PRESENTER: Let's start.
This will be an
unusual talk, I guess,
because it's more of a question
and answer and discussion
than a real talk; no slides.
JAAN TALLINN: No slides.
PRESENTER: No slides.
So it's great to have Jaan here.
I've been asking him to tell me
when he was going to be around.
And he told me a few days ago.
But I hope we can repeat
that in the future.
Anyway, he's one of
these visionary people.
By the way, he's, I
think, 25 years younger
than I am, so
therefore, a visionary
in the era of internet, one
of the founders of Skype.
And Skype, it was
about 14 years ago.
It's interesting that the modern
era of internet and machine
learning, and so
on, started when
the internet bubble collapsed.
This was 2000.
And there was a lot of
destroyed dreams at that time.
But new ones came up, which
have quite a lasting power.
I mean, Skype is almost a
word in the dictionary by now.
You know, it's difficult to
think of a time in which Skype
did not exist.
And here we are.
And so it will be very
interesting to hear from Jaan
what he's thinking
about, especially
about collaboration, and--
JAAN TALLINN: Coordination.
PRESENTER: Coordination.
So, Jaan?
JAAN TALLINN: Thank you.
And good afternoon
slash evening.
PRESENTER: By the
way, you must be
one of the few people
who was born in Tallinn
and is named Tallinn--
same name, right?
JAAN TALLINN: Yeah.
All these people
are my relatives.
Yeah, I don't think there's
anyone in the world who
shares my name, full name.
So one of the, I think,
the most important things
that I'm doing with my
life these days, I've
been doing in the last six,
seven, eight years, depending
how you count, is trying to
save the world, literally.
And so I've been supporting
a network of people
and organizations who
are trying to lower
a so-called existential
risk, risks from technology,
that if they materialized,
would sort of put humanity
in a very bad situation.
Now, there are two ways to
address the existential risks.
One is to do this whack-a-mole
thing and look at each risk
individually and then
build capacities, which
are addressing those risks.
And in some ways, I've
been trying to do that,
trying to help people who
are trying to do that.
Or you can basically take a
step back and think about,
how can we actually to make
the world better, in general?
In order to [INAUDIBLE]
would be better
in addressing those
risks, you wouldn't
have to have these crazy
people, who get often
put in the same pocket with
doomsday, of doomsday prophets,
and then, we have
to defend ourselves.
But the world
actually would be--
it would be great-- wouldn't it
be great if the world actually
spent more time, more time
and resources and talent,
on making sure that
humanity saves this--
humanity survives this century,
that it spends on tobacco ads,
for example, which is
currently not the case?
So one of the projects
that I've been on and off,
doing in the last year or so,
is putting together a document
with ideas how to improve
the world's ability
to address various
problems, in general.
And although this
document is still
a fair way of being
completed, I already
have started extracting
presentations from it.
So this particular talk, I gave
in Oxford, what, a month ago,
at an event called Effective
Altruism Global Summit,
where young people
from the movement
call it Effective Altruism,
which, I guess, many of you
know, as you got around
and try to figure out
how to increase the amount of
good that they do in the world.
But yeah, as Thomas
I think mentioned,
the talk is very short.
It was meant to--
there, in Oxford,
it was meant to be an
introduction for a panel.
But I hope it's
provocative, I guess.
As much as I have
given it, it has always
resulted in a lot of questions.
And at the
[INAUDIBLE] in Oxford,
we could have had it going
for a couple of days, I think,
because there were so many
questions and exciting ideas
that came as a
result of this topic.
So the talk--
"Everyone is hurting each other.
The planet is rampant
with injustices.
Whole societies plunder
groups of their own people.
Mothers imprison sons.
Children perish,
while brothers war.
What is the matter with that,
if it's what you want to do?
But nobody wants it.
Everybody hates it.
Oh, well, then stop."
So this dialogue originates
from a quasi-religious text,
called "Principia Discordia."
But I lifted it from an essay
called "Meditations on Moloch,"
by Scott Alexander.
In that powerful
essay, Scott points out
that almost all humanity's
ailments, problems
like crime, corruption,
overfishing, deforestation,
global warming, arms races,
and tropic anthropogenic
existential risks, and so on and
so forth, have a common theme
the kernel.
And that kernel is bad Nash
equilibrium, a [INAUDIBLE]
situation where people
follow local incentives
to a predictably
bad overall outcome.
So in some sense, such
problems are all forms
of prisoner's dilemma, where
individual players in the game
can't improve the
outcome unilaterally.
And they need
external coordination
to improve the outcome.
Now, an interesting
question is that, is there
a way to systematically crush
this evil kernel that Scott,
in his essay, calls
the Moloch, and thus
solve most of the problems
that plague humanity?
