Iâm passionate about building products that solve specific problems, and I recently decided to experiment with simple AI-enabled use cases. This is one of those experiments:
Over the past few months Iâve been setting fitness goals for myself but couldnât find a simple, straightforward app for basic calorie tracking. Iâve tried many, including MyFitnessPal, but they were all filled with ads, unnecessary features and clunky interfaces.
Then I discovered that ChatGPT was quite good at estimating calories (even for branded foods) and I started casually asking it for estimates by chatting in natural language and logging my meals in a spreadsheet. The process felt unstructured and repetitive, so I wondered... could I automate this?
So I ended up building my own app using React and Cursor that:
âš Lets you set your profile (age, weight, height, daily goal)
âš Logs meals and exercise in plain text, in any language (e.g., â200g of Greek yogurt + granola,â â45min trail run,â or âmilanesa napolitana con papas fritasâ)
âš Uses AI to parse inputs and calculate approximate calories based on your profile
âš Keeps a history and lets you edit or delete past entries
âš Auto-saves everything locally on your device
âš Clean UI, no ads, and works offline
Itâs not perfect, but itâs good enough and way more intuitive for daily use! Iâve been using it for days and itâs exactly what I needed.
đ Try it here: https://metrical.fit/
Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) has moved from theory to a rich landscape of practical experiments and policy debates in 2024.
AI, a new challenge for Human Identity
The recent paper âPersonhood credentials: Artificial intelligence and the value of privacy-preserving tools to distinguish who is real onlineâ, describes a crisis we could already foresee: AIâs increasing ability to create digital personas indistinguishable from real ones threatens the concept of trust on the Internet. This year, traditional safeguards like CAPTCHAs and anomaly detection started becoming obsolete against AI, and malicious actors can now employ AI at different stages of their deceptive schemes:
Generating human-like content that expresses convincing experiences or points of view (e.g., posting commentary like âHere is what I thought of that speechâ)
Creating indistinguishable human avatars through photos, videos, and audio (e.g., simulating a real-looking person on a video chat)
Performing human-like actions across the Internet (e.g., browsing websites naturally, making sophisticated plans to achieve goals, solving CAPTCHAs)
As distinguishing between human and artificial actors becomes critical to our online interactions, these advances bring a new urgency to the SSI movement. The challenge is no longer just to own, exchange and verify credentials, but to establish our human presence in an increasingly AI-populated digital world.
Ethical innovation
The paper proposes âpersonhood credentialsâ (PHCs) as a solution to enable humans to prove their identity without revealing personal information, and points to World ID as one example. Worldcoinâs World ID is indeed one of the most ambitious attempts to address these challenges by implementing a global proof-of-personhood system through biometric data (iris scanning), but itâs still far from the utopia of digital sovereignty for several reasons.
First, the centralization of both hardware and data control in a single private company (and its private contributors) contradicts the fundamental principles of decentralized identity and creates multiple potential points of failure in the identity ecosystem. The Worldcoin team commited to progressive decentralization, but the roadmap and timeline is still unclear. Vitalik Buterin himself has criticized the use of Orbs for biometric scanning.
The concept of âpersonhood credentialsâ seeks to enable humans to prove their identity without revealing personally identifiable information.
Second, Worldcoinâs practice of offering cryptocurrency in exchange for iris scans is, at least, questionable. I witnessed this myself last summer on the Atlantic coast of Argentina, where in the midst of severe economic instability and rampant inflation, Worldcoin deployed mobile stalls in crowded beach areas offering the equivalent of $30 in cryptocurrencies for iris scans.
The companyâs recent partnership with Rappi in Latin America is an even bolder escalation, bringing Orbs directly to peopleâs homes via delivery workers. The idea of incentivizing verification sounds reasonable, but its implementation raises serious questions about the commoditization of personal biometric data, potentially contributing to a dystopian dynamic where economic need drives people to surrender sensitive information and privacy becomes a luxury only the richest can afford.
In 2023, in the midst of severe economic instability and rampant inflation, Worldcoin deployed mobile stalls in crowded beach areas of Argentina offering the equivalent of $30 in cryptocurrencies in exchange for iris scans.
This year has seen significant efforts in the definition of standards and specifications. The future of self-sovereign digital identity requires the development of interoperable protocols that allow multiple identity systems to coexist and interact, including âpersonhood credentialsâ. This approach will enable a more resilient and diverse ecosystem where different solutions can serve different needs while maintaining compatibility through shared standards. Ensuring interoperability will prevent any single entity from gaining too much control over the digital identity infrastructure, while fostering innovation and competition.
The public sector push
Another vector for driving SSI adoption is the public sector. Nations have historically been the main custodians of human identities, regulating how and when we are allowed to use them within and across jurisdictions. This has given governments immense power over our activities and interactions for the purposes of taxation and control, power they wonât give up easily.
A growing number of displaced populations and refugee crisis may signal an urgent need for portable, verifiable identities, but political and geopolitical shifts can easily slow down or fragment the digital identity landscape. Some governments are likely to begin upgrading their current systems through âmodernizationâ programs that introduce some level of decentralization sufficient to appear innovative without ceding too much control. While this would be insufficient to achieve SSI, it could produce a considerable push by getting more people familiar with concepts like identity wallets and verifiable credentials.
Real-world examples from this year demonstrate diverse public sector approaches. The European Union made the biggest leap forward with the eIDAS 2.0 regulation, a comprehensive regional framework aimed at interoperability and greater citizen empowerment, marking a crucial milestone in the widespread adoption of SSI. In South America, Argentina became the first nation on the continent to integrate decentralized identity into its public services via the miBA application.
With 335 votes in favor, the European Parliament approved the new European Digital Identity Framework, eIDAS 2.0 (Photo by Frederic Köberl on Unsplash)
In the United States, several states made great progress with Mobile Driverâs Licenses (MDLs), allowing residents to store digital versions of their driverâs licenses in their smartphonesâ wallet apps following the ISO 18013â5 standard. Even Chinaâs RealDID underwent trials in Hong Kong, allowing citizens to verify their identities across borders while maintaining anonymity in KYC processes and purchase tokenized financial products without presenting a physical ID. These examples show that the push for decentralized identities is advancing, but they also reveal the complexity of achieving truly self-sovereign systems.
