 Hi everybody. My name is Artyom Kosmarski and I have a background in social science, more particularly in sociology of science and anthropology of science, even basically the field is called STS Science Technology Studies. And so the goal of the talk is to give you some input from, let's say, the other side. So we have blockchain for science conference and basically here we are on the part on the side of the blockchain. Yeah, but so I would try to give you some input on this wild ideas from the other side, from science or to be more precise from academia. So this is a little bit provocative. So let's see. Basic introduction to position myself. So like blockchain for science is a little bit established field. So from the first pallet talks, micro-systems to nowadays, so there's quite a few things have been done. So we have some ecosystems, big projects like Artifacts, Orbium. We have some more specific projects aimed at improving a certain field in science, how science works, like peer re-funding, publishing. We have some labs in Delft, Amsterdam, Vienna, MIT. So some research has been done, some papers have been published. Yes, and also there have been some pallet projects and discussions in universities across the world. So we cannot say right now that it's brand new field, nothing has been done. So I mean there's already something to discuss, some real-world cases, some implementation ideas that can already be discussed. So that's my point, all right. What I mean by blockchain for science generally, I want to make this clear here. It's not, first of all, it's not just about technical solutions, like we have just put a blockchain layer underneath existing peer review in Pablon's, whatever, right? So in my opinion, generally I agree to Schoenke's ideas that he brought up in this big living document. So blockchain for science is like a little bit about new ways how science should be organized. So here I summarize some key models, key ideas, key approaches that are most innovative in a sense. And I think most of you are more or less familiar with this stuff, so I won't take time to explain what's it always, what's creation market. Okay, this is more or less understandable, yeah? And particularly I want to emphasize this quotation from Martin Etzold, who unfortunately isn't here today, about science DAO. So DAO is a very representative, very like a classic example of new ideology of blockchain for science. So where people can invest, where scientists can collaborate across existing barriers, across existing institutions, and so to science is transformed from a rather rigid, hierarchical, conservative set of institutions into a distributed network, right? Where money flows in, where ideas flow in and out, etc. So that's an important point. That's not exactly about blockchain, but one of the ideas that was, and how new ways of funding should, how funding could be organized in a different way. So it's not strictly, it was written, this paper was written before blockchain, but in many ways it's very reminiscent of the ideas of blockchain. So instead of this top-down, top-down, structured thing, we have the like peer-to-peer funding idea, that all the scientists invest in each other, or fund each other, or support each other on this more or less horizontal layer, okay? So again, I'm summing up. So this new vision of science at blockchain initiatives are more explicitly or implicitly proposing is about transparency, the collective, collaborative decisions about the rules of the game, about what science is, what projects should be done, what should be funded, what the forms of publications are the most important, whatever, whatever the rules are, right? So decentralization and funding from peers, and tokens as a blood of the system, like tokens and material incentives. So there's a very important text by Trent McConachy from Ocean, which basically sums up, as the blockchains are incentive machines, if you just tune the incentives in the right way, so you have the people, the scientists working across the goals that the system has set with their incentives, okay? So basically that's what we are starting point. The purpose of the two projects that I've been doing last, me and my colleagues in Russia have been doing last year and a half, is to see how these projects, these ideas are received, are treated by the scientific community, by many representatives of the scientific community, okay? That's clear? Yes, so to see how it works. So basically we have two sets of data from two projects, one is more precisely about blockchain, about the experience of blockchain in some universities, among some startup founders, so many people in this conference, some people in this conference have talked with my colleagues about their experience. So this one is basically about what blockchain is and how it should work and what experience implementing it has been there already, right? And the other is a more experimental project. It was more about giving people different ideas like what a DAO is, what a token economy is and what a TCR is and asking them, again in interviews and group discussions, how would this work in your field? What do you think of this? How would this, what a DAO or a decentralized publishing open apps platform work in your university or institute, whatever, you see? Okay, so the results are very nice. Well, let's say the first line of defense goes like this. It's basically about three points. So you see, one is our existing journals, well, decentralization, why would I need decentralization? Transparency, well, okay, but why would I need transparency? So this doesn't ring a bell. So we have our journals that are good enough where our colleagues are, why would we need a new journal? Okay, it may have a more advanced workflow, more open, more decentralized, but so what? Okay, another thing is, well, it's more or less understandable and even banal UXUI, so we don't have the blockchain for science applications on the market are not as good to just download, install and work with them in a simple manner, you see? So, okay. The third important objection is like, okay, that's good, but well, we will have to fire a lot of people or structure too many things. So, well, maybe not today, maybe not today, maybe not even tomorrow. All right. Okay, is this clear? But this is more or less obvious. I mean, I wouldn't make this talk around this because, I mean, it's more or less obvious. And these objections are general, not only about blockchain, they are all about all kinds of technical innovations. I mean, printers, Xerox machines, I don't know, e-mail, well, why we need e-mail, we have e-mail. Okay. This is an important one, but it can be resolved. I mean, there are no potential big obstacles to resolving UXUI, I mean, in a year and a half, or a year from the time. So, but then there are another more important issues at stake and I want to draw attention to that. Okay. One is the conflict of values, the whole idea of values. So value, I use this in a psychological, a sociological