My Introduction and Governance Interests
Hello everyone. This is my very first post on the DFinity forum. I’ve done my best to find the appropriate place for this post, so please redirect me if I didn’t hit the right category and thread.
I am quite interested in contributing and collaborating to improve NNS/SNS governance, so I would like to be a part of this technical working group. I am not a software developer, but I have other technical skill sets. I am currently scoping out an experimental project for my PhD starting next year. One focus of the project would be improving the state of the art with respect to the nascent field of computational social choice. This research could help fill a huge gap in current NNS governance, where prioritizing alternatives, optimizing resource allocations, and incorporating confidence/uncertainty levels are all currently not possible. This is obviously due to the extremely limited information that approval voting can provide (as used in all DAOs), where only one proposal at a time can be considered in isolation, and only a binary “yes” or “no” response is permitted.
Computational Social Choice as a Path to Address the “Impossible” Prioritization Problem
At first pass, this sounds like an easy problem to fix. Why can’t we just use a different voting method that works consistently well when prioritization is required? Unfortunately, it is not so easy, as nearly 75 years of modern social choice research has shown, along with lively academic debates before then going back to the time of the French Revolution and beyond. Surprisingly, no reliably sound prioritization method currently exists. In fact, a Nobel Prize was awarded to Kenneth Arrow in 1972 for his axiomatic proof in 1950 that a dictatorship is essentially the only social welfare function that meets some minimal set of aggregation criteria when >2 alternatives are involved. Normally, the Nobel Prize is awarded for achieving what was previously impossible. However, in Arrow’s unique case, it was basically awarded for proving what is shockingly unachievable, per his “Impossibility Theorem”.
Although a perfect preference aggregation method may never exist, there are still many ways to improve and optimize how social preferences are aggregated. This is where computational social choice (aka “COMSOC”) comes into play, which combines the independent fields of computer science and social choice. In effect, COMSOC algorithms can objectively aggregate individual priorities into the most consistently rational (non-cyclic) social prioritization that meets as many key aggregation criteria as possible. These criteria, along with the best computational social choice algorithms for ICP governance, could ultimately be approved and implemented by the NNS, assuming pilot prioritization projects prove to be successful.
How We Could Collaborate on NNS Governance and Why it is Urgent
I can obviously build these aggregation processes and models on existing cloud infrastructure – and that effort is already well underway – just like I could easily capture individual evaluations using existing survey applications. However, my preferred approach would be to build all of this out more permanently on the Internet Computer (i.e., both the front end capture of individual evaluations and the back end aggregation of those evaluations into a single social preference). The ICP blockchain is where I see this computational social choice functionality being most useful in the longer term given the pressing need for all DAOs to have full prioritization (and resource allocation) capability on the blockchain. Approval voting is simply unfit for this purpose and grossly inadequate.
It is a critical job responsibility of everyone in traditional management today that they be fully capable of prioritizing alternatives with consistent rationality. Yet DAOs have no such critical capability, even though their most important role is to make these managers obsolete. To put this in perspective, just imagine how unacceptably handicapped CEOs would be if they were forced to consider every alternative (or investment allocation) in complete “yes/no” isolation, without any relative prioritization, comparative evaluations, or confidence/uncertainty levels factored into their decision process. That is exactly the type of stripped-down, serial decision making that all DAOs – including the NNS – are currently stuck with. Such a blunt decision-making process should be considered just as unacceptable for DAOs to use as it would be for any CEO running a large organization.
Anyway, I will try to cut short my rambling exhortations on this point for now. If anyone is interested in helping to prototype a more robust evaluation and preference aggregation process on the ICP blockchain, then please let me know. I can handle the design and algorithm parts, but I have no expertise to migrate or build this functionality on the ICP blockchain. In fact, I have no idea if it is even possible on the blockchain yet. Alternatively, if someone is just interested in academic brainstorming or experimental ideation around this DAO governance topic, I would greatly appreciate any feedback or input from others.
Finally, it is remotely possible that I could get some funding for this development effort. However, I can’t commit to anything unless the blockchain development is scoped out a bit, which I don’t have the expertise to do.
This Make-or-Break Urgency Applies to the Future Viability of All DAOs
From both my perspective and DFinity’s, governance is truly the “crown jewel” that will ultimately make or break the entire ICP project. It is also what will determine the future viability of all DAOs – running as an SNS or otherwise – since they won’t be able to evolve into larger organizations without socially scalable prioritization processes. Getting governance right is truly that important. Therefore, my hope is that others might grasp this monumental urgency too and will want to collaborate on a blockchain-based solution.