Looking ahead
The future feels like a race against time. On one track, SSI is finally moving from whiteboards to the real world, with some reports projecting the industry to reach USD 589.02 billion by 2034. On the other, AI is rapidly increasing risks of online impersonation, adding new urgency to reimagining digital identity systems at scale.
Will SSI develop quickly enough to meet AI? Will we find balance between ethical innovation, government oversight and digital sovereignty? The answers will shape not just how we prove who we are online, but will redefine human interaction in the coming years.
Este verano vivĂ una experiencia Ășnica en un lugar increĂble. Tuve la oportunidad de grabar un Live Set en @castellosangineto, un castillo medieval frente al mar en la costa de Italia. đ°
Hoy estoy feliz de poder compartirlo finalmente con ustedes. Es una hora de mĂșsica original que estĂĄ disponible en YouTube a partir de hoy a las 6 PM ART (10 PM CET).
Gracias por compañarme y animarme a seguir explorando esta aventura musical â€ïž
Link en bio!
Music: Guido Sirna (@guidosirna)
Production: CC Foto&Video (@cc_fotoevideo)
Camera 1: Giuseppe Chiappetta (@iv_potere_)
Camera 2: Andrea Capalbo (@_.andres_5)
Drone: Simone Elia (@simone.eliaa)
Filmed in Castello del Principe (@castellosangineto)
Special thanks to Ugo Leon Cavalcanti (@ugoleoneroar) and Massimilla Alessandro (@alex_massimilla)
What is Decentralized Identity? How does it work and why should you care?
Identity and Self-Determination
Human beings have a natural desire to be recognized and respected for who we are both as individuals and for the cultures, nations, religions, tribes or groups to which we feel we belong. For thousands of years, the way we relate to our identity has directly affected our well-being as societies and individuals. However, when we talk about âidentityâ we generally do not refer to our true essence, but to certain âidentifiersâ that other people, organizations or entities use to recognize us.
These identifiers can take the form of, for example, passports, credentials or memberships that in turn categorize us as citizens, students or members of a community, and are requirements for almost all the activities we carry out in our lives. Nevertheless, none of these documents by themselves represent our true âidentityâ. They are simply sets of labels or attributes that organize us in an administrative system.
Some indigenous tribes, such as the Maasai in East Africa, show their social status and belonging to the tribeâs traditions through the colors and designs of their tunics.
Unfortunately, this desire for identity does not always reflect a shared and universal vision of human dignity, but rather deviates towards manipulation, exclusion and the perception that othersâ identities threaten oneâs own. History has shown us many times how control over identity can lead to tragedies when it falls into the wrong hands. As sovereign human beings, our identity belongs to us, and it should not be limited or under the control of any organization.
Machines, not people
In the late 1960s, the US army created the TCP/IP protocol to interconnect machines and allow the exchange of information and resources over a network. The solution was so brilliant that it ended up becoming what we now call the Internet. But this protocol had been created to interconnect machines, not people, so nothing in it made any reference to who the individual, organization or entity using it was.
At that moment, the people participating in the network were a handful of academic computer scientists with access to expensive machines and technical knowledge. Most of them already knew each other, so there was no real need to identify themselves. Incredibly, today the Internet still operates under the same protocol, but it is no longer such a small club. Billions of people and devices, almost all unknown to each other, are connected to the network.
âThe Internet was built without a way to know who and what you are connecting [âŠ] If we do nothing, we will face episodes of fraud that will multiply rapidly, eroding public trust.â â Kim Cameron, Chief Architecture of Identity, Microsoft
The TCP/IP protocol was created by DARPA engineers to facilitate communication between devices, but it was not designed to verify the identity of the users participating.
The Cyberpunk Utopia
In the 1980s, the term âcyberpunkâ belonged to a literary genre that described a cybernetic counterculture. Cyberpunks defended freedom of expression, freedom of information and privacy in communications in futuristic cities governed by anarchism and technology, facing ethical dilemmas and challenges derived from the technological omnipresence of dystopian societies.
In 1992, the literary genre crossed over to the real world when a group of hackers began communicating through an email mailing list with the intention of building tools to protect freedom and privacy on the Internet. At their first meeting, they decided to call themselves âcypherpunksâ, defining themselves as âindividuals who advocated for the widespread use of cryptography and technologies that enhance privacy as a means for social and political changeâ.
âNeuromancerâ (1984) is one of the earliest and most well-known works of the cyberpunk genre. William Gibson predicted concepts like the Internet, virtual reality, artificial intelligence and biotechnology.
The fundamental ideas of the cypherpunks generated explorations in multiple fields related to defending privacy, freedom and crypto-anarchy. For example, some of the ideas promoted by famous cypherpunks such as Wei Dai, Nick Szabo and Hal Finney ended up influencing the creation of Bitcoin, one of the most important innovations of the century.
âThose present here aspire to a world where an individualâs digital fingerprints can only be traced if they decide to reveal them. There is only one way for this vision to materialize: through the widespread use of cryptography.â â Steven Levy
James Dale Davidson and Lord William Rees-Mogg had also prophesied about digital money in their book âThe Sovereign Individualâ (1997): âElectronic money will allow both businesses and individuals to transact directly with each other [âŠ] The information revolution will shift the balance of power from government and large organizations to individualsâ. As in fiction, recovering control of information and privacy was the cypherpunk utopia.
Loss of Control
Cypherpunks had reasons to challenge the status quo. In the mid-1990s, the Internet revolution and its penetration into popular culture opened the valve that allowed organizations, companies and governments to collect, exploit and commercialize our personal data for decades without regulations, sanctions, and without our consent, and led to the proliferation of malicious individuals, groups and software programs that are constantly trying to deceive us about who or what we are seeing. In recent decades we have witnessed an increasing loss of control over our identity, with an aggravating factor: the absurd amount of information available.
As a result, countless security breaches such as the hacking of three billion Yahoo accounts in 2016 or 200 million Twitter accounts in 2023, to mention just a few. More than 90% of American consumers feel they have lost control over how their personal information is collected and used. Identity theft affects more than 70 million people each year, and 80% of these violations are due to compromised passwords (by 2017, the average Internet user had to manage an average of 191 passwords). In 2023, damages from cybercrime cost $8 trillion.
The amount, the dimension and the economic impact of these incidents underline an underlying problem: the paradigm of identity on the Internet as we know it is becoming exhausted.