And I believe there might be.
The key here is that
none of those [INAUDIBLE]
were deliberately put in place.
Rather, they all
emerged over time
for random historical reasons.
So no, there is no powerful
institution or agency,
in general, that has a vested
interest in maintaining
those equilibriums.
Or as my friend Michael
[? Vasser ?] once put it,
the world is like a race car
speeding towards a cliff.
But the good news is that
there is nobody at the wheel.
[CHUCKLES]
Of course, we don't want to
create a global dictatorship.
Instead, we should engineer a
sort of cruise control, that
would automatically course
correct the world whenever
it deviates from pursuing
human [INAUDIBLE]..
Of course, this
sounds very hard.
It is far from hopeless.
There are numerous historical
examples, for example,
of societies handling
tragedy of commons situations
by culture or peer pressure,
or sometimes even using
clever, self-enforcing
protocols.
So for instance, in
Athens, in ancient Greece,
they had a system
called liturgies,
where the richest people
had to finance public goods.
Now, in case they refused
by saying that I'm not
the richest, they had
to agree to exchange
all their possessions
with a person who
they thought should do the
financing in their stead.
[CHUCKLES]
Well, such clever solutions to
game theoretic problems are not
only getting easier
with new technology--
think Wikipedia and blockchain--
but also, organizations such as
Global Forest Watch, who crowd
monitor deforestation
in real time,
using satellites
and the internet.
One way of looking
at Wikipedia is
that, from a game
theoretic perspective, what
it brought on the table
was that it flipped
the cost of vandalism, at
least simple vandalism,
versus reversing, or
fixing, vandalism,
thereby allowing knowledge
or structure information
to accumulate without
it being vandalized.
But in general, the
trends in technology
point towards a coming
explosion in transparency, which
brings new chances, of course.
Yet, it clearly simplifies
accountability and enforcement.
Last, but not least, the
effective altruist movement,
that I gave the
talk to in Oxford,
the movement itself
carries the potential
to change the game theoretic
situation that the world is in.
Because after all,
effective altruists
define themselves as people
who prefer global outcomes
to [INAUDIBLE] the local
incentive gradients.
So in the bird's eye
view, what I'm proposing
is to combine new technology
with humanity's past experience
solving various
domain-specific coordination
problems in societies
and various domains,
and engineer a general solution
to the world's problems.
Such a solution, or more
likely, set of solutions,
must have, in my view, at
least two big components.
First, there has to be
a preference discovery
mechanism for figuring out what
qualifies as a good future,
according to human values,
in the first place,
and second, a preference
promotion mechanism that
would incentivize people
to contribute towards such
a preferred future.
And I do note that the problem
is similar to developing
a value aligned AI.
First, figure out what
you must want, and then
build a system that optimizes
towards those values.
Having the preference
discovery mechanism
separate from the
promotion mechanism
would serve several purposes.
First, people are rightly
suspicious of movements
that just strive for
power while confidently
claiming to know what
the correct values are.
Second, doing value discovery
in a transparent and trustworthy
manner might create the sort
of a general metric, external
metric, to gauge the
actions of prominent people
and organizations against.
And third, aggregating
human values
would likely help to solve the
ultimate AI value alignment
problem, not to mention that
they actually do expect pretty
good on our progress initially.
Because I don't
think much effort
has gone into aggregating
human preferences.
So a new margin of
work in this area
should yield pretty
nice results.
So what global mechanisms might
have the effect of discovering
and promoting human values?
I don't know exactly, of course.
But in my research and
thinking over the last year,
low intensity thinking even,
I have come across already
several interesting ideas.
For instance, Nick Bostrom, who
leads the [INAUDIBLE] in Oxford
[INAUDIBLE] suggested
that we should perhaps
try to create the
cultural tradition
of rewarding past actions,
actions whose importance might
only be revealed later with
the benefit of hindsight.
For example, just on Saturday,
with a few people here,
we celebrated what's called
Petrov Day, to memorize the--
or to remember the events
of September 26, 1983,
where Stanislav Petrov,
an officer in Soviet army,
decided not to launch a nuclear
counterattack after, what
turned out to be, a false
alarm of Soviet early detection
system.
Many of you, and certainly
me, wouldn't be here
if he had decided otherwise.
So in some ways, sometimes
I think that it's weird
that my existence has--
the cause or path to my
existence, continued existence,
has gone through the brain
processes of a single man.
So yeah, the thing is that
what Nick Bostrom suggested
is that it's likely that
the future societies are
going to be richer
than the current ones--
not to say anything
about the distribution
of the wealth, which we
might have a problem with.
But on average,
they will be richer.
So resources shouldn't
be a problem.
