Utopian Idea Management #
As touched on in Utopia, in my opinion the concept that people can “own” any form of information and have sole right to profit off of it is deeply problematic to me.
Ideas and information more generally is derived from existing info, no matter how “original” it may look. This means that:
- Any “right” to own ideas/info is just as valid as the “right” a LLM has over the work it produces (none at all).
- Restricting the free usage/remixing of information will stymie further progress, as new creators will have less information to work with when synthesizing old ideas into new ones.
If we do decide to remove all forms of idea ownership (copywrite, trade secrets, etc.), this has several large downsides in our current society:
- Some jobs will be much less profitable (e.g. writing, commercial research).
- There will be less incentive to innovate.
Therefore, in order to do this effectively, we need some new societal structures/systems.
New Systems #
UBI #
Some form of basic income is required for this to work out. This will remove the human (salary) costs from the equation of generating new ideas. For many creative workers (e.g. digital artists, writers, etc.), this should be enough to enable them to continue creating.
Grantmaking #
For some info generation (drug discovery, clinical trials, movies), salary of workers is only part of the cost of the process. The creation itself also consumes resources. To make this kind of creation possible, I propose a diverse grantmaking ecosystem funded out of the same pool as UBI. This would include grants determined by:
- Popular vote
- Expert commitee
- Random lottery
It’s crucial to have a variety of ways to give grants to make sure all ideas have some chance at being explored, even if they are niche or unpopular.
Unfree Information #
Some information should still be restricted. This includes:
- Cryptographic secrets
- Branding. An individual with a canonical fantasy world for instance should have a way to prove/show that new books they write were written by them in a specific canonical world, even if the books themselves are freely copyable.
Categories: Society
Backlinks: Utopia,