As DAOs become more and more prevalent, it is important to reflect on the implications of their governance structures. In particular, we should be aware of the dangers of techno-solutionism: the belief that technology will solve all our problems. DAOs may seem like purely technical entities, but they are embedded in social and political contexts that can have far-reaching effects. We need to be vigilant about how decisions made in DAOs are affecting real people and communities. As we move into a world dominated by DAOs, let's remember Soylent Green as a cautionary tale about what can go wrong when we put too much faith in technology.

Soylent Green and the risks of being naive about technology

In the Soylent Green film, a 1973 ecological dystopian thriller, by 2022 the cumulative effects of inequality, environmental collapse and corporate greed have caused severe worldwide shortages of food, water and housing. New York City has a population of 40 million, and only the elite can afford spacious apartments, clean water, and natural food. The homes of the elite are fortified, with security systems and bodyguards for their tenants. The poor live in squalor, haul water from communal spigots, and eat highly processed wafers: Soylent Red, Soylent Yellow, and the latest product, far more flavorful and nutritious, Soylent Green.

The titular Soylent Green is a food product made from processed plankton, and it seems to be the perfect solution to world hunger. However, Soylent Green is actually made from human remains, and the mass production of Soylent Green is contributing to the extinction of humanity. At first glance, Soylent Green appears to be a magical solution to the world's problems. However, upon closer inspection, it is clear that Soylent Green is actually a cautionary tale about the dangers of blindly trusting technology. The film Soylent Green serves as a warning against naively believing that technology can solve all of our problems. Instead, we must be critical of new technologies' political and social implications, lest we repeat the mistakes of the past (or imagined futures).

What if those in power discreetly take advantage of people's lack of knowledge about technology? A project to keep them powerless? Disenfranchisement comes in many shapes, but one way it contributes to inequality is by preventing people from participating in the digitally connected world. For example: naivete about how social media works can lead to users not understanding how their data is being used or shared. This lack of understanding can have harmful consequences, such as when personal data is leaked without a person's knowledge or consent. Ultimately, naivete about technology can have serious implications for both individuals and society as a whole.

Four horsemen of the techno-solutionism apocalypse

Techno-solutionism gained notoriety as a term around 2013 after Evgeny Morozov’s book, To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism. It describes our desire to jump on technological solutions as a quick and flawless way to solve complex real-world problems. It seems beautiful in principle to solve complicated issues with data, an app, monitoring, and remote portals… but technology isn’t magic. It’s made and programmed by humans, subject to the same design flaws as our objective reality, to the same prejudice and bias. Unfortunately, most complex real-world problems require complex real-world solutions.

It's no secret that the ecological future looks bleak. We're facing extreme weather events, record-breaking temperatures, melting ice caps, and mass extinctions. Meanwhile, wealth inequality is skyrocketing, and the wealthy are hoarding an ever-growing share of the world's resources. In this context, it's not surprising that many people have turned to techno-solutionism: the belief that technology can save us from our problems. Unfortunately, this naive belief ignores the fact that technology is political. Techno-solutionism relies on the false assumption that we can develop technological fixes without changing the systems that caused the problems in the first place. It's a form of escapism that allows us to avoid confronting the hard truths about our society. If we want to build a sustainable future, we need to focus on grassroots solutions that address the root causes of our environmental problems. This means working to end capitalist exploitation, challenge sexist and racist systems of oppression, and build solidarity with marginalized communities around the world.

Katherine Jarmul recently gave a talk on unraveling techno-solutionism, where she offered pointers on how to spot techno-solutionism in action. You will find below a reframing of those pointers according to established adages, cognitive biases and other relevant concepts. If you find yourself making any of these statements, think carefully about the wide impact of what you are working on:

• Goodhart's law: "I’m optimizing a metric that someone made up"

• Groupthink: "Everyone agrees on how awesome everything will be" or often, "People who bring up potential issues are excluded"

• Wishful thinking: "If only we had _______ it would solve everything"

• Fetishism: "I haven’t tested a non-technical solution to the problem", mythology speak: revolutionize, fix, disrupt

Relying on miracles neuters collective action

Technological miracles happen every day. The internet connects us to a global community instantaneously, we can find out anything we want to know with a few taps on a screen, and we can order anything we want delivered to our doorstep with the click of a button. It's easy to take these miracles for granted, but it's important to remember that not all technological advances have been positive.