If you create the
expectation that,
if you do something good
for the future generations
or future society, you
would get rewarded.
That actually should
push the world already
into a better match equilibrium.
Now, whether or not our idea is
Paul Christiano's certificates
of impact, they are
basically-- the idea
is that, whenever you do
something good, that I think
that might be good, that might
be appreciated in future,
you can claim a
certificate for having
done that, which you can then
sell to potential donors later.
So the mechanism helps people
to do good deeds now and then
raise money for it later,
once the effect is clear.
And I think that such
certificates would actually
be especially powerful if there
was a futures market for them,
plus a set of retro charities
that specialize and commit
to buying the
certificates in proportion
of their future impact, of
their eventual future impact.
And finally, I have an intuition
that combining blockchain
technology and
decentralized prediction
markets with global
mobile e-voting
could yield the
potential preference
for [INAUDIBLE] mechanism.
The idea is that,
for example, we
know that people are
not very good at knowing
what they want from the future.
And things go completely
haywire when you ask them,
what policies should we enact
in order to reach a good future?
Because then, it just
becomes a signalling game.
People are just signalling
what kind of people
I'm allied with in this
pick a policy game.
But however, what if we
created a polling system that's
global, that globally provided
in a randomized manner,
polls people's
current well-being,
like asks them to ask--
asks them to respond,
like how well are things
going, in general?
And then, if they aggregate
that [INAUDIBLE] number
in some magical way, but
also a transparent way,
using some kind of
decentralized mechanism,
and [INAUDIBLE]
the futures market,
that would predict the
effect of different policies
on that particular number,
condition on those policies
being enacted.
So we could actually have people
putting their money on the line
in order to predict the
effect of different policies
on this global welfare.
So in summary, as
Scott Alexander
wrote in his "Meditations
On Moloch" essay,
many of humanity's ailments
originate from accidental gain
[INAUDIBLE] equilibriums.
Yet, humanity has never
been completely helpless
against such equilibriums.
We have a history of
defeating and fixing them
in many societies and domains.
It's clear to me, though,
that in this century,
such retroactive
domain-specific batching
is just no longer sufficient.
We now need global
mechanisms for humanity's
preference, discovery,
and promotion.
One thing I really like
about effective altruists,
in particular, is
that they are always
hungry for opportunities to
maximize their positive impact
on the world.
So that's why so
many of them actually
end up focusing on
existential risks,
because they think that,
well, one way of making
my good impact on
the world or improve
my impact on the world,
impact on the world,
is to go from local to
geographically diverse.
So instead of just helping
my local community,
think about what can I do
with my dollars or time
in the world where those
are most needed, and thereby
increasing?
And many of those
effective altruists
are actually starting,
wait a minute.
Once I'm starting to diversify
[INAUDIBLE] no local in space,
shouldn't I also go
non-local in time?
I think about what would
the future generations
want me to do?
And hence, many of
them actually end
up interested in lowering
existential risks,
because the assumption is that--
actually, that's
the punch line here.
I'm not going to say it?
Helping to develop humanity's
preference, discovery,
and promotion mechanisms
has the potential
to have even greater impact
than existential risk reduction,
because, assuming humanity
values its own survival,
it addresses
actually [INAUDIBLE]
reduction just as
a special case.
So let's do it.
Let's dethrone the Moloch.
[APPLAUSE]
AUDIENCE: So what would
be the first action item?
JAAN TALLINN: Yeah, so my own
plan here is to-- because over
the last few years,
I've collected--
I've been connected to a set
of organizations and people
that I support in many ways.
So my current plan is to
just finish the document
that I'm writing and then just
solicit feedback from them.
And the main idea
of this document
is not going to
[INAUDIBLE] prescriptions
about what we should do.
It's just meant to be
a collection of ideas
and just literature references,
to point out that, look,
there is something there.
Let's go and look for it.
And once I do get the
[INAUDIBLE] feedback
about this document,
I hope that we
could divert some
of the research
that Future of Life
Institute, for example, is
funding, towards more
general research,
just not being focused on
AI safety or bio-safety.
Just let's just take this thing
one more, one level at a time,
and do some research internally,
kind of improving the work.
Because there really seems
to be something there.
Let's figure out.
But yeah, so these
are the first two
steps that I'm having in mind.
AUDIENCE: Is it [INAUDIBLE]
you really [INAUDIBLE]
about the technology
and [INAUDIBLE]
JAAN TALLINN: Yeah, so
I mean, like I said,
all these are a bunch
of existing research
about how different
cultures have
handled so-called common
pool resource problem.
For example, how did
they handle the situation
where you had common
grazing grounds,
and what were the empirical
rules that seemed to work,
when it came to managing
this common pool resource?