Digital Identity on the Internet
Two main models have been tried to solve the problem of identity on the Internet:
Centralized model (Web 1):Â Users authenticate to services with a username and password that are stored in a database. If that database is breached or the service ceases to exist, users lose the ability to identify themselves to that service and therefore also lose access to their information.
Federated model (Web 2):Â Users rely on an intermediary service (an âidentity providerâ) to manage their credentials. For example, platforms like Facebook and Google store our data and delegate to them the ability to authenticate us to other services without having to remember multiple combinations of username and password.
The federated model introduced major improvements in the user experience, but also serious issues regarding control over our digital identity. First, the large companies that concentrate our information have become âhoneypotsâ, targets for hackers who with a single attack can get their hands on the data of millions of people. Second, diffuse privacy policies have led to major leaks and opaque handling of our personal data for the purposes of being marketed, transferred or exploited by third parties.
The abandoned Presidio Modelo complex in 1995 (The Guardian). Unlike Foucaultâs Panopticon, Internet users do not know that they are being observed in each of their digital interactions.
Most worryingly, it has succeeded in resigning users to a dynamic of subordination where the only possible way to access digital services is by abandoning ownership and control over our privacy. Who we are, what music we listen to, what ads we see and what products we buy, the Internet has become a network of data concentrated on the servers of a few companies that are vital information sources for hackers, governments and advertising companies. We have taken for granted that this is how the Internet works and we have resigned ourselves to the fact that control over our identity no longer belongs to us. We have voluntarily submitted ourselves to a digital panopticon in which we are continuously observed, aggregated and monetized by centralized companies and powers.
But just because this is how it has worked so far, it does not mean that we must accept that it will continue the same way. The âWeb 3â, which is built on the same principles and technologies advocated by the cypherpunks, paves the way for a new model of digital identity:Â the decentralized model.
The decentralized model is the paradigm for digital identity on the Web 3.
What is Decentralized Identity?
In 2021 I attended several bars and nightclubs in London where it was mandatory to take a photo and scan your document on a kiosk in order to get in. That information was digitized and stored on the servers of an external provider. People did not read or accept any privacy policy, they did not know where their data would end up or how it would later be used. They simply took it for granted that this was the necessary condition for entering the site. A dystopian madness.
This real-life example serves to illustrate how we currently relate to our digital identity. Every time we want to access a digital application, we have to send a series of personal data that are stored on their servers. In many cases we are also asked for selfies and copies of physical documents. People also do not read and accept privacy policies, they simply take it for granted that this is the necessary condition to log in.
Returning to the physical world example, letâs imagine that we want to go for a drink at an exclusive bar in New York that has decided to use the decentralized identity model to validate that its customers are of legal age. With this model, the process is simpler and more secure. Without using passwords, completing forms or handing over our data to the bar for verification, users can show âcredentialsâ that are issued by verified issuers and stored in a virtual wallet to which only we have access.
A digital wallet containing digital credentials (VCs) serves as an analogy to replicate the way we manage our identity in the physical world.
Now letâs take this example to our experience on the Internet and imagine how it would be to interact in this way with the services and applications we use regularly, preserving our privacy and staying in control of the information we share. Sounds good, doesnât it?
How does it work?
The technical foundations of SSI are based on cryptography, blockchain and decentralized networks. Individuals have a pair of cryptographic keys (a public key to identify themselves and a private key to authenticate themselves) that are securely stored on their devices or on a blockchain. Additionally, the concepts of DIDs or âdecentralized identifiersâ and VCs or âverifiable credentialsâ are introduced to represent and exchange identity information in a standardized way.
The âTrust Triangleâ is the model that defines how the actors interact in a decentralized identity ecosystem.
In simple terms, we could say that a DID represents an entity and a VC represents a document issued by that entity. Since that entityâs public key is stored on a blockchain and that VC has been cryptographically signed, it is possible to verify that this entity exists and this âverifiable credentialâ is valid, i.e. that it was indeed issued by that entity. This VC could be, for example, a passport, but it could also be any data or set of data that we would like to share selectively. Returning to the previous example, we could present a VC informing our age without revealing our date of birth. Or even better, a VC stating that we are over 21 without disclosing our age.
DIDs invert the scheme of information control and the way we identify ourselves on the Internet: instead of us requesting to authenticate to the services we want to use, it is the services that request permission to access our data. We decide what we want to share, with whom, at what level of detail and for how long. Unlike traditional identity systems where a third party stores and manages our information, the decentralized model empowers the individual to own, control and share their identity without depending on any intermediary.
The end of surveillance capitalism?
Current digital identity models allowed the massive collection and exploitation of our personal data, moving from passive collection to active extraction. The digital panopticon is still in place, but decentralized identity can be a resilient shield against the excesses of surveillance capitalism. Decentralized identity is more than just a technology, it is a paradigm shift that puts control and ownership of personal identity in the hands of individuals.
âWe used to search Google, now Google searches usâ â Shoshana Zuboff
Decentralized identity introduces significant improvements in privacy, security and autonomy, allowing users to selectively disclose information and significantly reducing the risk of large-scale data breaches and identity theft. This new approach cuts at the root the ability of large companies and powers to amass aggregated information from people and adds a layer of security by avoiding centralization. To steal data from millions of people, a hacker would no longer have to find a single point of failure in a database but would have to access the private keys of millions of devices.
The Future of Decentralized Identity
The ideas behind decentralized identity have been in development for years, but have begun to consolidate with the involvement of major players like W3C, FIDO Alliance and DIF. The development and promotion of standards and protocols by these organizations, a new wave of digital identity companies [1] [2] [3] [4] and the eIDAS 2.0 regulation are strong drivers for this vision to become a reality.
In the coming years, the industry will set a path toward mass adoption and a new era in the history of digital identity will begin. Very soon we will carry in our virtual wallets passports, credentials and memberships issued by authorized entities that can be instantly verified by third parties without having to hand them over to anyone and without sharing extra information.
However, there are still major obstacles to overcome. Standardization, interoperability and mass adoption are some of them. At the time of writing this article, many companies are developing protocols, authentication gateways and digital wallets that 1) no one is using and 2) can quickly become obsolete. Rather than focusing on creating new wallets or prototypes based on specific protocols, developers need to build usability bridges and deliver excellent user experiences for a smooth transition to decentralized identity.
