Democracy is an information system that leverages collective intelligence to solve political problems and collect feedback on how well those solutions are working. While historically, democracy has worked well, it has become increasingly vulnerable to hacking and misaligned incentives. Misinformation and propaganda have amplified the ancient problem of misaligning incentives to a new level, which ultimately leads to the incentive structure that makes misinformation a viable strategy.
Our current system of governance tends to leverage conflict to make decisions, which can sometimes be inefficient and expensive. The costs of conflict have increased, and the costs of coordination have decreased. We need to create new systems that encourage cooperation over conflict and align individual and group incentives at all scales.
The risks posed by new and dangerous technologies like AI and synthetic biology are even more significant. Therefore, our systems of governance need to be designed to be resistant to hacking and resilient to catastrophic risks. They should leverage cooperation more and conflict less and not be zero-sum. In this regard, we need to drop the either/or thinking and start focusing on blue-sky thinking to create an entirely new system of governance that works with new technology better.
In conclusion, our human systems of governance need to be compatible with the technologies they are supposed to govern. If they are not, eventually the technological systems will replace the governance systems. We need to create new systems of governance that align incentives and are resilient against hacking at every scale. It is time to develop new systems that leverage cooperation more than conflict and work well with new technologies like AI.
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