 Thank you. So today I'm going to talk about what I consider to be one of the most fascinating aspects of blockchain technologies, which is the ability to operate on their own and to interact with their own environment like an independent entity with a life on its own. And this is what I call a blockchain-based life form. And so before we begin let's look at what are the fundamental characteristics of blockchain-based system that actually distinguish themselves from traditional internet-based platforms. So first of all, a blockchain is a decentralized database that operates on top of a peer-to-peer network. And just like the internet, those networks are global and transnational and do not generally account for national boundaries. And because a blockchain is replicated on the computer of every network node, then it is highly resilient. And because all nodes actually follow the exact same protocols, then it is virtually impossible to unilaterally modify or tamper with the data recorded on this decentralized database. And then many blockchains are also inherently transparent in the sense that everyone that is in the network can see what everyone else is doing, with the exception, of course, of privacy-enhancing blockchains like Zcash. But because every transaction is actually cryptographically signed with the private key of the party executing it, then no one can also later deny actually having effected and executed this transaction. And then most public blockchains are also pseudonymous in the sense that people do not need to identify themselves as individuals in order to join the network and they just need to create an account in order to obtain a public address that will identify them in an pseudonymous manner. And then finally, and most importantly, modern blockchains make it possible not only to store transaction information, but also to store and execute software code that will run with a guarantee of execution in the sense that no one can actually modify, influence or even stop the execution of that software. And so when we're thinking about regulation, then how does this actually differ from traditional software code? So on the Internet, we have this notion of Lex informatica, which essentially just means that code is increasingly being used as a mean to regulate behaviors. And so code is low because code assumes the same functionality as the law. Even though, of course, this code actually remains under the control of specific online operators, which are themselves subject to the rule of the law. And on the blockchain, code is also being used as a mean to regulate behavior. The difference is that this time, because of the specificity and the fundamental characteristics of a blockchain, then blockchain-based code can actually be designed to largely ignore the traditional rule of law. And so the only law that actually matters on those systems is the code. And so this has two important implications. The first one is that it reduced the need for intermediaries and trusted authorities because it actually shift the notion of trust away from those centralized operators and towards the underlying technology. And so as long as we can actually trust the technology, then we no longer need to trust, in theory, anyone else. And the other one is that this actually creates new opportunities for increasing the automation and the autonomy of those blockchain-based systems. Because once they have been deployed on the blockchain, then those systems no longer need or heed their creators. And they can actually be designed to operate autonomously and independently of the original will of the part is deploying it. And so this obviously can create some potential conflicts between the rule of code and the rule of law. And so what is actually really interesting to explore is what is the interplay between those two types of regulation, regulation by law and regulation by code. And whether one can actually overtake the other. So can a blockchain-based system be actually forced to comply with the law? Or can it instead be used as a means to bypass existing regulatory frameworks to the extent that they operate within their own separate technical framework? And so if we back up a little and we look at the narrative from the early Internet days, we might remember the claims of some of the Internet pioneers like John Perry Barlow or Timo Timei who saw the cyberspace as an independent space that simply could not be regulated because governments simply did not have the right nor the capacity to exert their sovereignty over it. But of course, this vision did not actually materialize in the same way as many of us would have hoped. And as soon as the opportunities of the Internet actually began to be understood by new and established market players, then the market dynamics actually kicked in and the architecture of the Internet slowly started to change, becoming this increasingly concentrated system which is today controlled by a few incumbents. And so in just a few years, the Internet, which has initially perceived as this tool to promote individual freedoms and autonomy, has eventually become a powerful tool of surveillance and control. And so in fact, after the initial fear of crypto-anarchy faded away, it soon become quite clear that it's not too hard to regulate the Internet because even to direct regulation by law can be difficult because code is increasingly replacing the law as a means of regulation, then governments can actually use the law in order to regulate the code by actually exerting pressure on those online operators which are indeed operating that code. But can the same solution be applied to a blockchain-based system? And so the problem here is that with a blockchain, we actually have lost one of the most effective means of regulation, which are the intermediary operator. And if there is no intermediary operator, then it becomes much harder to leverage the traditional means of regulation that were available on the Internet because it actually is no longer so easy to identify what is the actual object of regulation. And so if we look at the early narrative