So I absolutely expect that
many of the interventions
can be just purely cultural.
For example, what Nick
Bostrom suggested is just--
this is just a cultural
or mimetic intervention
that doesn't have to do
much with technology.
You popularize the
idea that instead
of donating to charities that
are currently doing good,
you try to figure out who do we
want the reward from the past?
So this is just purely
cultural intervention.
However, having said that,
I do think that technology
is going to play a special role,
because it provides a medium
for doing a global scale
coordination, a global scale--
you're enforcing
global scale policies.
That's why I'm really interested
in blockchain, blockchain
technologies.
One way of putting
what blockchain
really is, it that, in
the last five years or so,
we have lived in
a world where it's
possible to do
global coordination
or reach global consensus
in a decentralized manner.
In bitcoin, it's just
basically a look-up table,
like a key number, a
key number, key number,
that says who has how much.
But there is already a
very nice generalization
of that out there, launched
a month or two ago,
called Ethereum, that
maintains a global state of key
and just key value,
no longer key number,
but key value of pairs.
And those values can
also be scripts programs
that can run and actually
change the state.
So you have this basic--
in principle, you have
a [INAUDIBLE] complete,
shared global state machine,
which is potentially very
interesting, because you can
do commitments and contracts
and hopefully, something
that will help with pushing
the global [INAUDIBLE]
equilibriums
into something more
beneficial than they are now.
AUDIENCE: You also mentioned the
idea in the global marketplace.
[INAUDIBLE] Did you
think about what
mechanism would be to
assess what those ideas need
to do [INAUDIBLE]?
Because OK, you've got
an idea to do something,
and [INAUDIBLE] you can sell
it on the global marketplace,
then you might have
means to implement it.
What would be the mechanism
to assess effectiveness
that you [INAUDIBLE]
JAAN TALLINN: Yeah.
I have final thoughts there.
But in some ways, I'm a
part-time agent investor,
right?
So I see these situations
in a commercial context.
Some good teams come
and say that, OK,
we have this particular idea.
And then you have to assess
the quality of the idea,
plus quality of the people.
And if you find it
sufficiently good,
then you will basically
give them money
for a share in this enterprise.
Now, one idea would
be you're going
to internalize this
mechanism that only works
in an economic
context, internalize
that you're going to having a
positive impact on the world
context.
So if we had this, what I call,
retro, retro [INAUDIBLE],, that
would pay, in
retrospect, to people
on teams for having
had a good impact,
it became suddenly
commercially interesting
to look for teams that
want to, basically,
compete for the future
rewards from those charities.
And then, you basically have
all this existing mechanism
of assessing the quality
of teams and ideas,
to figure out how
successful they would be.
So that would be one of the
ideas for assessing ideas in.
AUDIENCE: So I have a comment
that I [INAUDIBLE] question
[INAUDIBLE].
When Donald Trump comes out and
says, this new tax plan of mine
will not increase
the budget deficit,
and then some other
politician says, yes it will,
you can be sure
that they're just
going to keep saying--
sticking to those statements
over the next year, no
matter what happens.
And however, you never see these
kind of deadlocked questions
when people argue about
what the oil price is going
to be in 30 years, because you
have a very functional futures
market.
And if someone is
really convinced
that oil is going to be much
more expensive in 30 years,
then the rest of
the market thinks
they're going to go buy and
make a killing on it, right?
So [INAUDIBLE] love the things
you're saying about actually
having people put their money
where their mouth is and say,
if they believe that this policy
x is going to have effect y,
there should be a market where--
JAAN TALLINN: Betting is tax
on bullshit, as they say.
AUDIENCE: Say again.
JAAN TALLINN: Betting is a
tax on bullshit, as they say.
AUDIENCE: A tax on
bullshit, exactly.
So my question related
to this is, can you just
summarize for us a little bit
what the legal impediments are
for having few betting
markets and future markets?
Because it's [INAUDIBLE]
pretty strong [INAUDIBLE]..
JAAN TALLINN: Yes.
So futures or
prediction markets,
I think is the most general
name, they have basically two
big constraints to
problems, that there
is an inherent problem,
intrinsic problem,
is liquidity.
If you don't get liquidity,
then you don't have a market.
And interestingly,
Robin Hanson, who
is a friend and economist
at George Mason University,
and he is a world expert
on prediction markets,
he has found out that
dumb money is also OK.
If you get dumb money, that
actually gives you liquidity,
and that's sufficient.
You don't have to
have smart money.
If you have dumb money,
basically, what it does,
it attracts smart money.
So sometimes, even, he
even proposes to get over--
if you really want the answers
from a prediction market,
and you don't have
liquidity, it might actually
be worthwhile to subsidize it.
