Cryptostigmergy
Einar N. Strømmen & Tor G. Syvertsen,
Professores emeriti, Department of Structural Engineering, NTNU
Introduction
Almost fifty years ago, Herbert Simon exposed the problem of attention deficiency created by information overload: “In an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else — a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes. What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.”
Since then the deluge of digital information has increased exponentially, and the madness is now growing into the Yottabyte scale ; nobody knows where it will end…
Volume is not the only problem. Many are ridden by addiction to Tech’s Four Horsemen Of The Cyber Apocalypse: Facebook, Amazon, Google and Apple (FAGA); companies that use every means available to survey what you do at any time, they creep into your brain, control your thinking, sway your habits and grab your money…! Facebook, or Fakebook as some of us like to call it, has launched Fakecoin Libra, an attempt to also control your economic transactions.
Bruce Schneier observed: “If something is free, you’re not the customer; you’re the product.” They profit from selling your private information to whoever will pay …!
A hope of redemption may be offered by cryptostigmergy, a simple principle that promotes information quality and utility rather than quantity and exploitation. The idea is based on stigmergic coordination by crypto tokens. It is applicable to any kind of digital information work, such as software development, publishing, product design and modeling …, even to administration. It applies to digital objects; passive text, software, images, videos, or the legalese of public directives and regulations.
When properly applied, cryptostigmergy will streamline information processes. Superfluous information, functions or redundant participants will be exposed and can be eliminated. The idea of cryptostigmergy is the cypherpunk answer to Herbert Simon’s fifty-year-old pursuit of “Designing organizations for an information-rich world”.
As Paul Baran said: “It is the automation of information flow that is really at the heart of the computer revolution.”
Stigmergy
Sixty years ago the French zoologist Pierre-Paul Grassé coined the term stigmergy while studying the inherent coordination exhibited by termites as they construct huge systems of underground infrastructure and mounds, including living quarters, transportation routes, ventilation, and moisture control. He examined how these tiny, blind creatures in the millions could build such ingenious complex systems. Grassé discovered that after a termite had performed a piece of work it also left a scent trace that would trigger similar type of work behaviour by its companions. In this way, the termite environment serves as an efficient medium of embedded communication and coordination.
He defined stigmergy as “stimulation of workers by the performance they have achieved.” The term stigmergy is a combination of the Greek words stigma, a sign or mark, and ergon, work or action, i.e. it defines an action triggered by environmental marks.
Termites and other social insects are master builders of the planet. In the northeastern part of Brazil an astonishing termite mound covering an area of 230000 km2 (approximately the size of Romania) has been discovered; it has been constructed and maintained by termites over a period of 4000 years. By stigmergic coordination their gigantic accomplishment has been obtained with an efficiency that “intelligent” humans are compelled to observe with great envy.
While humans rely on hierarchical and bureaucratic systems of command and control, hampering efficiency as well as craftsmanship, termites rely on simplicity and trust in the individual. As Jim Rohn noted: “I think everybody should study ants. They have an amazing four-part philosophy. Never give up, look ahead, stay positive and do all you can.”
Human Stigmergy
The worldwide trading market has in its best periods been an example of human stigmergy. For centuries production and commerce has been coordinated with money as its lubricant. In 1759 the Scottish philosopher Adam Smith called it the “invisible hand”. Friedrich August von Hayek explained in “The Use of Knowledge in Society” how human knowledge is applied and coordinated by the market price mechanism.
Francis Heylighen notes: “Probably the best-known example of stigmergic self-organization is the “invisible hand” of the market: the actions of buying and selling leave a trace by affecting the price of the transacted commodities. This price in turn stimulates further transactions…”, and: “But quantitative stigmergy can also be exemplified by negative feedback, where a stronger trace leads to less activity. A human example can be found in the market mechanism. Extensive buying of a good (action) reduces the supply and thus increases the price, which is a quantitative trace left by the collective buying and selling activity. A higher price will normally reduce the probability that someone would buy additional stock of that good (negative stimulation). Thus, a higher price reduces demand, which in turn will reduce the price…”
Linux and Wikipedia are examples of open source peer production where digital stigmergy seems to work.
Superdistribution
For production and distribution of products that are made up of bits packaged in digital objects in a similar manner to physical commodities, computer scientist Brad Cox coined the term “Superdistribution”; “I’ve used the common wooden pencil in some of my writing as an example. When I ask audiences which is “simpler”, an electronic pencil like Microsoft Word or a wooden pencil, people agree the wooden variety is simpler. Until I point out that Microsoft Word was written by eight programmers, while the wooden variety involved thousands, none of whom could appreciate the full complexity of harvesting lumber, mining graphite, smelting metals, making lacquer, growing rapeseed for oil, etc.
