Decentralized Autonomous Organization

Definition

1. From the Wikipedia:

"A Decentralized Autonomous Organization (often abbreviated "DAO"; sometimes referred to as a Fully Automated Business Entity or Distributed Autonomous Corporation/Distributed Autonomous Company, often abbreviated "FAB" or "DAC") is a decentralized network of narrow-AI autonomous agents which perform an output-maximizing production function and which divides its labor into computationally intractable tasks (which it incentivizes humans to do) and tasks which it performs itself. It can be thought of as a corporation run without any human involvement under the control of an incorruptible set of business rules. These rules are typically implemented as publicly auditable open-source software distributed across the computers of their stakeholders. A human becomes a stakeholder by buying stock in the company or being paid in that stock to provide services for the company. This stock may entitle its owner to a share of the profits of the DAO, participation in its growth, and/or a say in how it is run." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralized_Autonomous_Organization)

2. Dennis McKinnon, Casey Kuhlman, Preston Byrne:

"A ÐAO is an algorithmically-governed programme that, in using trustless decentralised computing, can serve as a way to formalise multilateral relationships or transactions outside of traditional legal architecture (see the essay Formalising and Securing Relationships on Public Networks by Nick Szabo to learn more on the subject).

In legal terms, a ÐAO is therefore a medium for two or more people to conclude agreements or otherwise associate with others in a predictable way. The fact that a ÐAO built on a blockchain operates itself in accordance with pre-defined rules and cryptographically secure architecture means that its users can reliably expect instructions which they broadcast to be consistently and securely executed.

When viewed through such a lens, Bitcoin itself is a ÐAO, albeit a very early one capable of executing only the simplest one-way transactions. Until recently, ÐAOs capable of a higher degree of sophistication existed only in theory." (http://hplusmagazine.com/2014/06/17/eris-the-dawn-of-distributed-autonomous-organizations-and-the-future-of-governance/)

Discussion

by VITALIK BUTERIN:

"In the developed world, the hope is that there will be a massive reduction in the cost of setting up a new business, organization or partnership, and a tool for creating organizations that are much more difficult to corrupt. Much of the time, organizations are bound by rules which are really little more than gentlemen’s agreements in practice, and once some of the organization’s members gain a certain measure of power they gain the ability to twist every interpretation in their favor.

Up until now, the only partial solution was codifying certain rules into contracts and laws – a solution which has its strengths, but which also has its weaknesses, as laws are numerous and very complicated to navigate without the help of a (often very expensive) professional. With DAOs, there is now also another alternative: making an organization whose organizational bylaws are 100% crystal clear, embedded in mathematical code. Of course, there are many things with definitions that are simply too fuzzy to be mathematically defined; in those cases, we will still need some arbitrators, but their role will be reduced to a limited commodity-like function circumscribed by the contract, rather than having potentially full control over everything.

In the developing world, however, things will be much more drastic. The developed world has access to a legal system that is at times semi-corrupt, but whose main problems are otherwise simply that it’s too biased toward lawyers and too outdated, bureaucratic and inefficient. The developing world, on the other hand, is plagues by legal systems that are fully corrupt at best, and actively conspiring to pillage their subjects at worst. There, nearly all businesses are gentleman’s agreements, and opportunities for people to betray each other exist at every step. The mathematically encoded organizational bylaws that DAOs can have are not just an alternative; they may potentially be the first legal system that people have that is actually there to help them. Arbitrators can build up their reputations online, as can organizations themselves. Ultimately, perhaps on-blockchain voting, like that being pioneered by BitCongress, may even form a basis for new experimental governments. If Africa can leapfrog straight from word of mouth communications to mobile phones, why not go from tribal legal systems with the interference of local governments straight to DAOs?

Many will of course be concerned that having uncontrollable entities moving money around is dangerous, as there are considerable possibilities for criminal activity with these kinds of powers. To that, however, one can make two simple rebuttals. First, although these decentralized autonomous organizations will be impossible to shut down, they will certainly be very easy to monitor and track every step of the way. It will be possible to detect when one of these entities makes a transaction, it will be easy to see what its balance and relationships are, and it will be possible to glean a lot of information about its organizational structure if voting is done on the blockchain. Much like Bitcoin, DAOs are likely far too transparent to be practical for much of the underworld; as FINCEN director Jennifer Shasky Calvery has recently said, “cash is probably still the best medium for laundering money”. Second, ultimately DAOs cannot do anything normal organizations cannot do; all they are is a set of voting rules for a group of humans or other human-controlled agents to manage ownership of digital assets. Even if a DAO cannot be shut down, its members certainly can be just as if they were running a plain old normal organization offline." (http://bitcoinmagazine.com/10055/cryptographic-code-obfuscation-decentralized-autonomous-organizations-huge-leap-forward/)

DAO's and increased social inequality

David Morris:

"Who will own the DACs, who will profit from them – and whether ownership or profits are even the right terms – are still open questions. Larimer, from his tone to his pitch, seems relentlessly fixated on the idea that the funders of DACs will reap profits. The investment-like structure of DACs, funded by cryptocurrency, means that those who establish them, back them early and host them will benefit when their associated cryptocurrencies rise in value. Such enviable roles are reserved largely for the technically savvy, resource-rich, and well-educated: in other words, the already privileged.

On the other hand, the open nature of DACs might allow those who were excluded from traditional entrepreneurial channels to gather capital support for their ideas. Imagine startups in developing countries, frictionlessly funded by international backers in roles somewhere between investors and philanthropists. Whatever ominous developments the new technology portends for the managerial classes, it is still possible to imagine DACs contributing to the larger cause of global justice. After all, if they don’t care about borders, who is to say they won’t work to flatten the huge inequalities between nations?" (http://www.zoeticnetworks.com/2015/02/02/david-morris-will-the-autonomous-economy-set-us-all-free-or-just-make-the-rich-richer/)

More Information

• video intro https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGSePa9GwxA

• Eris

• Project Douglas