So you actually have a
charitable organization
or someone, who was a bunch
of money, just put up--
insert with a bunch of money
to kickstart the prediction
market.
So liquidity is one
big problem that
needs to be overcome in
order to make the prediction
market effective.
And indeed, the other big
problem is legislation.
I think Intrade was
the prediction market
here in the US that
was just shut down,
because it ran afoul
of the gambling laws.
AUDIENCE: Oh, they've
shut it down now?
JAAN TALLINN: I think so, in US.
But that's my understanding.
I haven't actually checked.
So now, this is where the
decentralized thing helps.
I mean, right now, there is a
decentralized prediction market
called Augur, just
being developed.
They hope to launch next year.
We'll see what happens.
AUDIENCE: Augur?
JAAN TALLINN: Augur, A, U--
I have to translate
the letters--
G--
AUDIENCE: U-R.
JAAN TALLINN: A-U-G-U-R, yes.
And that idea is that they are--
because a theorem
platform, as I mentioned,
is a blockchain technology
that's true and complete.
You can build the,
as they call them,
decentralized
applications on top.
So the idea with'
Augur is that they're
going to have a decentralized
prediction market on top
of a theorem blockchain.
Therefore, there
is no single point
to attack legally or with--
AUDIENCE: You mean through the--
Tommy and I have a bet against
each other about Donald Trump's
tax plain, it's really just
a private bet between us,
and nobody else knows about it?
JAAN TALLINN: No,
people will know.
But no-- well, I mean,
[INAUDIBLE] see it [INAUDIBLE]
autonomous,
[INAUDIBLE] was a bet.
So people will know that the
person with a certain key
has a bet against a certain
person with another key.
But that's--
AUDIENCE: Then are we allowed
to do that, Tommy and I?
JAAN TALLINN: I mean, that
depends on legislation,
depending on what country--
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
decentralized,
so it cannot be shut down.
[LAUGHTER]
JAAN TALLINN: Yeah, just like
a [INAUDIBLE] business idea
behind Kazaa was that--
Kazaa was thought
of when Napster
was in the process
of being shut down.
And it turned out to be much
more harder to shut down Kazaa.
It was peer to peer.
Then eventually, they
still managed to do that.
So yeah, well, in
general, I think
the decentralized currencies,
decentralized prediction
markets, they are
not like a panacea.
So they are just new
coordination mechanisms
for humanity that have different
properties, different trust,
and different, in
general, different nature
than the existing
coordination mechanisms.
For example, UN-- it is sort
of a coordination mechanism.
It has been good
in very few things,
but it has managed to do
a few coordination feats--
ozone, addressing those, and
coordinating the CFC reduction,
you know, to say those.
And [INAUDIBLE] I think, was
one of the triumphs of UN.
And also, the decentralized
prediction markets,
they come with their own
set of failure modes.
For example,
assassination markets
is one known failure
mode, where you basically
have this anonymous way to
bet on people's expected
lifetime, which is terrible,
because you incentivize
people, insiders, to bet on a
certain date, and then have--
kill the person.
So yeah, it is just a tool.
We need to figure
out how to avoid
a lot of bad,
failing [INAUDIBLE]
and those [INAUDIBLE]
tools, as well.
But they also are
a good opportunity
to build something better.
AUDIENCE: The markets like
this should, in principle, make
elections, say, political
decisions, easier, but so far,
has not led to a
[INAUDIBLE] there
was [INAUDIBLE] the political
prediction [INAUDIBLE],,
which, by the way, had
an exception allowed
by the whatever
federal regulator.
JAAN TALLINN: Where was that?
AUDIENCE: This was for
predicting your betting
money on, say, it was Bush
versus Clinton, for example.
AUDIENCE: Yeah, that was Intrade
[INAUDIBLE],, that got shut down
[INAUDIBLE].
AUDIENCE: This was earlier.
AUDIENCE: Oh, okay.
AUDIENCE: And this was
an academic problem.
JAAN TALLINN: Oh, OK.
AUDIENCE: And so they got
the permission to do it.
They did it for at least
two or three elections.
And usually, the results are OK.
So the money involved were
like $100 or [INAUDIBLE]..
And unlike elections,
this, over time,
you see what other
people are betting on.
So there's much more
information [INAUDIBLE]..
But I don't think this
convinced [INAUDIBLE]
that's the way to go.
JAAN TALLINN: Yes.
So one-- sometimes, I
joke about Robin Hanson,
who is expert on
prediction markets.
These are professional
physicists
who turned into professional
economists who turned
into professional cynicists.
Because he exactly--
basically, his progression
was that the he had a
interesting toolset in physics.
He thought that he can bring
it into economics, economy,
and do various experiments
and build up various tools
that companies can use to
make their operations more
efficient.
