This is a continuing series publishing questions asked via our contact page or elsewhere. If you have a question about Copiosis, use the contact page and we’ll answer your question, then perhaps post a blog about it and include it in our Q&A page.
Will all payments (to people) be calculated by the Copiosis Organization in cooperation with the companies?
“Companies” can’t “cooperate” because companies aren’t sentient, intelligent or aware. The people inside them are the ones who work with the Copiosis Organization.
We’re not being facetious. Copiosis centers on people, not legal constructs. Even the Copiosis Organization isn’t an entity. It’s a collection of people cooperating so that the economy fulfills its purpose: rewarding people as they create net benefit.
This group of people, the Copiosis Organization, are no less a monolithic, separate, authority than your neighborhood association. They are self-elected volunteers who want to make sure the system fairly rewards people. That’s all these people do. And, since they are like you, and since the organization is open to anyone, we say YOU decide how the Copiosis Organization works, along with everyone else interested in that.
So it’s not some central authority driving things. It’s the opposite: a massively distributed network of your neighbors making sure their neighbors get rewarded fairly, with a bias towards generosity.
The short answer then, is yes, individual rewards will be made via the algorithm through a cooperative effort between Copiosis Organization volunteers and people working in organizations. Want to be one of these people? You can!
Getting in the weeds
There likely will be Copiosis Organization volunteers present inside all producer organizations. They will work alongside people in these organizations as dispassionate – and sometimes passionate – observers. These volunteers will watch and learn what people are doing and how what they do contributes to organizational results.
That’s not the only way the system collects data it needs. Some data the Copiosis Organization will already have. Believe it or not, most industries have clear ideas what each industrial role does and how it contributes to industrial results. Official position descriptions, industrial employment categories, government job classifications all describe in great detail what each title role plays in industry.
Today’s employment contracts also clarify this, as employers must ensure each employee understands employer expectations.
We therefore already know what people do generally and specifically in given job titles. Extremely precise job descriptions exist in government and other databases. These descriptions can help create baseline data for early-stage rewards. Real-time data gathered on site will augment that information.
So while this calculation seems complex and is, most of the data needed for near-post-transition rewards already exists. All that’s missing ares the part we currently don’t do very well or haven’t done yet: assessing the harm “company operations” create, and creating the software interface between data measuring what’s happening and turning that data into rewards.
But we’re working on that right now inside Copiosis.
It’s all about humans valuing humans
The Copiosis Organization will use existing data, including government industry data, on the ground observation and real-time tracking data. All this data feeds the software, which runs the algorithm. The algorithm makes NBR “payments” to each person. How much each person gets depends on their contribution to results the organization creates.
It’s also likely that 360 degree peer reviews will also be part of the process. That way everyone in the organization gives input to each other’s contribution. This will likely be an ongoing dynamic process responding to ongoing improvements.
For example, the more data collected, the less real-time human observation is needed. As artificial intelligence improves, that can augment existing data with real-time data, again making human involvement unnecessary. We’re heading towards total surveillance communities. As that reality nears, surveillance itself gets disseminated to the individual, thus moving from “authorities” to you and your neighbors. We talked about this in our most recent live stream on justice. Scroll to 17:57 of this video:
In every case, data is returned to the algorithm process and calculations are made according to what Citizen Juries have decided and what previous decisions have helped inform. Citizen Juries make it possible for humans to reward humans. So it’s not really the algorithm doing it. It’s your neighbors.
Algorithms are everywhere
Some people don’t trust a reward system based on an algorithm. Some are scared of the idea that someone can create such an algorithm.
The problem with this fear is, our current system already is algorithm-based. Algorithms are everywhere! They’re in our cars, helping our cars run at top efficiency. Some car-based algorithms measure whether the car is in an accident and trigger alerts so emergency services can respond.
They’re in our airplanes. These algorithms keep airplanes safe and are one of the reasons skies over the US are some of the safest places. Speaking of airplanes, they’re in computers running our control tower systems too, helping air traffic controllers manage traffic in the sky.
Algorithms and sensors tell you when to stop or go at a signaled intersection. What do you think runs those stop lights managing intersection traffic?
Algorithms are in our computers too. They’re in our medical equipment. They are in GPS systems. If you’re afraid of an economy based on algorithms, you might as well run for the caves, because you’re in one already!
Finally, algorithms are what shows you what you want whenever you type into a search, watch YouTube or open your Facebook feed. They’re everywhere and you already accept that they’re there doing what they do.
Citizen Juries run the algorithm
So it’s not a big leap going from the algorithm-enabled society of today, to one where people are rewarded via an algorithm, especially considering great benefits society gets from doing so. Just naming a few benefits:
- The Copiosis algorithm makes it possible to remove ALL costs from society.
- It makes necessities to all at no cost to anyone possible. That, eliminates most crime.
- It also widens our economy, making virtually anything people do worthy of economic compensation, including doing things once thought too expensive, such as shifting to better energy sources, or cleaning up the environment.
The good news about the Copiosis algorithm is, it’s not created in a back-door, private, Intellectual Property Protection environment, closed off from the general public. Even now, anyone can look at and learn how the algorithm got created and how it works. In the future, after the transition, the algorithm will be controlled by your neighbors and other communities members in real time. The algorithm is just a math formula. Where it “comes alive” and offers value is through Citizen Juries where you and your neighbors weigh in on how each variable should be weighted given a particular action.
So when people ask: who controls the algorithm? We say: you do, if you want to be involved. The Citizen Jury process is a technologically-enabled, massively decentralized, direct democratic input process through which everyone decides how the algorithm weighs each data point. The more you (or anyone else) wants to be involved, you can be.
Our guess though is, the algorithm will be like a laptop.
Consider a laptop, or a mobile phone, or any technology. Most people don’t care about how these things specifically work. They only care that they do what they do in a satisfactory way. So while there are a relatively small number of people who really understand and can design how my laptop turns my fingers tapping keys on a keyboard into text on a screen, far more people don’t give a rip about that. They just want to use the laptop.
We think the same will be the case with our algorithm.
People working in producer organizations will work with Copiosis Organization volunteers and others so the system fairly rewards all producers. This cooperation shows that the Copiosis Organization isn’t a separate monolith, deciding from “on high” how much people get. Rather, it’s your peers and colleagues working alongside volunteers that ensure you get what you deserve, with a generous bias towards rewarding everyone lavishly.
Volunteers like you comprise the Copiosis Organization. You can get as involved as you like. But our guess is most folks will be happy enjoying the world Copiosis creates, leaving the details up to those who share the passion for rewarding others and making sure that process works.