and promises of the early blockchain advocates, then we might actually notice that those are actually quite similar to the narrative of the early Internet pioneers. And so the question then is whether blockchain technologies could actually succeed where the Internet has failed. Can it become this new tool of disintermediation and individual emancipation that the Internet pioneers were advocating for? And can it actually help materialize these early visions of the cypher punks leading to this whole new wave of crypto-anarchy? And so when talking about the regulation of the cyberspace, people introduce the notion of unregulability in order to highlight the difficulties inherent in the regulation of such a global and transnational network like the Internet. And in the blockchain space, people prefer to do the same thing. They prefer to refer to those platforms as being illegal in the sense that they operate outside of the purview of the law. And so the idea is that a blockchain based system creates its own separate technical framework that cannot be touched or affected by the law. And we can already see quite a few applications of blockchain technologies that are actually in direct conflict with existing regulatory frameworks. And we can also see that there is a lot of uncertainty in the blockchain. And we can also see that there is a lot of anonymity of Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies in order to facilitate money laundering or in order to set up some decentralized marketplaces for the trading of illicit goods or services. And then more recently, we also found out that the tamper-resistant feature of a blockchain can also be used to prevent the existence of a blockchain, which links to child pornographies, but also to prevent the exercise of specific rights that actually require the deletion of contents such as, of course, the right we've forgotten. But this discrepancy between the rule of law and the rule of code is perhaps the most apparent in the context of property. So traditional property rights are defined by the law and, if I acquire a particular piece of property in a way that turns out to be illegitimate, then regardless of what the law says, then a court order or a judge or I can essentially be declared not to be the legitimate owner of this property and this property can be taken away from me. Whereas when we enter into these blockchain-based systems, then we encounter those new types of cryptographic assets or blockchain-based property that do not actually follow the same rules. And so for instance, if I legitimately acquire a Bitcoin, then no one has actually unilaterally the power to seize it from me unless the code actually provides for that. And then the same issues actually applies in the context of contracts. So traditional legal contracts are created according to specific rules which are defined by contract law and which are designed to actually create a binding agreement between two parties. But those agreements can only be enforced through the intervention of a third-party authority which needs to read and understand and interpret the meaning of those contracts in order to identify what the real intention of the parties were. And when we move into those blockchain-based systems, then we can now create those new types of contractual arrangement through those blockchain-based smart contract which are defined only and exclusively by the code which is deployed on the blockchain. And so those agreements actually no longer require third-party intervention because the contractual provision will be automatically enforced and executed by the underlying technology. Of course, which, however, cannot actually identify what the real intention of the parties were but will just merely apply the wordings of the code. And so overall what this all means is that it is now possible to deploy software entities on a blockchain in such a way that they can de facto act as autonomous agents because those agents can own property to the extent that this property can be digitally represented on a blockchain and they can also engage into a series of contractual relationship through the smart contracts. And most importantly, even though most of those agents are actually quite simple in the sense that they do not feature any type of decisional autonomy or AI, they do nonetheless benefit from a different type of autonomy which is mostly operational because they can be designed to operate autonomously and independently of any third-party authority. And so this leads us to what I consider to be the most exciting aspect of blockchain technologies, which is the ability to create those new types of algorithmical entities that can be regarded to some extent as a blockchain-based life form because they are autonomous, self-sufficient in the sense that they can collect the resources that they need in order to sustain themselves, and of course, like any other type of life form, they are potentially capable of reproducing themselves. And so this might sound a little bit confusing at first, but in order to illustrate this concept, I have brought here a small prototype of a blockchain-based life form which you can interact with. So let me just turn it on. So this is a plantoid, which is essentially the Android version of a plant. And this is my personal attempt at trying to illustrate in the physical world what are the basic functionalities but also what are the legal challenge raised by decentralized, autonomous organizations. And so how does this work exactly? So plants, traditional plants, most of them are incapable to reproduce themselves on their own, and they require the help of thought parties to help them reproduce through the process of pollination. And in the same way, plantoids are also incapable of reproducing themselves on their own, and they require the help of thought parties, in this case, humans, to actually help them in the reproduction process by donating capital to them in the form of occurrences. And so one important thing to understand about a plantoid is that it is made of two separate components. One is the body, which