Towards an ethics for web3
🔍 #tech #web3 #psych #ethics
Last Tended: 21.11.21
This essay is 7 of 7 essays for The Tech Progressive Writing Challenge. Join the build_ Discord to join the conversation.
The Internet isn't really a technology. It's a belief system — Lupfer, 2011
Web3 is already here. But with the landscape shifting it’s difficult to gauge what fair rules of engagement should be. Web2 has shown us the skeuomorphic challenges in moving from a physical world to digital (social networks, online learning and the creator economy but also the release of malicious software and hacking). We’re poised at a unique moment in time where we can establish a foundation of values in a decentralised world. What would it mean to write a set of digital standards?
Why should we care?
Security:
The world is becoming more integrated. 60% of the world are active Internet users and no doubt more will gradually join in future. The boundaries between physical and digital are becoming blurred as more objects start to come online via Web3. We are now not only connecting with each other but also with the technology around us. This significantly increases the number of avenues through which we can interact but also through which we can be exposed to error. Sometimes it could be a machine technicality but other times it can be a deliberately malicious agent.
Decentralisation
The decentralisation of Web3 means there is more room for innovation but also competing motivations. Creating a system of values will bring fundamental principles rather than the unrestrained chaos of the Internet. DAOs may simply be amorphous organisations constrained online at the moment but the next step may be digital cities or nation states. This requires careful consideration how to interact with both digital and real world governance. The conditions need to change and accommodate for the limitlessness of the Internet.
Things to consider
However, the question of how to write a (seemingly) finite protocol that encompasses the infinite web is a delicate one. People may interpret that regulation disrupts the ethos of the Internet which is freedom from rules. What’ll be interesting is how the reconciliation between decentralisation and centralisation will work. There’s a clear need for both, but as to the percentage and which players are which must be tweaked over time.
It’s all well and good to hypothesise about how the Internet should go but the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Although we may start with ideals emergent problems in systems always exist and we risk rebounding back into traditional issues. Web2 has demonstrated that goals in the physical space may not always map easily to how they are executed in the digital. Arguably it may be easier moving from Web2 to Web3 because we are moving from a digital to digital realm, but it’s difficult to say. Web3 will have its own skeuomorphic challenges native to its ecosystem. Additionally, there’s no clear break inbetween Web2 and Web3 so it may even seem arbitrary and redundant to propose ethics for Web3.
We need a framework that’s flexible enough to accommodate freedom but also structured enough so that it enables adequate protection where necessary and for those necessary. It can easily devolve into an unsustainable runaway situation. At the moment it’s still too early to think about enforceability of rules as we are still operating within a broader context of web2 and real world constraints. But these values may grow organically as a side effect of web3 culture.