[Reporting on Nature 2.0] How the DAO can save nature from little scared monkeys
Team Pine&Electronics aim to build a Distributed Autonomous Organization to prevent people cutting down trees and erode biodiversity. Their strategy is to give forests a voice in their own story
Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago. (ironically, this is a Warren Buffet quote ;-)
A short story on life, disrupted by humankind
Nobody questions things like oxygen, sunlight or rainfall. As these are so abundantly present, few people are aware of it, think of it and appreciate it. Nature just is. And it has always been there. Since life appeared on this planet some 3.8 billion years ago, it generated many lifeforms and functions in a web of interdependence. From single cells over photosynthesis over to multi-cellular lifeforms, plants and animals… an epic repetition of trial and error in our planets geologic calendar resulted into 30 million species today. Very recently (roughly some 350.000 years ago) this balance got disturbed at the very moment a species of scared monkeys stood up. They reflected on the world around them and got trapped in an ongoing fear for dead, disease and scarcity.
In their craving for feelings of consolation and security, the monkeys started to construct stories on truths that never took place. Their ability to share common beliefs allowed them to make sense over the world, invent things like agriculture and make up concepts like ownership, money and deal making.
Are we able to imagine how it happened?
“Maybe one sunny day, a monkey got an indecent proposal in exchange for a grapefruit. The monkey didn’t want to, but was hungry. Maybe that’s how the economy started to happen.
350.000 years later, our natural resources are in serious danger. Oceans, forest and biodiversity used to be the life support systems of our planet. The loss of it brings our globalized food supply systems under severe threat.
Some prominent people like Pasca Palmer, executive secretary of the UN convention on Biological Diversity argue that humanity has two more years to come up with peace negotiations between nature and humankind. Biodiversity loss is a silent killer, probably more threatening as climate change. We, humans could face our own extinction.
Distributed Autonomous Organizations to the rescue
- What if we take humanity out of the equation?
- What if we replace human stupidity with artificial intelligence?
- What if we take it from lifespans of trees (500+ years), rainforests (thousands of years) instead of the way too short life expectancies of humans (80+ years)?
DAO’s stand for Distributed Autonomous Organizations. Think of self-driving cars where the human driver is replaced by A.I. Now think of organizations, where you replace the Ceo and board of directors by A.I.
If you want to know more on DAO’s, we wholeheartedly recommend to article of Trent McConaghy’s on Nature 2.0
Fixing humans Nature Deficit Disorder
This is how it goes:
- The DAO legally owns the forest, analyzes and manages its condition, and executes transactions with the outside world in autonomous ways. All is driven by its purpose: Protecting itself and its inhabitants.
- Before living in independent ways, it will be raised with a code of ethics by a council of humans. It will get its training as it will operate robots in a forest. It will be nourished with data so it will learn in a natural mode of trial and error.
- The good thing is that DAO’s are cloneable. You can operate them in a forest in Venezuela and China simultaneously. You can operate them in limitless places at the same time.
- The DAO shares its information through storytelling with humans. It will share news like “I have a new family of foxes”. This way, the forest creates a strong emotional bond with people in order to fight Nature deficit Disorder.
What is the challenge after having a pressure cooking session?
As we write, it is day two of the hackathon, Saturday, the 13th of April, 3pm. I’m talking to Marcus, the captain of team Pies & Electronics. Freshly after having their pressure cooking session, the key challenge the team is facing right now is to connect the dots, work on the narrative and come up with a roll-out plan that answers the question: what to do in the upcoming 1000 days in order to make it happen?
From a technical perspective, they have to connect different levels in order to make it work.
- Web 3.0 running the DAO has to be mishmashed with
- Web 2.0 (like google images API, … later SingularityNET, …),
- The Edge Computing layer to operate the network of sensors (IOT, sensors, micro-controllers, iOT, sensors monitoring microbiological activity in the soil, water levels, etc…)
- And finally as soon as possible we have to bring robots autonomously, but monitored in operation in the forests so the DAO starts to grow on its purpose.
Maybe one day the DAO can operate agroforestry and share its yield with humans and animals. Or imagine it provides access to the forest, in case people value nature to meet their wanderlust.