Ultimately, the wallets, the interfaces through which users will access this technology, will become secondary. Large companies will have a strong positioning advantage. The important thing is to make all these wallets and architectures reusable and interoperable with each other. This effort requires the participation of large companies and governments. Companies like Apple, Google and Microsoft seem to be taking steps in this direction, although it is true that under this new scheme many of their business lines would have to be transformed, limiting their degree of digital phagocytosis.
Conclusion
Identity is a fundamental human right that allows us to define who we are and how we relate to the world around us. In the digital age, our identity has become both a valuable and vulnerable asset. In this context, decentralized identity emerges as a resistance alternative. Not only because of its technical foundations, but also because of its ability to reconfigure the balance of power and give people back control over their digital lives. As individuals and societies, this new paradigm opens the way to a more just, free and sovereign digital future.
References
âThe Sovereign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Ageâ (1997), James Dale Davidson and William Rees-Moog https://www.amazon.com/Sovereign-Individual-Mastering-Transition-Information/dp/0684832720
âSelf-Sovereign Identity: Decentralized digital identity and verifiable credentials Paperbackâ (2021), Alex Preukschat and Drummond Reed https://www.amazon.co.uk/Self-Sovereign-Identity-Decentralized-verifiable-credentials/dp/1617296597
âCrypto Rebelsâ (1993), Steven Levy https://www.wired.com/1993/02/crypto-rebels/
âThe Laws of Identityâ (2005), Kim Cameron www.identityblog.com/?p=352
âOur Take on Verifiable Credentialsâ (2023), Vittorio Bertocci and Damian Schenkelman https://auth0.com/blog/our-take-on-verifiable-credentials/
âDecentralized Identity: The Ultimate Guideâ (2023), Dock.io https://www.dock.io/post/decentralized-identity
âAverage Business User Has 191 Passwordsâ (2017), Security Magazine https://www.securitymagazine.com/articles/88475-average-business-user-has-191-passwords
âIBMâs CEO on Hackers: âCyber Crime Is the Greatest Threat to Every Company in the Worldââ (2015), Forbes www.forbes.com/sites/stevemorgan/2015/11/24/ibms-ceo-on-hackers-cyber-crime-is-the-greatest-threat-to-every-company-in-the-world
âAmericansâ Complicated Feelings about Social Media in an Era of Privacy Concernsâ (2018), Pew Research Center www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/03/27/americans-complicated-feelings-about-social-media-in-an-era-of-privacy-concerns
âCrush Themâ: An Oral History of the Lawsuit That Upended Silicon Valleyâ (2018), The Ringer https://www.theringer.com/tech/2018/5/18/17362452/microsoft-antitrust-lawsuit-netscape-internet-explorer-20-years
âCybercrime To Cost The World 8 Trillion Annually In 2023â (2023), Cybercrime Magazine https://cybersecurityventures.com/cybercrime-to-cost-the-world-8-trillion-annually-in-2023/
âDigital Identity: Moving to a Decentralized Futureâ (2019), Citi https://www.citi.com/ventures/perspectives/opinion/digital-identity.html
âPasswords Are Still a Problem According to the 2019 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Reportâ (2019), LastPass https://blog.lastpass.com/2019/05/passwords-still-problem-according-2019-verizon-data-breach-investigations-report/
A decentralised paradigm for algorithmic governance
The advancement of technologies such as blockchain allows the automation of governance processes that were not possible before.
âDevolved Parliamentâ, Banksy (2009)
Introduction
The phenomenon of algorithmic governance is part of a long-standing trend towards the mechanisation of governance. Today, advances in the development of new technologies enable the automation of processes that would not have been possible before (Danaher et al., 2017). While most of these technologies build on existing governance structures, the very nature of governance seems to be changing. Organisations are increasingly shifting from a hierarchical governance paradigm to horizontal modes of governance, and, more recently, from horizontal to decentralised (Zwitter and Hazenberg, 2020).
Is therefore worth analysing algorithmic governance in context, to understand exactly what it entails, what concepts it builds on and what its future prospects are. For this purpose, in this essay I will address the potential of blockchain for the development of autonomous governance systems, its advantages and limitations, and its implications for future organisations. First, I will review the main concepts of traditional and algorithmic governance, and we will discuss blockchain technology as an enabler of autonomous organisations. Second, I will use the case of the DAO to structure the discussion around the adoption of blockchain governance, taking as main areas of debate the issues of trust, transparency and human agency. I will conclude by extracting the main insights from the discussion in an attempt to answer whether blockchain governance is, indeed, a new governance paradigm for the future of organisations.
Perspectives on governance
a. Traditional governance
Governance can be defined as the coordination between actors based on rules (Katzenbach and Ulbricht, 2019). From a historical perspective, governance mechanisms date back to tribal societies, when humans needed to develop collaborative and binding agreements (Lumineau, Wang and Schilke, 2021). Under this premise two main types of governance emerged: contractual and relational. While contractual governance refers to a legally binding promise that defines the rights and obligations of the parties and is enforced by an external authority or actor, relational governance relies on flexible agreements based on a shared value system and a sense of solidarity between the parties, and is enforced by the parties themselves (Lumineau, Wang and Schilke, 2021).
Similarly, Zwitter (2020) divides governance into âoldâ and ânewâ governance. âOldâ governance refers to hierarchical structures where identities are fixed, and ânewâ governance refers to more recent modes of horizontal government where roles are fixed but identities may vary. Gritsenko and Wood (2020) also identify different modes of governance according to the commitment of their governing parties. Each of these modes has different strategies to address problem solving and ensure that rules are enforced. For example, this can be done ex ante through rules defined or imposed by a few actors (hierarchical governance), or ex post through norms and practices that emerge from interaction of actors (co-governance and self-governance).
All these governance modes are, to some extent, based on trust. The presence of trust seems to be fundamental as it facilitates cooperation and collaboration among actors and improves their relationships by minimising the need for contractual arrangements (Chawla, 2020). From a transaction cost economics perspective, trust also helps reduce transaction costs and is essential to contain opportunism, bounded rationality and risk (Beccerra and Gupta, 1999; Chiles and McMackin, 1996, as cited in Chawla, 2020).
