I am probably going to get it in the neck for suggesting this, but as a supporter of individualism I believe that our current forms of government and our conduct as human beings could be individualised and work better for us all, and as such I have an idea to present.

It is not a form of communism that I propose, but rather a hyper-radical form of capitalism that takes control away from representatives, governments, and organistions in general, I call it AI Contractism and it becomes possible with advances in technology like blockchain. Most activities in our lives are becoming individualised, from online banking and shopping, to finding a work or a partner, increasingly these activities that used to need a middleman or an agent no longer do, so this is an extreme expression of that idea.

The basic setup for this is everyone is considered a sovereign being and as such this status trumps that of a country of residence, its laws, and any human orgnaisations that reside in that country, be they governmental or non-governmental. As a sovereign being you are free to establish your own virtual country, laws, rights, and policies and prices, and then publish them on the Contractism blockchain. If you want to do anything in life you must approach someone else and then given this scenario you can establish a contract with them for the purchase of a service or goods. They will also have a contract on the Contractism blockchain and AI will be used, most likely from your phone to see if the two of you are compatible to make an agreement in the first place. If it is happy and you are happy, then can you discuss terms and sign a digital contract for a period of time, again on the Contractism blockchain.

With that established, you both then need to take action to achieve the terms of the contract, and at the end you submit a recipt to the AI and it will report on the outcome of the contracted work. The AI will not decide if the work was completed satisfactorily, that is the responsibility of the contractor, instead the AI will just report on what was done and offer a view on whether the terms of the contract were met. However final decisions lie with the sovereign human parties, and they alone can approve the sign off for the contract, this may be as simple as a button push on an app, or if there is disagreement that the work was completed, then an AI arbiter can provide further information to both parties.

For example; a homeowner needs some kitchen work to be done, and they search online for a plumber with a good reputation. The work is offered, and an electronic quote is given that seems acceptable to both as sovereign beings with compatible laws. A contract for a plumbing job is then established and a leaking pipe needs to be replaced, and the costs for a new pipe and knuckle joint and sealant have been established, along with a time to complete the work. At the end of the time period the two parties electronically see if what they have submitted to the blockchain as receipts match.

In this case a plumber attended a homeowners property and repaired the existing pipe with plumbing PTFE tape and they did not replace any parts. The AI advises the homeowner that the contract has not been met in a report that both of them can see, and the homeowner acknowledges that work was not done in accordance with the contract and AI Arbitration occurs between both parties. It is established that as the plumbing parts were not replaced but instead cleaned and resealed the problem was resolved but not in the way the contract stated. The AI asks the plumber for a discount, which they provide in a contract amendment, and both parties agree and then the homeowner pays the plumber. The contract is complete and the plumber gets a knock to their reputation for not completing the work in accordance with the original contract, and thus shouldn’t have agreed to it in the first place, the homeowner gets a boost to their reputation for paying promptly.

You may be wondering why this is not just the same as a social credit score, or an episode of Black Mirror, and this is because there is in this scenario there is no government, there’s no controlling body, no one with control that might try to cheat the system for their own personal gain. What is popular will work, and what is not will not work. There are only the two parties involved in the contract, plus the AI arbiter and a blockchain to openly verify all transactions. The two sovereign beings are free to set the terms of their “world” and live by those rules, and if they do not then their reputation takes a hit until they cannot conduct business with decent people.

In this new paradigm people will have contracts for everything, from council services to the police services, and from abiding by laws of a region to abiding with a store’s policies for entry and use. It is even relevant for relationships such as marriage, and between a parent and a child. Everything is managed through electronic contracts.

There will of course be template contracts that people can use, and most people will probably pick a generic template for their contracts, and maybe customise it only a little. However there is no reason that people cannot put in whacky terms and conditions as long as others will accept them. If somebody wants to be paid in rubber ducks, then so be it. Templates will also help those who wish to nomadically move regularly from region to region around the globe, and in joining a region’s network one will have to check compatibility with their T’s & C’s in the blockchain and sign a contract for the duration of their time there.

So in this Contractism existence, there is no bureaucracy except that which people are prepared to accept. Governments go away and services are private, each individual sovereign being is a country, they are a government, they are a set of rules, a contract maker and ultimately a contract receiver. It forces responsibility on individuals and also punishes contract breaking through reputation score. Obviously everyone would need insurance contract for basic health and life sustenance in case their reputation falls to such a low level that they cannot find decent people to sign contracts with and ultimately make money to live off of. However with improved performance each would be able to raise their reputation fairly.

As for children and their inability to understand or manage their own lives, their parents would have a contract to raise them in a certain manner and to obtain a certain standard of education for them until they are 18 at which time a contact completion exercise would take place.

Now this contracting setup would be super simple and through the technology we already have could simply be tapping phones together or providing a fingerprint signature so it’s really not a heavyweight exercise, especially with AI checking on each contract and advising the sovereign being of what they need to do next. It should be so simple in fact that one-off contracts could be established for things around the home, like taking out the rubbish, cleaning the bathroom, doing the grocery shopping, or taking the kids to the park, maybe even simply booking a restaurant for a meal. You know those things that people promise to do and then don’t do, which lead to arguments! All it would take to resolve those is a tap of two phones maybe a touching of a screen and the AI would manage the rest.

Suddenly trust is assured between people and reliability will be a constant, or reputation will suffer. Establishing contracts will be a simple process as it is today to speak to a person and for them to agree to doing something for us. Of course there will be people that won’t take part and they are completely allowed to go and setup something of their own, or just go and beg on the street (although there will likely be a police contract with a council to move on these types of people).

Others would of course try and cheat the system, and in terms of hacking, we would have to have an AI security service setup and contracted with everyone to monitor the activity and prevent fraud. This can largely be done through the contracts themselves rather than through surveillance, but a human service here might form part of a police contract.

On the subject of mass coercion due to the scale of some large contract, influence by particular individuals could sway people towards contracts that are the most popular and then terms could slowly change over time and this would be something that people do not want, they would probably feel compelled to sign up though as everyone else was doing it. In this case AI would be needed to arbitrate again, and it would penalize the contractor to prevent the contractees from abuse.

I guess finally, who would create the AI? It is a tough one, but I would suggest that it is an open source non-profit organisation with good moral standing in the world, they would have the source code available in GitHub, and the training material used for the AI would be sited in a contract and everyone would be able to see that. In this way no sneaky hiding of facts or knowledge could be done by the AI itself.

So there you have it, an outline of an idea that takes individualism and makes it real, and it could easily be achieved today given the technology we already have. And with the announcement of quantum computing becoming a practical product, the resources needed to run such a system will no longer cost the earth.

Personally I love the idea of being my own country of one, with my own set of laws and terms I’ve set for interacting with others. I also love the idea of just being able to move anywhere as long as I sign a contract with that place, and the AI will arbitrate most things to take the stress out of dealing stuff, like with dealing with compatible systems and people.