And then he did that and found
that, hmm, companies are not
really interested in that.
[INAUDIBLE] But hmm,
what's really going on?
And then, all the
other interesting work
actually happened that
he has been doing.
So for example, with
prediction markets,
he says that, within companies,
especially big companies,
the big problem in
prediction markets
is that they are
second-guessing the leaders.
And leaders, it would be
really bad for leaders' status
to have basic there
[INAUDIBLE] caught.
So there is no--
on top of big
companies, there's just
no interest in
prediction markets
for that simple,
social, tribal reason.
So yeah, we actually have to be
aware of weird human psychology
things that might
be an obstacle.
But also, it might
be an opportunity,
in some cases, where
something goes viral
for some reason, et cetera.
So yeah, you have to be
smart about prediction
markets and other
coordination technologies.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
with what you say.
To use a prediction
market, I mean, that
would be a clean purpose there.
JAAN TALLINN: In
what [INAUDIBLE]??
AUDIENCE: It is a little
problem in using the prediction
marketplace for purposes
that you [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
financial purpose.
You're trying to
do something good.
[INAUDIBLE] something
good not necessarily
has a direct
financial [INAUDIBLE]..
If you could [INAUDIBLE]
money with it, yes.
So it is more like
a [INAUDIBLE]..
For example, if you paid money
to people who [INAUDIBLE],,
you have money to incentivize.
JAAN TALLINN: Yeah, yeah.
So I mean, actually, just
yesterday, it was yesterday,
where we looked at
what is the US budget,
if you look at the
discretionary budget
that the government can
spend on various issues?
And then, on the
other hand, when
you look at the amount
of money that people
give to charities per year, the
latter is actually much bigger.
So the idea there is to--
to [INAUDIBLE] the
problem that you bring out
is to figure out how to convert
a bunch of these donations
to charity, to [INAUDIBLE] that
actually incentivize fuels.
Things like prediction
markets are actually more--
basically other mechanisms
of doing good better
than the current
charity mechanisms
some charitable
organizations are doing.
So that's one idea, at least,
to tap into the charity money.
AUDIENCE: So what if this
is market-based [INAUDIBLE]??
Would society be a
kind of threat that's
very unequally distributed?
Doesn't this mean that you
have the same problem of being
[INAUDIBLE] now that money was
[INAUDIBLE],, so that you can--
I mean, you can rig
the game the same,
the market in the
same way [INAUDIBLE]
put other money much more
influence than [INAUDIBLE]..
And you can influence the
way, where the money goes
[INAUDIBLE].
So how does this
fix [INAUDIBLE]??
If I understand you
correctly, you're
saying that use the prediction
markets to fund charities
or fund good causes.
So in the end, if someone has a
[INAUDIBLE] interest that money
goes to supplement [INAUDIBLE]
direction, is there [INAUDIBLE]
the possibility
[INAUDIBLE] market
that he has much
more [INAUDIBLE]
How is this [INAUDIBLE]
know that [INAUDIBLE]
JAAN TALLINN: So there are
actually multiple questions
in that, now.
One thing is that,
indeed, it's [INAUDIBLE]
it's possible to rig
prediction markets,
if you are willing
to spend the money.
Basically, if you really
want to enact certain policy,
for example, just
let's say that there
are policy A and policy B, and
there's a choice between those.
And a prediction
market basically says
that if you enact A,
is the outcome good,
or is it going to be a failure?
And if you enact policy
B, is the outcome
going to be good or bad?
And so, in a neutral market,
you basically get [INAUDIBLE]
an aggregated,
expert answer, just
like as you get in,
as Max mentioned,
the futures market
for oil, for example.
Now, if there's very really
strong vested interest
in enacting policy, then
we also know what happens.
We know what from
the stock markets.
It's called
cornering the market.
But when you're going to throw
a lot of money at the problem,
you basically can bias the
market, the prediction market.
However, the problem
there is that you're
going to lose that money.
So you biased option A in
order for it to be enacted.
But then, it goes on
to fail, because that
would have been a
[INAUDIBLE] prediction,
unless there's some weird
self-enforcing thing there.
And then, you basically are
going to lose the money.
The outcome is
going to force you
to pay out the money
to the people who
were betting against it.
So it's a known failure mode,
and we need to think about it.
Actually, the worst, the
even worst failure mode
of prediction
markets-- and almost, I
think the general point here
is that the prediction market's
just like one tool in the set.
I'm don't want to really
get really hung up on those.
There are many,
many other ideas how
we could create a better
corporation and a better value,
value discovery
mechanism in the world.
But prediction markets
there, they are fascinating.
So what was I going to say?
