friendly AI
 Brain as a DAC
 Nanotech/Synbio
36

Aug 28, 2016
Blockchain downside and risks?
ISSUE
37
Satoshi Roundtable #3: Scaling
Bitcoin Milan Oct 8-9, 2016
Hacking Scandals
Mt Gox, Ethereum DAO, Bitfinex
Silk Road, drug dealers,
terrorists, criminals
Scalability, Block size,
Sidechains, Mining
Mining Centralization
RESPONSE
Centralization temporary; wider-
spread at higher-scale; moving 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 can’t scale, it is not resilient, Yahoo, AltaVista down for days of DNS attacks
Source: http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-scaling-conference-italy

Aug 28, 2016
Technological Unemployment
 Key singularity-class challenge: orderly transition to the
Automation Economy
 Half (47%) of U.S. employment is at risk of automation in the
next two decades – Carl Frey, Oxford, 2015
 Why are there still so many jobs in a world that could be
automating more quickly? – David Autor, MIT, 2015
38
Source: Swan, M. "Automation Economy: An Abundance Philosophy of Economics" In Emerging Technology and
Unemployment. Palgrave Macmillan. Forthcoming.

Aug 28, 2016
Next to Automate? Driving & Transportation
 Indicator: automotive company
R&D labs in Silicon Valley
 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
39
Source: 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-1603746933
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-08-18/uber-s-first-self-driving-fleet-arrives-in-pittsburgh-this-month-is06r7on

Aug 28, 2016
Blockchain Applications by Sector (selected)
40
Sources: http://www.amazon.com/Bitcoin-Blueprint-New-World-Currency/dp/1491920491
http://www.slideshare.net/lablogga/blockchain-health-and-crypto-wellness-futures
Relevant Blockchain Properties
• Cryptoledger
• Decentralized network
• Trustless
counterparties
• Independent
consensus-confirmed
transactions
• Permanent record
• Public records
repository
• Notarization time-
stamping hashes
• Universal format
• Accessibility
Government
& Legal
• Transnational orgs
• Personalized
governance services
• Voting, propositions
• P2P bonds
• Tele-attorney services
• IP registration and
exchange
• Tax receipts
• Notary service and
document registry
Financial
Services
• Currency
• Payments &
Remittance
• Banking & Finance
• Clearing &
Settlement
• Insurance
• FinTech
• Trading & Derivatives
• QA & Internal Audit
• Crowdfunding
IOT (M2M,
computing)
• Agricultural & drone
sensor networks
• Smarthome networks
• Integrated smartcity,
connected car,
smarthome sensors
• Self-driving car
• Personalized robots,
robotic companions
• Personalized drones
• Digital assistants
• Communication
(messaging)
• Large-scale
coordination
• Entity ingress/egress
• Transaction security
• Universal format
• Large-scale multi-
data-stream
integration
• Privacy and security
• Real-time
accessibility
Health
• Universal EMR
• Health databanks
• QS Data Commons
• Big health data
stream analytics
• Digital health wallet
• Smart property
• HealthToken
• Personal
development
contracts
• Large-scale
infrastructural
element for
coordination
• Checks-and-
balances system
for ‘good-player’
access
• Community
supercomputing
• Crowd analysis
• P2P resourcenets
• Film, dataviz
• AI: blockchain
advocates, friendly
AI, blockchain
learners, digital
mindfile services
Science

Aug 28, 2016
Permissioned (identity-known) and
Permissionless (anonymous) Ledgers
41
Source: 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

Aug 28, 2016
Seeking blockchain collaboration
 New School New Economies working group
 Mission statement: http://blockchainstudies.org/NSNE.pdf
 Join: https://www.facebook.com/groups/NewEconomies
 Papers
 CFP 4000-word articles “Philosophy of Blockchains” due Oct 1,
2016, Wiley journal Metaphilosophy
http://blockchainstudies.org/Metaphilosophy_CFP.pdf
 Events: NY and CA
 Rethink/ECONOMICS, Thursday, September 15, 7-9 pm,
ConsenSys, 49 Bogart Street, Suite 22, Brooklyn NY 11249
https://www.facebook.com/events/960033624119253/
 Book / special journal issue contributions
 Decentralized economics, Decentralized finance
42
Source: http://blockchainstudies.org/NSNE.pdf
Thank You! Questions?

Aug 28, 2016
Thesis Statement
43
Beyond digitalizing money, payments,
economics, and finance, blockchains are a
singularity-class technology that enables the
secure, trackable, automated coordination of
very large-scale projects, fleets, and swarms
The implications could be an orderly transition
to the automation economy and trust-rich
human-machine collaboration in the digital
smartnetwork societies of the future

San Francisco CA, Aug 28, 2016
Slides: http://slideshare.net/LaBlogga
Melanie Swan
Philosophy & Economic Theory
New School for Social Research, NY NY
melanie@BlockchainStudies.org
Blockchain 101: the Automation Economy and the Future of Money
Part of a Series on Cryptophilosophy
cryptophilosophy
Thank You! Questions?

Blockchain Singularities

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