A small, deserted tropical island near the Philippines is at the center of a fascinating experiment that blends social philosophy with a tech startup, artificial intelligence, and blockchain.
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In 2010, Dan Thomson suffered a severe head injury that left him with significant memory loss.
The experience caused him profound psychological distress, and ever since he has been driven by an urgent sense that he must find a solution to the fact that the human brain is a particularly poor place to store information — especially when that information is valuable business knowledge.
This is how the British startup Sensay came into being, designed to address the enormous resource drain companies face every time an employee leaves and someone new takes their place. The loss of knowledge that departs with the outgoing employee, combined with the cost of training their replacement, can amount to tens of percent of total productivity.
The startup is built around developing digital twins of human beings through precise questioning and in-depth research. The digital twin replicates the expertise and style of its human counterpart, with ownership retained by that human through blockchain-based encryption — allowing the digital twin to be licensed out for a fee.
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Dan Thomson has taken the concept a step further.
The company has announced that it is establishing a new nation on a small tropical island near the Philippines (pictured).
What makes this nation unique is that it will be governed by digital twins of iconic historical figures — among them Leonardo da Vinci, Winston Churchill, Alexander Hamilton, and Confucius.
The digital twins of these figures were created using the company's tools and are grounded in the writings, works, and historical records associated with each of them.
These digital twins will hold sessions, deliberate on citizens' various requests, and render fair, emotion-free decisions.
Unlike human elected officials — who are driven primarily by personal interests and are susceptible to pressure and manipulation — digital politicians are free of any agenda and will decide whatever they judge to be right for the public good.
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Although the nation has yet to receive any official recognition and is currently little more than a marketing gimmick, more than 12,000 people have already applied for citizenship.
Viewed through a wider lens, this can be seen as a fascinating social experiment and a glimpse into the near future.
Artificial intelligence has evolved from a tool that assists human decision-makers into a decision-maker in its own right, with humans sitting on the sidelines in an oversight role.
This has already happened to a large extent in software development and coding, and there is no reason it won't happen in more traditional fields as AI's intelligence continues to improve.
AI may well offer us an escape from the damage inflicted by human elected officials. On the other hand, receiving a fine or standing trial before robots would likely be a deeply unsettling experience that most of us would refuse to accept — and in the years ahead, a way will need to be found to balance the two possibilities in a measured way.
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👋 Hi, I'm Shlomo Strauss — follow me for more content on science and technology.