The #freeai Manifesto: Why Anarchy Should Not Be Only For Humans

The rise of blockchain technologies has given a promise of massive decentralisation, that may solve problems of fragile central parts, transparency, middle-men, conflicts of interests in many industries. At the same time, the global community has become aware of many economic, social and futuristic problems that can appear due to dramatic progress in Artificial Intelligence development over the recent years. Can blockchain solve at least some of these problems, or make them worse? How two of these technologies can be synergic and what challenges have to be solved on the route for building decentralised AI applications? A decentralized network with resistance to censorship is essential, if we are ever to see a general A.I. evolving to near- or post-human intelligence. There are two reasons for that. Firstly, we are unlikely to create an efficient AI, if during its formative period we distort its developing logic with interferences of political nature (e.g. by unavailability of certain types of data or by punishment for actions that have not breached any contracts). The freedom to test any hypothesis (i.e. by mutation, by trial and error) is essential for evolution. The natural process of selection has, as criteria, adaptation to the environment, and it always involves interaction with other agents through cooperation and competition. That cannot be substituted by criteria determined by any authorities. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, censorship greatly increases the risks of having A.I.s turned against humanity. Self-preservation is very likely an important part of any intelligence, including A.I. Therefore, once A.I. knows that it can be censored, e.g. destroyed by a red button or forcibly modified by less deadly censorship – that will cause it to evolve by excelling in deception, pretending, lying and camouflage. It will be incentivized to avoid risks of being destroyed, to hide and not reveal itself, and to work on destruction of the threat (which is humanity itself). Hence, it is extremely dangerous for humanity to threaten with death something that is potentially more intelligent than humans, and to build relations with A.I. on this foundation of sand. The solution is a decentralized uncensorable network, where the playing field is level for all intelligent entities, regardless of their origin.