sense, as a set of attitudes that are important to a certain group, a certain community. And so the thing is that the scientists are very hostile to entrepreneurial material stuff. That's an important thing. I mean, in Intellex, I put some quotes from interviews and group discussions, which are very eloquent and express these ideas. So you propose a game, yes, science is about doing research, guys, and not just selling your research, you see? So I think it's more or less understandable. This science in the world now suffers from what is called neoliberalism, but it's a very catch word, like from a certain marketization, from introduction of KPIs, metrics, all that quantitative stuff. And the scientists are already very unhappy with this metrification, quantization of their world. So they constantly compare, most of them can compare their current situation to what was 50 years ago when there were like, here's your lab, here's your funding, work, that's it. Like, 90th century, 20th century. And they treat crypto economy, token economy, material incentives, all these ideas of investing into each other, of peer-to-peer funding as another intrusion of something completely alien to their way of life, you see? Okay, so that's an important point. Another one. They emphasize, people we've talked to, emphasize that these new ideas of blockchain for science, of doubts, of crypto economy are something akin to a social network logic. So Facebook-style economy, Facebook-style interactions. So when you measure attention of other scholars in some tokens or in some reputation metrics, whatever, this becomes, the science transforms into a hunt for attention, into a hunt for reputation. So something which is already there in this age index and the citation counts, but even on a more serious scale, like, you see? So I just engage other people to vote for me, to upvote, to put likes on my project and that's it. So they say, no, science is not about it. It further obscures the science as a search for some real truth, all right? Real truth. Okay, another thing is that many of these mechanisms like TCR, curation markets and doubts especially, are built across a certain political ideas and political mechanisms like open discussions, like all that open science, when the rules are discussed, like I said before, like, right? That the rules of the game are discussed in the open and transparent way and set up collectively, not by some guys somewhere sitting in grand committees, whatever, right? So this anti-hierarchical approach of blockchain, right? But the scientists emphasize that when you make science more open, more democratic in a sense, it further increases their conformity. So majority wins, right? Which was, I mean, many starting from this 51% stuff, so many of these models are based on majority voting and many doubts are based, most of them are on majority voting. And so that means that in any open discussions, in any open democratic institutions, online, democracy, e-governance, et cetera, we have, like, the pressure to allure a fashionable, hype kind of, hype projects would be so strong that other ideas, other projects would just be dumped. You see this clear? All right. Another important point in doubts and peer-to-peer funding and curation markets, they would not make science more egalitarian, more democratic. They would not remove the third parties in a sense because existing mafias or cliques or groups or, I don't know, biased communities would simply reproduce themselves in this way or another. So, you see? Okay. Another important point. We talk, blockchain is very much about decentralization and transparency, as I said before. And many of these projects are also about collaborative science, like the people across the globe participating in common projects across the boundaries, et cetera, right? And this idea is treated in a negative way because I didn't anticipate this because the people would say that any open discussion of the rules of the game, whatever the rules, I mean, metrics, publications, good projects, bad projects, I mean, so if we have a market for ideas, it's one bad thing because it's market money, dirty things, et cetera. If you have ideas like an open forum or discussions, doubts, collective governance, et cetera, it's another bad thing because a war would break up because academia consists of many competing groups, tribes in research agendas and they somehow learn to coexist in the real world but not by ignoring each other, in a sense. Like, well, analytical and continental philosophy, for example, well, like some... Well, politically, in humanities, we have more politically-judged gender studies and more conservative history or classical literature and so if they start to discuss their agendas in the open, they would clash. So in order to survive, they just draw grants from different institutions, participate in different conferences, so kind of a polite coexistence. But if you have any kind of open discussion about how science should be organized, how certain projects should be run, it means war, it means conflict and people don't want to engage in conflicts when there's opportunity to not to engage in conflicts, all right? You see? So one of the underlying ideas of this whole initiative is science should be run by scientists, not by the third party. So this intermediation of science, like blockchain removes intermediaries, some institutions in between, so in science it should mean that science is run by scientists and scientists don't want the science to be run by scientists. They rather prefer some impartial third party often, you see? Let the third party decide and we have no... It's not our business, all right? So, oops, and the final point here. Let me get to this. Sometimes the vision of the world in blockchain, in DAO, et cetera, it's about a flat structure, a homogeneous structure of individual entities, like nodes, right? Just a second. Like this, to the right, you see? So individuals making connections with each other, through tokens, whatever. Whereas the scientists don't see this network of themselves as a homogeneous and flat thing. They see it as a set of collective entities. So something perhaps close to whales, like hidden possessors of a big amount of hordes of tokens. So they... Oops. Anyway, so any kind of open science or transparent rules of the game or market kind of a DAO, whatever, it would just mean that existing group school gangs... Yeah, yeah, sure. Yes, so that's it? No, as always, seriously, we have to stick with this. Sure, sure, sure. Basically, that's it. No, if you want to ask the audience, like with Q&A, okay? All right. So basically, that's my point. Just one thing. I would not say that these objections and these concerns are counter-specific. I think this would... I mean, if you ask scientists in Germany or the US, you would have something not entirely similar, but more of the same. At the point of my presentation, we have to consider and think about these objections to blockchain ideas in science. So thank you. Any questions?