The purpose of this book was to analyze aspects of the problems with our politics, our technology, and our economy in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and to propose ideas for debate and discussion. Some of those ideas are in production, others have delivered pilots or proofs of concept, and others need more elaboration and, most importantly, experimentation. Data trusts are a novel concept that has to be adopted by a critical number of pioneering smart cities and organizations in order to become the mainstream paradigm. Their use in the COVID-19 pandemic could have resolved the dilemma of protecting data privacy while permitting the digital innovation that needed that data in order to help countries return to normality. But the big prize from data trusts is, of course, the institution and protection of property rights for citizen data, an idea that needs more discussion and exploration, as well as input from legal and economic scholars. Cybernetic AI systems are a proposal that goes against the current trend, and investment, that is betting on traditional AI systems that are decoupled from humans. Web 3.0 cryptoplatforms are in their infancy. Whether they replace web 2.0 platforms as the dominant business model of the Fourth Industrial Revolution is uncertain, and—like the development of cybernetic AI—contingent on how much investment, talent, and sense of purpose will be diverted toward more democratic systems of wealth creation and corporate governance. Much depends on the extent to which liberal democracies will encourage the development of open, peer-to-peer markets based on web 3.0 technologies through the appropriate legislation and regulation. Given, however, the growing realization that only a global cryptocurrency could provide the necessary stability to the global banking system,1 we could be hopeful that this would be the general direction of travel for many governments and regulators in the 2020s. Should such a global cryptocurrency ever be launched and adopted by the major economies, it will pave the way to an explosion of web 3.0 cryptoplatforms and peer-to-peer markets wherein tokens could be valued against this stable, global cryptocurrency.
Citizen assemblies need to become a new liberal institution, embedded in the policy decision making at every level of government. The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated how important it is for democracies to get citizen consent to draconian measures that directly impact their lives. The pandemic also illustrated the need for democratic societies to find balanced solutions and make hard choices for the restart of their national economies. Leaving those decisions to the experts and the politicians, without directly engaging with citizens, exposed extremely difficult and costly dilemmas. How many people should lose their jobs, and how many businesses should fail, before lifting the lockdowns? How should we allow the gradual return of people to work without introducing massive surveillance, socioeconomic exclusion, and division? How can we evaluate scientific knowledge and technological innovations that are imperfect, yet urgently needed? How can we balance the rights of the vulnerable old with the rights of the less-vulnerable young? Dilemmas such as these are not scientific but moral and political. Ordinary citizens ought to have a voice in reaching a consensus on the optimal solutions and strategies, and take the risk, as well as the responsibility, for implementing those solutions without the need for top-down enforcement or coercion.
The concept of cryptogovernance based on Elinor Ostrom’s design principles for CPR institutions is a speculative proposal that requires testing. The potential of Ostrom’s thinking with respect to transforming institutions to widen participation, promote diversity, and favor cooperation over competition is enormous but as yet largely unexploited. There is a need for her work to be further popularized so that it inspires young scientists, technologists, and entrepreneurs in experimenting more with alternative business models and, importantly, with new ways of managing the commons. The twenty-first century will require that human societies find consensus to tackle global challenges together. By the year 2050 there will be nearly 10 billion humans living on the planet.2 As more people come out of poverty, and assuming that average human prosperity keeps increasing, planetary resources will stretch to their limit. Technology can provide temporary solutions for food insecurity, energy, provision of fresh water, and a slowing down of environmental degradation. However, how we apply those technologies to protect and manage the planetary commons will be critical to our survival. Current centralized institutions of global governance seem ineffective and outdated when it comes to dealing with such huge challenges. New institutions for global governance are needed that decentralize decisions and actions so that there is greater citizen involvement in decision making and policy making at a local level; Ostrom’s ideas could provide ample inspiration for imagining such institutions.
Cryptoeconomics needs to expand beyond the design of smart contracts and explore how web 3.0 technologies could enable new business models for a circular economy. For instance, by having a community of consumers using a cryptoplatform to share the use of the same products, we can drastically decrease the energy expended for manufacturing, while at the same time increasing revenues for producers. Combining circular economic models and cryptoplatforms, we could provide clear economic incentives to ordinary citizens for sustainable living without loss in the quality of life.
As we design new digital systems for production and governance, and as we evolve our political institutions to allow for more direct citizen participation, it is important to take into account scientific discoveries that are shedding new light on human empathy and morality. The neurobiology of conscience and moral thinking should inform the cybernetic designs of the future, and that is why designers and engineers must become acquainted with interdisciplinary work in how evolution is shaping moral behavior by groundbreaking academic thinkers such as Nicholas Christakis,3 Bret Weinstein,4 and Patricia Churchland,5 to name but a few. We need more such interdisciplinary work in order to connect the dots of evolutionary biology, sociology, politics, philosophy, ethics, history, and engineering. For example, in a future of material abundance, when most people would be free to choose how much they work and when, what are we going to do with our freedom? How far can we go by replacing the dignity of having a steady job with the dignity of being an active citizen in a participatory democracy? What can we learn from the state of humanity before the agricultural revolution, or from present-day preindustrial communities, to inspire productive and meaningful ways of living in a largely automated future? What can we learn by reminding ourselves of ancient and contemporary philosophical teachings that explored a “good and considered” life, so we can incorporate them in the context of a technologically advanced civilization? How can we use those teachings to preserve and protect natural habitats, explore new worlds, and save humanity from self-destruction? The current state of siloed academic discourse is unhelpful, and universities must do more to break down functional barriers and sponsor more horizontal research. More dialogue is needed between technologists, politicians, and theorists. Cyber Republic is an attempt to provide ideas and a framework for such a discourse but also for direct action.
For the struggle against authoritarianism and absolutism must go on and intensify not only in academic circles, books, and intellectual debates but also in the way we run our businesses, educate and inspire the next generation of citizens, and organize collectively in our workplaces, our industries, our professions, and our cities. We must not let down our guard and give in to the sirens who are using the COVID-19 pandemic as a pretext to reduce civil liberties and adopt a surveillance state with little or no accountability to citizens and communities. We should take hope and inspiration from the millions who filled the streets of Hong Kong and raised their voices in defense of liberty and the rule of law. And we should borrow some of the great courage of 17-year-old journalism student Olya Misik, who, during the anti-Putin demonstrations in the summer of 2019, read articles from the Russian constitution to the heavily armed riot police deployed to break up the rallies.6 As long as there are people willing to fight tyranny regardless of personal cost, the future is open and full of possibilities. We can claim it. We can still dream of a better world.