The principal-agent problem and the agency-less (children and the disabled). The use of technology by people with cognitive or physical disabilities, the disadvantaged, the disempowered. Given sufficient good user-interface and software design, apps can help give you agency and gain power.
When you give the disabled power and agency, everyone else can also use that technology. Techno-utopianism. The pyramid scheme systems we have today not only don't give agency, but actively conspire to remove it from larger and larger segments of society until everyone is without agency.
Transcript
[AUDIENCE] Speaking of a country where banking is like organized crime, I worked in Moscow for many years... and studied the early banks that are essentially pyramid schemes. My question to you is... you are bring up the principal–agent problem.
'Who will speak for me?' Are you assuming the same amount of agency for all actors who are being captured on the internet? [In this room], we are all very technically savvy and have a high degree of agency to decide at any moment... what goes into the ledger or what doesn't. But what about children or people who, for some reason, have had their agency taken away from them...
for a period of time or perhaps forever? In an immutable system, what does that mean for the assumption that we have about principles and agents? [ANDREAS] That is a really great question. I am hoping to [deliver] a talk soon on...
the uses of these technologies for people with cognitive or physical disabilities, and those who are disadvantaged or disempowered in some way. I think that, given sufficient user interface and software design in a decentralized system, agency is an app, as in it is something you can download that helps you gain power. Even if you don't understand how it works. What you hope for is...
How many people in this audience are related to someone with some form of disability? Hearing, sight, or cognitive disability? When you write software that gives them power and agency, everybody else who needs it can use it. I'm rather optimistic, especially since I'm speaking to a San Francisco audience.
You can assume a certain level of techno-utopianism. I'll accept that. [Laughter] The systems we have today not only do not offer agency, they actively conspire to remove agency; not just from the people who are disadvantaged, but increasingly from larger and larger segments of society. Until everyone is without agency.