is essentially this mechanical sculpture that subsists in the physical world. And the other one is the spirit or the soul of the plantoid that subsists as a smart contract on the Ethereum blockchain. And those two components interact with each other in order to bring the plantoid to life, and also in order to ensure its capacity of reproducing. And so let's look at what are the different phases of reproduction of a plantoid. So the first one is the capitalization phase, which is when the plantoid will try and make itself pretty in order to lure people into donating some cryptocurrencies to it. And so every plantoid has its own Ethereum account that people can send funds to, and whenever it has collected some funds, then the plantoid will show some form of appreciation to tank the funder by doing some dances or by playing music or by doing some small light show. So I'm going to do a small demonstration. I'm going to feed this little plantoid with some it. And hopefully it's going to be thankful for that. And so what is happening is that the plantoid is constantly monitoring its balance on the Ethereum blockchain, and whenever it has noticed that it has actually collected a sufficient amount of funds in order to reproduce itself, it will trigger the smart contract on the Ethereum blockchain, which will actually activate the second phase of reproduction, which is the mating phase. And this is when the plantoid will actually actively start looking for a mate in order to help it reproduce. And this is done again via the smart contract on the Ethereum blockchain that will open a call for bits, inviting artists, designers or anyone to submit propositions as to how they envision to produce the next plantoid. And so the people that then have submitted a proposition, and then the people that have funded the plantoid can then vote on those different propositions that they like the most and then eventually the smart contract will then process all this information, and eventually will identify which one is the winner. And this is what will activate the third and final phase of reproduction, which is the hiring phase. And this is when the plantoid will execute a smart contract transaction in order to transfer the funds that it has collected so far to the selected winner, who will then be hired by the plantoid in order to create a new copy of itself. And then, of course, plantoids are not inherently selfish, but they also care about their own creators. And so every time a plantoid has accumulated a sufficient amount of funds to reproduce itself, it will send a small portion of those funds back to its parent, to the plantoid that generated it, and another small portion of those funds will be sent to the artist, to the person that actually created it. And so this kind of pyramid scheme actually comes with two important benefits. So the first one is that I created the Genesis plantoid and so I currently stand at the top of this pyramid. But the second one, which is more important, is that this actually creates a positive incentivization structure for every artist to try and create the most beautiful or the most interesting plantoid because the most popular this plantoid will be then the more funds it will be able to collect and reproduce, and therefore the higher the royalties that the artist will be able to collect. And then another interesting aspect of this is that this, to some extent, disrupt the traditional conception of copyright law which is based on the notion of scarcity and exclusivity. Whereas here, every artist actually has the strongest incentive to maximize the dissemination of its work because that will enable the plantoid to collect more funds but also to encourage the remix and the creation of derivative works because this is actually what will maximize the return on investment. But then more importantly what it does is that it actually is shifting the focus away from the artist and towards the art piece. And so instead of sending money to an artist in the hopes that he or she will continue to produce works that I like, we can now send funds directly to the art piece itself who will then be in charge of selecting which artist is actually entitled to reproduce a copy of itself. And so here you can see the genealogical tree of the plantoid species. So as you can see, this is plantoid number seven which is the result of the reproduction of the genesis plantoid number one. And so every plantoid actually needs to abide by the criteria which has been embedded into the DNA of its parents. So for instance in the case of this plantoid it has to be made of chains and its design must be released under a creative common license as required by the genesis plantoid one. And then every artist can then introduce additional criteria into the DNA of the plantoid that they are producing and those criteria will then need to be implemented and incorporated into every single one of the descendants. And so what this does is that this actually creates some kind of evolutionary algorithm whereby different plantoids will evolve into different species, each one with their own characteristics. And so the plantoid that will be the more popular will be able to collect more funds and therefore will be able to reproduce more whereas the plantoid that are actually perhaps least appreciated will eventually just fade out into extinction. And so in the end we can actually find out which one of those plantoids are actually the most fit for their own environment and those are the one that will be able to reproduce more and eventually colonize our planet. And so and on that point I'm actually very happy to say that the last three plantoids that have been produced have traveled all the way to the US in order to colonize Blackhawk City during the Burning Man Festival last year and hopefully we also be coming back next summer. But when it comes to the reproduction process then one important thing to understand is that just like humans, plantoids can actually rely on two different strategies in order to maximize their chances of reproduction. On the one hand they can rely on their