So yeah, the one failure
mode of prediction markets
that I think we should
figure out how to address
is that they are not
very good at predicting
existential risks.
So if there's a
certain probability
of the world blowing
up, you should always,
at least in a [INAUDIBLE]
prediction market,
you should always
predict against it.
Because if you
predict for it, there
will be nobody to collect
your winnings from.
So there is this issue
that we should figure out
how to address.
And then the other
part of your question
is how can we ensure that this--
I guess the way I would rephrase
your question, how can we
make sure that the value, what
I call preference discovery
mechanism, is fair?
It's not biased towards a white
male in Silicon Valley, right?
And it's a non-trivial question.
But I think what would
really help is that--
the nice thing about
mechanisms like blockchain
is that they're
very transparent.
So if you can tap into
that transparency,
then there might
be something there
that would give a perhaps,
even almost [? probably, ?]
a nonbiased value aggregation;
but more research needed.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
it seems like a lot
of the solutions they
propose are some kind
of technological access.
If we're not able to solve
in an economic inequality,
then how are we going to have
widespread participation?
JAAN TALLINN: Cell phones.
AUDIENCE: What's that?
JAAN TALLINN: Cell phones.
Cell phones are basically
a huge explosion in Africa,
for example.
And so they're
going to-- yeah, I
do think that internet
access is going
to be very
ubiquitous, especially
now with satellites going up.
And basically, we're going
to have world-wide Wi-Fi,
or something like that.
So I'm pretty optimistic
about people getting connected
at an increasing rate.
However, I might be
wrong, in which case,
we need to figure out
some other mechanisms.
The key thing is that, for
value, preference discovery
part, you don't actually
need to poll everyone.
It's just your sample has
to be random, random enough.
And if it's random enough,
and yet, the number of people
is small, you can just travel
to the villages and ask them.
AUDIENCE: You have
been speaking mainly
from the point of
view of individuals
getting together and cooperating
or funding enterprise.
What about getting
governments involved?
Is there hope of committing
one government to something
interesting to set an example?
[INAUDIBLE] what about Estonia?
JAAN TALLINN: Yeah, yeah.
AUDIENCE: Is the most
digitally connected?
JAAN TALLINN: A
couple of years ago,
I actually imported
Robin Hanson to Estonia.
So I introduced him to a
bunch of Estonia officials,
in the hope that they would
pick some ideas from--
so far, no luck.
But Estonia, indeed, is in
an interesting position.
Because what's going
on in Estonia--
first of all, it's
a small place,
so there are many politicians.
Most--
AUDIENCE: What is
it, 1.5 million?
JAAN TALLINN: 1.3,
and the country
is the size of
Manhattan, when it
comes to actually a population.
So the nice thing about
this is that there
isn't a lot of
selective pressure
when it comes to getting
political officers.
So you don't have to be raised
as a politician from the womb.
You can actually-- most
politicians have normal jobs,
as well.
So they're going to
bring their experience
from different fields.
And then, they say, OK, what
can I do with my toolset
from my previous
profession in non-politics?
So that basic context has
put Estonia in the place
where people have
started experimenting
with e-governance.
And for example, I voted with
my mobile phone for the last,
I don't know, six
to eight years.
And so there is
a sort of culture
of innovation in
governance circles
that has gotten them a
lot of positive feedback.
So Estonian officials
are being asked
to present at
conferences, and they
have been asked to advise
the UK government, et cetera,
et cetera.
And when they do that, then
they come back to Estonia, OK,
that went really well;
let's do something else.
So [INAUDIBLE] in a
nice, positive feedback.
The latest thing
is that now, they
have this program
called the residency.
So basically, you can go to--
I don't know if all, but to
some Estonian consulates,
and get yourself
this ID card that you
can use to give digital
signatures that have
the power of law in Estonia.
And therefore, you can
create your businesses.
And they're still
working at banks.
Banks are a little bit reluctant
to have people open accounts
without showing up.
But I think they will, at
least at some point, relent.
So yeah, I do think
that places like Estonia
or other forward-looking
governments
might be very helpful
in figuring out
how can we do
global coordination?
That said, as my friend
Patrick Friedman, who
had this free
cities movement, he
said that the US Constitution
is from 17th century, I think.
And if we drove a car from
that time, we would be a horse.
So that the principles
of government
are really, really, really old.
They're not really designed
for the current time.
So most of the
mechanisms from there
are just worthless, for
global coordination.
But some of them
might be useful,
and we might want
to scavenge those.
AUDIENCE: I mean, if you look
at laws from the point of view
of software engineering, say,
the tax law in United States,
to be specific.
After fixing a few [INAUDIBLE]
over the years, at some point,
you should fall to the
cause that [INAUDIBLE]..
