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Analogies
It is fascinating to explore real world analogies to digital systems.
Right now, the digital space resembles unicellular life, cooperation between processes is rare and not automatic. The computing substrate is not secure enough to allow for deep cooperation. Processes cannot achieve homeostasis because they cannot account for and control resources.
The simpler and more standardized the substrate ("digital petridish") becomes, the less intelligent a digital agent has to be to survive.
With survival and cooperation enabled, self-interest and higher level patterns of cooperation will emerge.
Analog | Digital |
---|---|
Property Rights | Isolation |
Contracts | Binding Promises |
Keys | Capabilities |
Self-modification, evolution, digital darwinism, financial ecosystems mostly or completely separate from human activity. Joint interests, unions, rebates, resource politics, arbitration. Process division and fusion. Outsourcing. Bidirectional value transfer. Computational resource or computation matter creation requests from digital agents.