physical attributes or aesthetics, trying to be as beautiful as possible in order to attract more cryptocurrency donation and on the other hand they can actually rely on more spiritual or intellectual features which are defined by the government structure which has been codified into their smart contract. And so this little plantoid is actually a new experiment because it incorporates dauster holographic consensus into its DNA. And so this means that once this plantoid will actually start reproducing after it has collected one eater of donations then anyone will be able to submit propositions about how they envision to produce the next plantoid and every single one of those plantoids will also need to incorporate the holographic consensus into their government structure. And if you do want to learn more about dauster holographic consensus please come and talk to me afterwards. But to conclude I just want to say that what's actually really interesting about this is actually not just the fact that the plantoid can actually reproduce itself but actually all the legal challenges that it actually brings about especially with regard to property and contract law. And so for instance those the plantoid actually own the eater that is being donated to it even though it does not actually qualify as a legal entity. And can the plantoid actually enter into a real contractual relationship with the artist that it is actually hiring to create a new copy of itself even though it does not have any type of legal personality. And then most importantly what kind of records does the plantoid actually have in the case of a breach of contract. For instance if someone decides not to respect the DNA and the criteria that has been incorporated into its parents. And so those are all very important legal questions that actually do not really have any proper answer yet. And the plantoid is actually really here just to convey and to illustrate all those new legal challenges that are actually being raised by many different types of blockchain based life forms or decentralized autonomous organization more generally and that actually it will become soon very important to actually address. And those are actually all those questions that we are currently investigating with Koala as we are trying to better understand the interface between the rule of law and the rule of code enacted by blockchain technologies with the intention to actually create a bridge between those two worlds in order to enable them to interconnect and to interface with one another without necessarily having one overtaking the other. And so I'm happy to answer any question you might have and if I don't manage to answer them properly I will invite you to try and read this book Blockchain and the Law where I'm actually engaging into a much more in-depth analysis between the discrepancy between the rule of law and the rule of code. Thank you. We have five minutes for questions. I'm just curious. During the proposal process where people can vote on what the next plantoid is going to be like can you propose any arbitrary improvement to it? Yes, absolutely. So within the genealogical tree so you need to respect the DNA of the parents but then it's actually part of the game that every artist will incorporate new additional criteria into the new plantoid that you are creating so you can innovate in any ways you want as long as you're actually respecting the DNA criteria. I see. So could I propose attaching a giant solar array to it and then having it mine its own ether? Yes. And not only you can do that but you can also add this as a DNA criteria which means that once this plantoid will reproduce everyone will also need to implement a similar thing. It seems like you would have a significant selective advantage. Maybe you should try to submit that. Maybe I will. You suggested among the questions you have is can the plantoid act as an autonomous agent in a way recognized by law? It seems to me that the plantoid does act as an autonomous agent per its own contract. Yes, I mean the factor it does, that's the point. So the factor you create something that can own property and that can engage into a set of contractual relationships. So in practice the factor it is acting as an autonomous agent. Now the question is how does this thing that exists within a technical framework how does that interface with the law? As in if the plantoid is holding ether how do you actually represent this from a legal perspective because you cannot say that an object is owning ether because this doesn't have a legal personality or if I'm actually being hired by the plantoid to create a new plantoid what kind of contractual relationship I have if the counterpart to my contract doesn't have a legal personality and most importantly the question of recourse what happen if I bridge the contract that I have with the plantoid what can the plantoid do in order to actually sue me or do anything about my bridge of contract? So that's the interesting thing is that there is a distinction between what happened the factor which actually we can create the autonomous agents and then what the law can see and the law cannot see those agents because it can only see things that the legal system actually recognizes and so it's going to try and interpret for instance if you're going to say maybe this is a general partnership if there is some people that are actually part of it but it's a fully automated system then it becomes much more complicated so the question is how do we actually connect it to or actually how do we create some kind of membrane that enable the blockchain based system the autonomous system to interact with the real world with the legal world in a way that actually is consonant with what they actually can do In the US what would you say the structure is closest to being able to recognize your early plant oids? So I mean most of the plant oids today because they are not very sophisticated in terms of AI and whatever so they actually rely on a human governance so the funders are actually to some extent the governor of the plantoid so I would say