Taking the first steps toward decentralized democratic governance.

The SingularityNET vision has been a large and multidimensional one from the start; and a key part of this vision is a gradual transition from centralized guidance of the network by the founders and the SingularityNET Foundation, toward more decentralized and broad-based governance. Ultimately, to succeed at its mission, SingularityNET must become a full-fledged “digital biological organism” that grows and changes in cooperation with its human and machine ecosystem without critically depending on any small group of people or organizations.

The SingularityNET whitepaper specifies that in years 1 and 2 of network operations (following the initial token issuance event), major changes are to be determined by the Foundation in accordance with the bylaws of the Foundation installed at the time of network inception, while minor changes will be determined by a 51% majority of AGI token holders. Following this period of foundation building, “benefit votes” will be introduced and major changes in the operation of SingularityNET will be determined through an agreement of the Foundation plus a 51% majority of AGI token holder votes. From year 5 onward major changes in the operation of SingularityNET, among other things, will be determined by a 65% supermajority of AGI token votes.

In the immediate term, SingularityNET’s technical team is in the midst of rolling out two software implementations aimed at improving the community’s participation in and control of the platform, namely, the Request For AI (RFAI) portal, and the upcoming Platform Improvement Proposals process.

As another incremental step from SingularityNET’s current state toward the realization of its long-term vision, SingularityNET Foundation will shortly be calling for a democratic vote (majority rule) to appoint three individuals to a Supervisory Council. The role of this Council — a separate body from the Governing Board and Executive Board that formally lead the Foundation — will be to serve as a formal bridge between the Foundation and the community, enhancing accountability and fostering quality communication.

Role of the Supervisory Council

The Supervisory Council will be dedicated to 1) ensuring that SingularityNET upholds its values and commitments, and 2) fostering quality interaction between token holders and the Foundation.

In more depth: 1) The Supervisory Council will serve as a “watchdog” to make sure that, as the network evolves, the Foundation continues to exert its stewardship in a manner consistent with the core vision underlying SingularityNET. The concept of “hypothetical apostasy” applies here — viewing the strategic choices made regarding the growth of the network from a skeptical perspective, so as to ensure that key issues are not missed and difficult decisions are not made without proper reflection and inclusiveness.

And 2) another equally important aspect of the Council’s job will be to help the community to better help the Foundation grow the network and help the Foundation executives and staff better leverage the community’s knowledge and efforts. The SingularityNET community contains many individuals with deep experience, expertise, enthusiasm and connections relevant to advancing the network beyond its current state; but properly leveraging the potential contributions of community members is an art as well as a science, and Foundation staff may not always have the time or understanding to give it the attention it deserves.

The Supervisory Council will participate in regular meetings with SingularityNET Foundation’s management team in order to understand and advise on its overall strategy. The council shall advise our team on acting for the general interest of a community formed by all individuals who are registered holders of AGI tokens (hereinafter: the community), in a fair, ethical and competent way. It will also deliver yearly reports to the community and meet with the foundation’s board at least every six months.

Forming the Supervisory Council

SingularityNET will be issuing a call for self-nominations from experts who are interested in occupying the role of Council member. None within the Supervisory Council shall be remunerated so as to avoid any conflict of interests. The individuals will be onboarded as volunteers to mediate the relationship between the Foundation and the token holder community.

Since Council members are volunteers they have the right to cease their contribution at any time, but can also be dismissed in case they lose good standing, in which case the Foundation Governing Board will call for an election for a replacement.

In order to avoid an overwhelming wave of inappropriate self-nominations, the following criteria will apply to the volunteers. The individuals that are proposed as Council members need to be highly recognized in the blockchain or artificial intelligence sectors for their technical, intellectual or business track record and for their character and integrity.

If you would like to be considered for the role of Council member, please fill out this form by the end of the 27th of May. At the end of the application period, the Foundation will vet the applicants and select the final seven candidates.

The community will then select their top three picks by way of online voting. Each individual vote will bear the weight of its associated tokens. In other words, the higher the AGI balance on a wallet, the more voting power the owner holds. If Bob has a balance of 1000 AGIs his vote will be worth 1000 points and if Alice has 100K AGIs her vote will be worth 100K points. This weighted voting mechanism ensures that community members have as much influence on the final decision as the amount of AGI they hold. Tokens considered for the election must not be moved for the duration of the voting process to ensure each participant only votes once with the same AGI balance. Blockchain technology will be used to audit the above criteria. Finally, voters will be asked to submit their voting wallet address to a registration form. It is important to note that voting is free and no tokens will be spent during this process as you will only be required to sign an Ethereum transaction that essentially takes a screenshot of your AGI balance to guarantee that each individual can only vote one time.

The period of the vote will be stretched across 7 days to allow as many individuals as possible to participate in this democratic exercise. Each individual will vote only once, with one vote containing 3 candidates selected in order of preference. A tutorial blog post with a video walkthrough of the voting UI will be provided in advance.

Conclusion

This is a pivotal moment for the network and its underlying philosophy of decentralized democratic governance. This initial exercise in community democracy will be the opportunity for our project to demonstrate the maturity it has gained during this past period of development. The success of this exercise will also be an early, preliminary indicator of the kind of Decentralised Autonomous Organisation the platform could eventually become. While other AI organizations continue to experiment with for-profit models, we believe that the for-profit methodology is most appropriate for strictly commercial product oriented efforts (such as our Singularity Studio spinoff), and that core AI protocol and R&D development should follow a more democratic path such as the one described in our whitepaper. This bold experiment will require your participation and support.

Join Us

If you would like to learn more about SingularityNET, we have a passionate and talented community which you can connect with by visiting our Community Forum. Feel free to say hello and introduce yourself over here.

We hope you will join us in our mission to democratize AI and to use its transformative powers to enact real, positive and lasting change. The best way forward is to come together and work practically towards creating a better future.

For any additional information, please refer to our new roadmap. To stay informed about all of our developments, please subscribe to our newsletter.