This fetish for oversimplifying collective issues with technological promises, the so-called "techno-solutionism" fantasy, neuters imagination and mobilization for collective action. It suggests that there is a magical solution to every social problem and that technology is the key to unlocking it. However, this is not true. Technology is not neutral; it is political. It shapes and is shaped by the societies in which it operates. There are no magical solutions to social problems, only collective action and systemic change. We must remember that technology is not the answer to everything; it is only one of the tools we can use to achieve our goals.

Techno-solutionism fails to take into account the fact that technology is political. Technologies embody and enact power relations, embody particular world views, are developed within social contexts and are used (or not used) for particular purposes. A technology designed and deployed to achieve one goal may also inadvertently or intentionally achieve other goals. Techno-solutionism also fails to take into account the fact that technologies do not exist in a vacuum – they are always part of a system, and their effects must be understood in light of that system. Techno-solutionism is thus a naïve and dangerous belief. It methodological individualism: it assumes that individuals are autonomous agents who make choices independent of social context or power relations; it assumes that unintended consequences can be dealt with; it assumes that more technology is always better. None of these assumptions is true. We must be vigilant in our critique of techno-solutionism if we are to avoid its dangers.

DAOs and the future of work

In the 1973 sci-fi film Soylent Green, a warning was issued about the dangers of over-reliance on technology. The film's protagonist discovers that the so-called "food of the future" is actually made from human remains. While this may seem like a far-fetched scenario, it serves as a cautionary tale about the dangers of blindly trusting in technology.

The promise of automation and decentralization has many lauding the DAO as a model for the future of work. However, as we consider the possibility of DAOs becoming the norm for how we organize and work, it is important to avoid "techno-solutionism" – or the idea that technology will solve all our problems. We must be careful not to fetishize or oversimplify the potential of blockchain technologies and instead think critically about how these technologies can be used to improve our societies. We need to take into account the many different factors that come into play when it comes to work, such as social dynamics, human interaction, and organizational structures. In order for DAOs to truly succeed in the future of work, we need to tread cautiously and experiment with different models.

The image of a DAO as essentially a company run by code, without any human mediation may sound like a utopian solution to the problems of traditional businesses (such as corruption and inefficiency), but there are also new risks. For example, if the code governing a DAO is buggy or has security vulnerabilities, there could be devastating consequences. Additionally, because DAOs are decentralized, they rely on participation from their community in order to function properly. This means that there is a greater risk of malicious actors taking control of a DAO if its membership is small or not sufficiently committed to its success.

The current fascination with the idea of code as law and the notion that DAOs are about autonomous code instead of sovereignty can be considered an expression of techno-solutionism – the naive belief that technology can be a panacea for all our social ills. But we must do better than that. We must recognise that technology is always political, and that code is never neutral. To create truly autonomous organisations, we need to start from a place of recognizing the complexity of the world, not from a place of technocratic hubris. After all, both DAOs and Soylent Green are made of people.

Conclusion

As we stand on the cusp of incredible technological advancements, it is more important than ever that we do not allow ourselves to be naïve about the potential risks and pitfalls associated with these innovations. We must remain critical and contextualize the technology within its social institutions in order to fully understand its impact. Too often, those most impacted by a given technology are left out of the conversation entirely. It is our responsibility to make sure that doesn’t happen. We have to fight for justice, not just for better architectures. If we can do that, then maybe, just maybe, we can create a future that is truly equitable for all.

What to do about it?

Katherine Jarmul in her talk gave five specific lessons that technologists need to take into account when building products:

1. Contextualize the technology

   Ask what came before this technology, what would happen if it was never discovered, and what we would do without this technology.

2. Research the impact, not just the technology

   Look at the potential impact of the technology in the short, medium, and long term. Look wide to identify who and what may be impacted and explore the knock-on impacts

3. Make space for, and learn from, those who know

   Identify the people, communities, and groups who are impacted and listen to them. Make sure you communicate their voices and if you are in a position of privilege use that privilege to let other voices be heard.

4. Recognize system change and speak it plainly

   Use language wisely and with forethought. She used an example of “revolutionizing” e-commerce to describe a small change to a way of interacting online. Exaggeration and hyperbole are often used to obfuscate the impact of change on disadvantaged communities.

5. Fight about justice, not just about architectures

   She spoke about researchers fired from Google for exposing the bias in their algorithms. Lend your voice to those who have been silenced.

   She then spoke about her decision to focus on data privacy as an area where she has a passion for change and can make a difference.

She ended with a series of questions for the audience to ponder:

• What could you be doing if you weren’t building what you are now?

• What could you change if you focused on the change, not the technology?

• What if we took collective responsibility for the future of the world instead of the future of technology?

References