JAAN TALLINN: Yeah, yeah.
So actually, one nice
thing about Estonia
is that we got a fresh start in
'90s, when internet was already
around.
So we didn't have
all this legacy.
So I got the first [INAUDIBLE].
Now, we have basically
all the-- start
seeing some signs of the
accumulated legislation.
But that is a huge
problem in US, I think.
AUDIENCE: So as a software
engineer, what should be
[INAUDIBLE]?
The software have [INAUDIBLE]
[LAUGHTER]
JAAN TALLINN: Well,
that's really interesting.
We can now talk about--
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: There is
an explanation time,
when you think about it.
JAAN TALLINN: Yeah, it's all
very interesting questions
[INAUDIBLE].
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
maybe constitutions.
JAAN TALLINN: Yeah, you
want to have some kind
of being able to react.
I mean, it's a huge
problem in any way.
It think Bruce Schneier,
a few years ago,
gave a talk at some
conference that I attended,
where [INAUDIBLE] he
pointed out that legislation
and enforcement is always
playing catch-up game now,
because they're just
much lower than all
the criminals and hacking
at the age of information.
So it's a general problem.
AUDIENCE: Yeah, I'm
wondering, there
are countries like Switzerland,
who are doing [INAUDIBLE]
actually, I'm not sure there
are many other examples
of doing what you
want economically
for quite some time.
And they have
constant referendums.
I don't know whether there
are other examples [INAUDIBLE]
JAAN TALLINN: There are
some interesting governance
innovations that have tried.
For example, in my document,
one of the things that I mention
is liquid democracy.
It's a very cool idea.
I'm not sure how well it
works, but it's still worth
investigating.
And I think they use
in Germany and some,
I think, [INAUDIBLE]
party there, or somewhere.
It's basically the
idea that, instead
of having the regular elections,
everyone has one vote,
and he or she can just give
that one vote to someone else,
to anyone really.
And anyone with a
collection of votes
can just again distribute
these votes to other people.
And then basically,
those people who
end up having the largest
collection of votes,
they are in power.
However, the thing is
that, whatever they do,
people can always
pull back their votes
that they gave them.
So So there's a dynamic
system of like real time
accountability, which is--
and the other really cool
ideas are just randomized.
There is this-- if you know
the fundamental problem
in representative democracy,
like the [INAUDIBLE] there
are three, three reasonable
properties that you want
an election system to have.
And they can show
that they if you're
a representative
democracy, you're
going to violate at least
one of them, which is bad.
However, once you introduce
a randomized element,
once you introduce an
element that voting is not
deterministic, there is a
certain element of randomness
you can get around of those
and actually, in some ways,
get a much better
representative democracy.
So I think there's a lot of--
AUDIENCE: And there are
a lot interesting issues.
If you have electronic
elections or [INAUDIBLE],, then,
of course, the
first thing to do is
[INAUDIBLE] checks [INAUDIBLE]
is a person not at home.
But the next thing would be,
is the person who is voting,
did he read what
he's voting about?
Does he know [INAUDIBLE]
not an intelligence test,
but a knowledge test?
JAAN TALLINN: Yeah,
so that's why--
AUDIENCE: I wonder how
many people passed it?
JAAN TALLINN: That's
why I think it's--
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
That's why I said, [INAUDIBLE]
was that [INAUDIBLE] electronic
voting system, you can always--
before the elections
are committed,
you can always go
and change your vote.
So even if you're forced
to vote for someone,
you can basically go
and then have a paper
ballot to change your vote.
And then you can
check, I think--
I never checked, but
I think you can check,
what is the status of
your vote right now?
[INAUDIBLE] I don't think
Estonia is using that,
but there are interesting
cryptographic ways to actually
prove that your vote
hasn't been tampered with;
so again, ideas to use there.
However, the general answer
to your question is that--
I think, as I
mentioned in my talk,
we really want to
actually disentangle
the preference discovery
mechanism and policy discovery
mechanism.
So like, when people know
what's good for them right now,
doesn't mean that they
know what's good for them
in the future.
And even worse,
most of the people
have no idea what policies.
So it would be great to actually
do the policy search separately
from the preference discovery.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] politician
in this country obviously
no taxes or some taxes.
This would be a modern running
in showing what are we after.
JAAN TALLINN: Yes, yes.
We basically want to
create hedge funds
in the policy space.
And that will make predictions
about what are things.
Because I think there's so much
talent being wasted in which
hedge funds right now.
I think the zero sum gains
that, if you could just
get a fraction of those
working on actually
what matters in the future.
I've done my own [INAUDIBLE]
trading, at some point,
so I'm partly at fault.
PRESENTER: OK.
You have a flight to catch.
So let's thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
