Decentralization + AI
Brendan McCord channels Hayek and Kaufmann in this talk, including knowledge as a discovery process, distributed human intelligence, and the twin phenomena of evolution and emergent order.
When I first saw something from the
, a relatively new organization dedicated to AI and human flourishing, I didn’t realize that “cosmos” referred to F. A. Hayek’s distinction between the cosmos and taxis.Now I do.
For the uninitiated, cosmos refers to unplanned and undesigned orders that use prices like ants use pheromone trails. Not only do cosmic orders self-organize by harnessing dispersed knowledge, but they are also non-teleological forms of order, which means they are orders without objectives.
“Prices are knowledge wrapped in incentives.”
—Prychitko and Horwitz.
By contrast, taxis refers to an order that a single human or small group plans and designs, but is limited by the extent of the group’s knowledge. These are teleological forms of order in that those who design them do so according to some objective. An economy is a cosmic order; a company is a taxis order.
Hopefully, you’re clear on the distinction, if you weren’t already.
Here’s founder Brendan McCord on the philosophical roots of decentralized AI:
And here are some of my overlapping thoughts on the matter, in case you missed them:
A Promising and Troubling Possibility
The human brain is delicate. It’s about three pounds and gray on the outside, with a consistency of firm pudding or Jell-O. That jelly holds a mesh of billions of neurons, which transmit information in fractions of a second. Each of us needs this complex structure because it is responsible for everything we do. We use it to unders…
Swarm Order
Leif Smith, who publishes Freeorder, said he had coined the term Freeorder to describe “the harmonious balance between planned order and spontaneous evolution in free societies,” which artist-entrepreneurs create. Smith wondered what F. A. Hayek would have thought about the term, so asked an AI trained in Hayek’s writings. Turns out AI-Hayek liked Smith…
Hierarchy's Limits: It's the Complexity, Stupid
Despite eighteenth-century revolutions in France and America, hierarchy is still the dominant form of social organization throughout most of the world. That is to say, much of the world's people are still stratified like medieval Europe or feudal Japan as compared with modern Switzerland.
I hadn't heard the economy expressed that way before. I'm a Mises folllower but I'll pay more attention to Hayek. I've always used the anology of, 'why are there just the right amount of bagels delivered in NY City each morning without a Bagel Commissioner'? But I think Hayek's is better. Thanks for expanding my gray cells.
Cosmos over Taxis! This is such a great talk and concept. I love what Audrey Tang is designing in Taiwan around this concept of Ai in democratic organizing. https://natehagens.substack.com/p/digital-democracy-moving-beyond-big