For all cases authors agree that governance can exist in a variety of modes, it may have variations and be combined with each other according to their internal logic and operating principles in what Gritsenko and Wood (2020, p. 5) refers to as the âgovernance mixâ. Lastly, they are all characterised by the coordination between the different roles and power relations of its participants, are primarily enabled by trust, and are mediated and governed through an internal or external authority that determines the rules and enforces them.
b. Algorithmic governance
Algorithmic governance, also defined as âalgocracyâ by Danaher (2016), refers to a governance system in which the decision-making, structure and the interactions between actors (human or not) are mediated by computer-programmed algorithms. As algorithms are already starting to govern certain domains of our daily lives such as recreation, commercial transactions and socialisation (Latzer and Just, 2020), eventually it might be relevant to study the possibilities of algorithms to create social order (Katzenbach and Ulbricht, 2019).
The automation of governance certainly builds on the pre-existing governance structures discussed above (Danaher et al., 2017, p. 2). But the speed, scale and velocity of new technologies make it inaccessible to traditional forms of governance (Zwitter and Hazenberg, 2020, p. 11). Gritsenko and Wood (2020) propose a new mode of governance (design-based governance) as a new organisational logic where instead of direct orders or regulations, an architecture of pre-designed âchoicesâ is prioritised. That is, rather than adhering to ex ante established rules, identities or shared values, governance takes place by designing the possible options and indirectly influencing the subjects. However, although design-based governance may be functional to certain algorithmic systems, it does not fully address the complexities of organisational structures where the whole spectrum of social interactions cannot be defined in advance (Zook and Blankenship, 2018).
Another feature of algorithmic governance is its degree of autonomy, or the extent to which humans are involved (Danaher et al., 2017). Despite being mainly driven by algorithms, an algorithmic governance system may still be supervised by humans, or may require input from humans in order to operate. In words of Citron and Pasquale (2014), humans can be âin the loop, on the loop or off the loopâ (Latzer and Just, 2020, p. 4). This might suggest that, although there is a growing interest in shifting decision-making authority to purely algorithmic systems without the need for human control (Danaher et al., 2017), in some cases these algorithms are not yet efficient enough to replace human judgement.
While some authors prefer to study algorithms as independent units of analysis, others consider them as components within a socio-technical and human context (Latzer and Just, 2020). From the first group, most of these classifications belong to techno-rational perspectives, and have been classified according to the main properties of the information systems that underpin them, or by the design of the algorithms themselves. This type of analysis, although technical, can help to better understand issues related to the transparency of the systems, and how lack of understanding sometimes allow for intentional opacity in the construction of algorithmic governance structures (Danaher et al., 2017, p. 7).
c. Blockchain governance
A more recent approach to algorithmic governance is provided by blockchain, a distributed computing technology that was conceived to solve the problem of trust in centralised systems (De Filippi, Mannan and Reijers, 2020). In essence, a blockchain is a digital ledger that contains information about transactions that are made within a network. As the ledger is shared and maintained by all the nodes that participate in the network, it allows the storage of immutable, unalterable records in a distributed and decentralised fashion. This type of infrastructure eliminates the need for a central authority or intermediary to verify transactions, which are secured by means of âtrust by computationâ, or trust in the network itself (Yeung, 2019).
From a technical perspective, this may have clear advantages, as the decentralised nature of blockchain infrastructures potentially enhances transparency and trust, reduces risk of fraud and increases efficiency (Lumineau, Wang and Schilke, 2021). From a governance point of view this also may bring benefits, as decentralisation can help mitigate cooperation failures and opportunistic behaviour (Davidson, De Filippi and Potts, 2018). Zwitter and Hazenberg (2020) refer to this new type of governance approach as decentralised network governance, Lumineau (2021) simply calls it blockchain governance. Contrary to traditional governance methods, which relied heavily on roles, identities and trust between participants, blockchain governance is characterised by fluid power relations, anonymity and lack of trust among its participants (Zwitter and Hazenberg, 2020).
Furthermore, blockchain is the first form of governance that truly leverages computational technologies taking algorithmic governance to a new level, providing the component of decentralisation and enabling the cooperation between its participants through mechanisms such as consensus algorithms and smart contracts (Lumineau, Wang and Schilke, 2021) which ensure that rules are enforced autonomously. These unique characteristics inspired from the outset the ambition of creating decentralised autonomous organisations that are managed entirely through algorithmic protocols (Brekke, Beecroft and Pick, 2021) and which could completely reshape previous conceptions of governance (Beck et al., 2018, as cited in Chawla, 2020).
Decentralised autonomous organisations
The utopia of decentralised autonomous organisations seemed to materialise with the launch of the DAO in 2016, a distributed venture capital fund that was intended to demonstrate how blockchain could facilitate structural coordination completely via machine consensus (Catalini and Boslego, 2019, Hsieh et al. 2018, Murrayetal, 2020, as cited in Lumineau, Wang and Schilke, 2021). Without a central manager or employees doing administrative work, all the activities were coordinated and performed by algorithms that processed investor votes and executed smart contracts (Lumineau, Wang and Schilke, 2021), avoiding reliance on costly and inefficient human negotiations (DuPont, 2017).
During its fundraising phase the DAO broke all crowdfunding records by raising an amount worth 14% of the total supply of ETH in funding. However, before it was fully operational, a flaw in its source code allowed an anonymous individual to exploit it, altering the behaviour of its governance algorithms and stealing approximately one third of the funds (DuPont, 2017). As a defence, the Ethereum community voted to do a massive network upgrade (or âhard forkâ), to recover the funds and restore the blockchain to its pre-incident state, which eventually worked. While many users felt this was the right decision, for many others it was controversial, as modifying the underlying software contradicted the very principles of immutability of the technology (Werbach, 2020).
âCode Is Lawâ: A modern-day Shylock claims their reward, threatening the confidence in the system.
It is especially noteworthy that, after the attack, the solution had to be implemented by humans outside the boundaries of the organisation itself, or âoff-chainâ according to Brekke, Beecroft and Pick (2021, p. 2), making it apparent that despite its potential, this implementation was still far from perfect for the purpose of generating a truly autonomous organisation (Lumineau, Wang and Schilke, 2021) and, at the same time, leading us to question again the relationship between algorithmic governance and traditional governance (Yeung, 2019).