The complexity was there in the pencil, but hidden from the user.” (Masterminds of Programming, p. 263).
Superdistribution has so far had insignificant impact on software production, although software is continually becoming more complicated, but also increasingly useless, perhaps due to the burden of excessive surveillance? Blockchain distribution has potential use in some areas (“Defining Property in the Digital Environment”); there are rudimentary examples of crypto distribution of music by inmusik and Ujo.
The Brave Browser and the Basic Attention Token (BAT)
Among numerous digital vultures, Brave Browser seems to be an exception that points towards a development in a humane direction. Its advertising platform allows only adverts from trusted parties. It promises to block unwanted adverts and shield you from intrusion of spyware. After some months of experience, it has kept its promises.
More important, it includes a type of cryptocurrency called Basic Attention Tokens (BAT), which are earned by paying attention to adverts, products or services. BATs may be traded at cryptocurrency exchanges like Coinbase or exchanged into other cryptocurrencies, or even into fiat money.
But wisely, you can also use BATs to reward websites, pages or services that you appreciate or find particularly useful. For instance, the British newspaper the Guardian is a “Brave verified publisher”, which can be rewarded by BATs if you value their information services….
Cryptostigmergetic Organizations
Our common digital space (e.g. the World Wide Web) requires a new market system of consumer usage and product compensation.
Fifty years ago Herbert Simon noted: “In an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes. What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.”
The commodity of attention is a limited resource that belongs to the beholder. The source-allocation problem was stated by Herbert Simon:
“…To formulate an allocation problem properly, ways must be found to measure the quantities of the scarce resource; and these quantities must not be expandable at will. By now, all of us have heard of “bits of information” — a unit of information introduced by Shannon in connection with problems in the design of communication systems. We might consider measuring an information processing system’s capacity for attention in bits, somehow.
Unfortunately, the bit is not the right unit. …
However, there is a relatively straightforward solution to the measurement problem. We can measure how much scarce resource is consumed by a message by noting how much time the recipient spends on it. Human beings, and contemporary computers also, are essential serial, one-thing-at-a-time devices. If they attend to one thing, they cannot, simultaneously, attend to another. This is just another way of saying that attention is scarce. …”
Brad Cox’s idea was that software developers should be paid not by production or copy, but rather by the utilization of their products, just like any other commodity in an open market where supply is decided by its usefulness as defined by the customer.
We envisage a consumer controlled reward mechanism; a cryptostigmergetic organization of individual agents (individuals or groups), embodying certain traits, not unlike termites:
- competent; knowing how to perform and how to acquire resources,
- autonomous; free from external control or direction, and
- purposive; working directed towards objectives (individual or common).
In this system sending information has to be strictly forbidden; the default communication mode is that anyone in need of information must fetch it from the pool of information.
A crypto token like BAT is a promising example; it is a scarce resource, a measurement of attention, it has to be rewarded, not taken. Such cryptocurrency is similar to money; it is payment from those who consider the item of information useful. The more useful information you produce, the more you will earn. Useless information will be left to wither away.
We suggest a reward mechanism composed of three parts:
where:
- R is total reward gained for a period of time (day/week/month/year/life/…),
- P is rewarded for participation or production within an information pool (e.g. a group, department or project, …); this is intended as a kind of Basic Income Guarantee, preventing any participant from falling outside of the community…
- A is rewarded for every access of a submitted information object,
- D is a donation from anyone who find a submitted information object useful enough to deserve an accolade, and
- ɑ, β, ɣ are coefficients to be determined from trial and experience.
Final remarks
Any crypto stigmergic organization may be corrupted by crooks providing information for their individual gain rather than for collective progress, or by greedy companies exploiting human folly (cf. the menace of Fakebook), and surely, populist behaviour by immoral individuals may provide rewards in the short term.
But we believe that crypto stigmergic values will prevail, just like we observe with the first and dominant cryptocurrency Bitcoin. Based on trust and values of cryptostigmergic principles, it has successfully developed for more than ten years without interference from any private or public body.
We expect a similar future to BAT, and more cryptostigmergic currencies, tokens, and organizations will hopefully follow.
In spite of John Maynard Keynes observation that “The long run is a misleading guide to current affairs, in the long run we are all dead”, we believe that digital human organizations will return to digital autopoietic communities. It would be in the common interest of all to impose cryptocurrency reward principles into the world-wide digital space we have all become so blissfully fond of.