that in the US it most likely would qualify as a general partnership and therefore you could claim that if we are breaching the contract then perhaps every single person from the legal the general partnership could potentially identify itself because of course it's absurdonymous and then try to prove that they are indeed some of the governance people and therefore try and bring a claim but it's really messy and the work that we're trying to do with Coral and in general it's like let's try and figure out how we can some extent like formalize or just like try and dive into this to understand what are the different possibilities and what kind of step do we actually need to take either at the technical level or like techno legal contraption in order to achieve the goal that we want So the plant oids definitely look very cool but how much importance is really being placed on physical form of these things it seems like a lot of dows that are popping up the overall lifetime expectancy of a dow is for it to become a autonomous agent especially as collecting becomes automated voting becomes automated by the network and ever implementing things in the real world becomes increasingly automated So this entire project is cool why focus on a physical piece of hardware that doesn't really add too much compute capabilities instead of more software deployment in autonomous ways trying to lead more towards dows with autonomous decision making So I mean that's an artistic project so it needs to have some artistic project and the idea is actually I'm using this as an object to talk with lawyers and to talk with anyone if you try to explain to someone that is not deep into the blockchain space if you try to explain a dow and if you want to discuss with lawyers about the challenges of a dow it's really complicated because everyone starts asking you about the technical question which is not the interesting thing because then you have to start explaining the whole blockchain thing before you can actually engage into an interesting legal discussion So this is actually a very nice shortcut because you just explain how the dow works and then people actually start thinking around this object of the dow but actually it's a plantoid and therefore you can actually engage into the technicalities of the blockchain So it's more of a prop that illustrates the legal challenge in a way that is actually very accessible and that makes it possible to actually discuss around that and I'm actually very eager to figure out how to resolve this legal challenge for the plantoid but if we figure it out for the plantoid we figure it out for the dow in general, right? And then the other thing is that having the physicality and the governance is like in the evolution in the genealogical tree So most of the plantoid so far they have always been focusing on the physical evolution so the DNA is mostly related to the way they look and this is actually the first one that incorporates as a DNA criteria a governance question So now this is like this is the smart contract that becomes part of the DNA which means that now every single one that is reproducing from this one will have to incorporate the dow scolographic consensus and then people need to innovate within the governance structure of that smart contract So it can go, it's like a hybrid between two, my hope is that actually there will be increasingly more advances and evolutionary things that happen within the governance but at the same time there will also be the physical because it's an artistic project Thank you for the inspiring talk about such an inspiring topic My question is you mentioned two notions about autonomy and agency and whenever we are in discussions about like let's call it digital persons to expand like natural, legal and digital persons people are always scared of this guaranteed self-execution and in this case that it's unstoppable unless you stop the whole network and then the first thing that people usually say is like oh that's Skynet what are we going to do we need a kill switch in the code what is your thought about if you would have a kill switch in the code that would take away the operational autonomy at the end so there would be a contradiction actually to have a person who not all blockchain based system are designed to be fully autonomous and if you start creating something where there is an owner of the smart contract or if you use like proxy contracts all this stuff I mean it is centralized but it's not autonomous because you have someone that is actually controlling the system so I mean I'm not sure yes it will definitely reduce the autonomy of the system so when we talk about decentralized autonomous organizations we probably talk about those particular types of smart contracts which are you know I mean whatever who knows what is a decentralized autonomous mechanism but of course it's never fully autonomous because usually you always have people that can vote with the tokens or with the reputation and things like this so it's not like fully AI based system but and the question is when does it stop from being a decentralized autonomous organization and it becomes like a centralized controlled smart contracts Thank you Hello I have done some experiments with Delaware series LLC and Ether and smart contracts but in this case isn't it global consensus that you can't have legal personality just by contracting isn't it a consensus that you can't have legal personality or personality is always granted and awarded by law and government absolutely that's the point it's like we have things that can technically do things that the law cannot understand or see because of the lack of legal personality but it's still happening they are still owning they are still processing Ether and they can still enter into smart contract and the question is who is the owner of the Ether that has been donated to it the partnership the partnership and the people in the partnership I'm assuming that you do have a general partnership probably if it's like a fully automated AI based system then we have another question Thanks Okay, thank you