Discussion
It is clear from the literature that there is not much room for a techno-rational discussion: the technological artefact, in this case blockchain, seems to have all the necessary features to represent a potential transformation in the ways organisations work, and all authors agree on its technical merits. But algorithmic governance appears to be heavily embedded in social relations (Zook and Blankenship, 2018), and from a socially embedded point of view, the debate is richer. To illustrate the main perspectives, I structured the discussion around three main interconnected areas: transparency, trust, and human agency.
Transparency
In Danaherâs (2016) words, algocratic systems have two main moral and political concerns: the hiddenness concern and the opacity concern. The former describes the way in which information is collected and used by algorithmic systems, and the latter states that these systems can be largely accessible or opaque. In the case of the DAO, it is evident that the governance processes outside the technological infrastructure (âoff-chainâ) were carried out by the actors who had the greatest technical capabilities, and therefore could exert the greatest degree of influence (De Filippi, Mannan and Reijers, 2020). Like legal code, the code of algorithms needs to be maintained by humans who define the rules that the code represents (Yeung, 2019, p. 27), and this can be reserved for only those who understand it. Therefore, it seems that algorithmic and decentralised systems could also end up generating new asymmetric power relations âoff chainâ. Despite the rhetoric around algorithmic governance, blockchains are ultimately embedded in society, and more specifically, in the decisions that developers embed in their protocols (Zook and Blankenship, 2018). If the code is open but only a few can understand it due to its inherent complexity, is it really transparent?
Trust
The degree of transparency or opacity in algorithmic systems can also lead to trust issues (Katzenbach and Ulbricht, 2019). Blockchain technologies are often presented as âtrustlessâ alternatives to organisations due to its decentralised nature (De Filippi, Mannan and Reijers, 2020), but their trustless nature has been heavily questioned. Chawla (2020) argues that while blockchains can effectively amplify the algorithmic trust and transparency of the system, the social layer of developers and users who create, maintain and use the technology layer cannot be ignored. Blockchain governance systems are still socio-technological assemblages that are made up not only of code, but also of a variety of actors, and trust in the network ultimately means trusting the entire assemblage of actors associated with that network (De Filippi, Mannan and Reijers, 2020, p. 7). Chawla (2020, p. 6) asserts that the new form of algorithmic trust that blockchain introduces is not without its problems and limitations, and the DAO failure highlights its problems. Despite the good intentions and promise of the developers, the algorithms themselves were not sufficiently robust to prevent the attack. The shifting of trust to the algorithmic layer, in this case, proved not to be good enough (Chawla, 2020), and this complex and contradictory view of trust and authority implies that still other users must also be trusted (DuPont, 2017).
Human agency
The DAO incident demonstrated that the technical nature of blockchain governance does not eliminate issues of subjectivity and judgement in its operation (Yeung, 2019) and, despite its promise, the technology is still embedded in the code of materiality (Zook and Blankenship, 2018, p. 249). It also exemplifies the fact that while blockchain may impose specific rules and norms by virtue of its internal governance structures, in times of crisis they still need to rely on external intervention that look more like traditional governance (Zwitter and Hazenberg, 2020). Human agency, then, has to be taken into account in algorithmic governance processes. While debates generally make a binary distinction between humans in the loop vs. humans out of the loop (Katzenbach and Ulbricht, 2019, p. 6), the experience of the DAO shows us that humans may still need to remain in the loop to monitor and ensure the optimal functioning of these systems. The challenge, however, is how to do it without affecting the benefits of decentralisation and automation that the technology provides, and finding alternative ways to âgovern those who governâ (Werbach, 2020).
A fourth area of debate that has not been mentioned by all authors may be that of techno-optimism or techno-utopianism. This position argues that the affection for certain technologies can lead to certain technical solutions that are implemented without taking into account the importance of understanding the social phenomena they represent, and thus cannot be reduced to technical approaches alone (Zook and Blankenship, 2018). According to Danaher (2017, p. 7), this can also lead to a rush to mass adoption of algorithmic governance systems without reflecting on the potential negative effects. This could be the case for blockchain governance, where technical attributes are a clear starting point through which social interactions then take shape (Lumineau, Wang and Schilke, 2021). âDespite the utopian rhetoric on the one hand, and the largely critical academic literature on the other, what remains unclear with these technologies is whether they constitute an extension of existing socio-technical apparatuses, or are a decisive break with the pastâ (DuPont, 2017, p. 13).
Some authors, such as DuPont (2017), are categorical in defining the DAO experiment as a failure. Zook and Blakenship (2018) are also critical, arguing that the discourses surrounding Bitcoin and blockchain have turned out to be more prominent than the actual practices of these technologies. Others, instead, take it as a first valid example of decentralised autonomous governance, where many actors at many levels were indeed able to exercise different governance roles successfully (Zwitter and Hazenberg, 2020). Similarly, for Lumineau, Wang and Schilke (2021), blockchains offer a way of enforcing agreements and achieving cooperation and coordination that can overcome traditional forms of governance and known technologies. Neutral positions state that radical organisational transformations take time, and that a lack of understanding around the interaction between blockchainâs technological and organisational capabilities may be the cause of such failures (Andersen and Bogusz, 2019).
Conclusion
While it appears that blockchain technology brings with it significant advances for the design of autonomous governance structures in terms of transparency, trust, security and efficiency, practical demonstration is still insufficient and more research is required to fully understand the social, legal, ethical and political problems that may be produced or reinforced by these systems (Danaher et al., 2017, p. 3), especially with regard to trust, transparency and human intervention. On the last point, it is worth mentioning some of the proposals to further investigate whether the interaction between âon-chainâ and âoff-chainâ governance can lead to specific governance mechanisms (Zwitter and Hazenberg, 2020; Brekke, Beecroft and Pick, 2021) that could be designed as the technical developments make these systems increasingly autonomous.
Lastly, literature seems to indicate that the attributes of blockchain governance can complement, but not replace, traditional theories of organisational governance (Chawla, 2020) and like other governance mechanisms, they are unable to govern all types of transactions equally well (Lumineau, Wang and Schilke, 2021). In any case, although the utopia of fully autonomous organisations may still be far away, experiments such as the DAO and further developments bring us closer to the possibility of materialising it. However, it is important to keep in mind that a solely techno-rational perspective is not enough, and the development of new systems of governance will continue to require a socially embedded approach.
(This essay was originally written on February 2022 for the annual journal on the social study of information systems of the London School of Economics and Political Science)
References
Andersen, J.V. and Bogusz, C.I. (2019) âSelf-Organizing in Blockchain Infrastructures: Generativity Through Shifting Objectives and Forkingâ, Journal of the Association for Information Systems, pp. 1242â1273. doi:10.17705/1jais.00566.
Brekke, J.K., Beecroft, K. and Pick, F. (2021) âThe Dissensus Protocol: Governing Differences in Online Peer Communitiesâ, Frontiers in Human Dynamics, 3, p. 641731. doi:10.3389/fhumd.2021.641731.
Chawla, C. (2020) âTrust in blockchains: Algorithmic and organizationalâ, Journal of Business Venturing Insights, 14, p. e00203. doi:10.1016/j.jbvi.2020.e00203.
Danaher, J. et al. (2017) âAlgorithmic governance: Developing a research agenda through the power of collective intelligenceâ, Big Data & Society, 4(2), p. 205395171772655. doi:10.1177/2053951717726554.
Davidson, S., De Filippi, P. and Potts, J. (2018) âBlockchains and the economic institutions of capitalismâ, Journal of Institutional Economics, 14(4), pp. 639â658. doi:10.1017/S1744137417000200.
De Filippi, P., Mannan, M. and Reijers, W. (2020) âBlockchain as a confidence machine: The problem of trust & challenges of governanceâ, Technology in Society, 62, p. 101284. doi:10.1016/j.techsoc.2020.101284.
DuPont, Q. (2017) âExperiments in Algorithmic Governance: A History and Ethnography of âThe DAO,â a failed Decentralized Autonomous Organizationâ, p. 19.
Gritsenko, D. and Wood, M. (2020) âAlgorithmic governance: A modes of governance approachâ, Regulation & Governance, p. rego.12367. doi:10.1111/rego.12367.
Katzenbach, C. and Ulbricht, L. (2019) âAlgorithmic governanceâ, Internet Policy Review, 8(4). doi:10.14763/2019.4.1424.
Latzer, M. and Just, N. (2020) âGovernance by and of Algorithms on the Internet: Impact and Consequencesâ, in Latzer, M. and Just, N., Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.013.904.
Lumineau, F., Wang, W. and Schilke, O. (2021) âBlockchain Governance â A New Way of Organizing Collaborations?â, Organization Science, 32(2), pp. 500â521. doi:10.1287/orsc.2020.1379.
Werbach, K. (2020) âThe Siren Song: Algorithmic Governance by Blockchainâ, p. 31.
Yeung, K. (2019) âRegulation by Blockchain: the Emerging Battle for Supremacy between the Code of Law and Code as Lawâ, The Modern Law Review, 82(2), pp. 207â239. doi:10.1111/1468â2230.12399.
Zook, M.A. and Blankenship, J. (2018) âNew spaces of disruption? The failures of Bitcoin and the rhetorical power of algorithmic governanceâ, Geoforum, 96, pp. 248â255. doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2018.08.023.
Zwitter, A. and Hazenberg, J. (2020) âDecentralized Network Governance: Blockchain Technology and the Future of Regulationâ, Frontiers in Blockchain, 3, p. 12. doi:10.3389/fbloc.2020.00012.
Top row (left to right): Jacques Lacan, Cecile Eluard, Pierre Reverdy, Louis Leiris, Pablo Picasso, Fanie de Campan, Valentine Hugo, Simone de Beauvoir, Brassai
Bottom row: Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Michel Leiris, Jean Abier
Happy to have contributed my music to this beautiful project by Max Stossel!
This piece is one of 9 in the Words That Move: See Through A Different I standup poetry special. You can watch it in full here: https://www.wordsthatmove.com/special
Credits
Written and performed by Max Stossel
Directed by Jake Ladehoff
Starring Derek Hake as himself
Music Composition: Guido Sirna
Hair & Makeup: Angel Yu
Special thanks to Ashley Overholt and Rosepoint Studios!
The Privacy Paradox in the Information Economy and the age of Digital Sovereignty
Reflections and Learnings After Collecting and Exploiting Personal Data of Millions of Users in Latin America.
Introduction
Wifers, the company I co-founded in Argentina in 2016, was the result of a process of building on previous experiences together with a unique industry context. Having previously led e-commerce and digital identity projects, it seemed clear to me that the next step would be a convergence between the digital and physical worlds. The vision was to transfer the knowledge and tools acquired by digital businesses during the boom of e-commerce a few years before to physical stores, which still represented over 90% of total commerce. By using hardware and software to collect information at the point of sale, we would be able to bridge the gap between online and offline commerce.
Initially, our focus was on generating a simple and affordable solution for small bistros to capture information from customers visiting their stores using Wi-Fi access points. In following iterations, we offered these businesses the opportunity to target and automate their customer communications, aiming to enhance customer engagement and retention. Finally, once we had a significant network of locations, we embarked on a data analysis challenge leveraging behavioral insights, customer preferences, recurrence, and walk-through metrics at the point of sale. We could even detect when a social media influencer walked in. By the beginning of 2020, our solution had been deployed in hundreds of stores across six countries in the region and our client base expanded to include pharmaceutical companies, multinational corporations and governments.
During that period, the industry underwent significant changes, including advancements in privacy and personal data protection regulations, updates in mobile operating systems and multiple devaluations of the Argentine peso. Ultimately, the pandemic forced us to stop our operations, interrupting an acquisition process with a US company that we had been negotiating with for over a year. Some of the operational and strategic decisions that left valuable lessons can be covered in another article. For now, I would like to share some insights on privacy in the information economy. The case of Wifers and other similar companies is relevant because it was enabled by three simultaneous phenomena: the privacy paradox, opacity vs. transparency and regulatory gaps.
Presenting Wifers at Start-Up Chile G21 Demo Day (Santiago de Chile, 2019)
The Privacy Paradox
In his 1944 book âThe Great Transformationâ, Hungarian-American economist Karl Polanyi described the commoditization of essential elements of society that propelled the rise of industrial capitalism:
The idea of taking âhuman activityâ outside the market, bringing it into the market, labeling it as labor and assigning it a price;
The idea of bringing elements of ânatureâ such as lakes, trees, and land into the market, calling it real estate and assigning it a price;
And the idea of âexchangeâ, which, subordinate to the market, has become the concept of money.
The great discovery of the 21st century is the notion that we can bring âhuman experiencesâ into the market, calling it data and then buy, sell, or create new markets for targeted advertising, personalization and profit generation. For several years now, data is the new commodity fueling the rise of surveillance capitalism, a new economic paradigm based on the intrusion into individualsâ privacy through digital technologies. The rapid and widespread adoption of these technologies and data collection practices have made it challenging for individuals to fully understand and control their privacy invasion. We can take the example of âThreadsâ, recently launched by Meta. How many users who were pulled from Instagram to this new app are aware of the amount of data it is collecting? How many are wondering why they really need all this information for an ordinary public messaging application?
The data collected by the Threads app could include your sexual orientation, race and ethnicity, biometric data, trade union membership, pregnancy status, politics and religious beliefs.
Even acknowledging this, why individuals feel compelled to trade their personal data for access to certain products and services? The privacy paradox explains this disconnect between peopleâs concerns about privacy and their actual behaviors, attributed to several factors: asymmetry of power (individuals feel helpless or resigned against large corporations and believe their privacy is already compromised), convenience (people will overlook privacy concerns in exchange of benefits and personalized services), lack of awareness and understanding of data collection practices, social influence and norms (observing others willingly sharing personal information without negative consequences influence them to do the same) and timing (people prioritize immediate gratification over long-term privacy considerations when making decisions).
âThe sharing of personal information might be perceived as a loss of psychological ownership that threatens individualâs emotional attachment to their data.â
Back in 1944, Polanyi argued that the unrestricted marketization of key commodities can have detrimental social and environmental consequences, contending that society must establish protective measures and institutions to counterbalance the potentially harmful effects of unregulated markets. In the information economy, understanding the privacy paradox is crucial for policymakers, organizations and individuals, and it highlights the urgent need for transparent data practices, user-friendly privacy policies and improved education regarding privacy risks.
Opacity vs. Transparency
Despite having fully capitalized on the privacy paradox, we always upheld ethical practices when it came to storing, managing, and being transparent with user data policies for those connecting to our systems. Throughout my period as the companyâs director, no data was compromised, sold or transferred to third parties, either directly or indirectly. I firmly believed that if we were the ones processing the information, we should be the ones capable of monetising it in the most transparent and ethical way possible.
However, increased data volume meant more value for the company, driving the constant need to find new ways of extracting information from individuals through new sources and processing techniques. In order to achieve many of our functionalities, we needed to rapidly and seamlessly collect data on millions of people, and many of these data collection techniques operated opaquely, in the background. For instance, users were often unaware that we could detect their devices in stores, even when not connected to our Wi-Fi networks or when their devices were locked, despite it being stated in our terms and conditions.
The dilemma of opacity and transparency is not new in the history of information systems but becomes particularly sensitive when a companyâs existence is directly tied to the quantity and quality of the data it utilizes. Products like Threads and Wifers can take advantage of opacity to find new data collection opportunities because their business relies on it. Maintaining transparency policies requires significant effort. In the information economy, the pursuit of data as a commodity can blur ethical boundaries and lead companies to overlook this in order to maximize profits, potentially resulting in privacy violations, data misuse and other significant problems.
Regulatory Gaps
In a familiar pattern from previous experiences, we entered the market early. Not only did we secure our first sales before companies even realised they needed our technology, but we also operated silently for a significant period of time, employing a small organizational structure and employing seemingly invisible technology. This ability to remain unobserved provided us with a competitive advantage, but it was also facilitated by the context. These transactions existed in a regulatory vacuum, devoid of oversight, audits, or comprehensive protection measures.
Across the numerous locations and countries where we operated in Latin America, there existed (and still exists) no clear-cut regulatory framework that establishes the boundaries within which companies can collect and exploit personal data belonging to their customers. Our business model would have encountered very different challenges in the United States or Europe, where online privacy and personal data have been subject to legislation since 2016. Instead, we thrived for years in a green field facilitated by regulatory gaps.
The progress made in data legislation worldwide in 2021 represents a significant milestone in the ongoing fight for internet freedom and individual protection (InCountry, 2021)
Fortunately, privacy regulations are evolving slowly but surely. Leading the way is the European Union with its robust General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), setting a high standard for data protection and inspiring other jurisdictions to update or establish their own data privacy laws. In an environment where privacy concerns are growing, the evolving landscape of privacy regulations worldwide may signify a shift towards consumer protection.
The age of digital sovereignty
Companies like Wifers were possible a few years ago, but may not be viable today. It is no coincidence that Threads has not yet been launched in Europe. The resistance against surveillance capitalism, fueled by the dominance of digital advertising giants in the Web 2 era and signed by the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal, has raised awareness and sparked a strong desire among consumers and developers to challenge and weaken the data aggregation practices of corporations and governments.
More educated and privacy-conscious consumers, developers creating more transparent alternatives and regulated environments are paving the way for a transformative shift in the digital landscape. As this new paradigm takes shape, a vision is emerging for the Web 3 as a decentralized future that respects privacy, protects autonomy, and challenges power distribution. Some of this alternatives could truly disrupt the dominance of major players and restore digital sovereignty to individuals. For example, promising technologies like Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) or decentralized identity are offering new ways to protect personal data and reshape the landscape in technical, commercial, legal, and social dimensions.
The path ahead is long, but the destination is clear. Our personal information and experiences must belong to us once again, and the internet should fulfill its promise as a tool for connection and democratization.
Luego de un largo esfuerzo me pone muy contento publicar âAwakenâ, mi performance en Londres. Gracias enormes a todas las personas que me ayudaron a cumplir este sueño y hacer que este concierto sea posible.
After a long effort Iâm very happy to share "Awaken", my performance in London. A huge thank you to everyone who helped me to fulfil this dream and make this concert possible.
This Sunday June 11th at 6pm Arg. (9pm UK) I invite you to relive this special day with me through an exclusive release on YouTube. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did! Link in bio.
Music by Guido Sirna
Cello & Vocals by Emily Marks
Violin by Ray Rafols
Lights by Javier Velazquez Traut
Video by Zonia
Editing by Laion
Filmed in Goodenough College
London, United Kingdom
September 2022
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