Tomer Jordi Chaffer

Tomer Jordi Chaffer, Charles von Goins, Bayo Okusanya et al.

Autonomous AI agents present transformative opportunities and significant governance challenges. Existing frameworks, such as the EU AI Act and the NIST AI Risk Management Framework, fall short of addressing the complexities of these agents, which are capable of independent decision-making, learning, and adaptation. To bridge these gaps, we propose the ETHOS (Ethical Technology and Holistic Oversight System) framework, a decentralized governance (DeGov) model leveraging Web3 technologies, including blockchain, smart contracts, and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs). ETHOS establishes a global registry for AI agents, enabling dynamic risk classification, proportional oversight, and automated compliance monitoring through tools like soulbound tokens and zero-knowledge proofs. Furthermore, the framework incorporates decentralized justice systems for transparent dispute resolution and introduces AI specific legal entities to manage limited liability, supported by mandatory insurance to ensure financial accountability and incentivize ethical design. By integrating philosophical principles of rationality, ethical grounding, and goal alignment, ETHOS aims to create a robust research agenda for promoting trust, transparency, and participatory governance. This innovative framework offers a scalable and inclusive strategy for regulating AI agents, balancing innovation with ethical responsibility to meet the demands of an AI-driven future.

Tomer Jordi Chaffer

Current approaches to AI governance often fall short in anticipating a future where AI agents manage critical tasks, such as financial operations, administrative functions, and beyond. While cryptocurrencies could serve as the foundation for monetizing value exchange in a collaboration and delegation dynamic among AI agents, a critical question remains: how can humans ensure meaningful oversight and control as a future economy of AI agents scales and evolves? In this philosophical exploration, we highlight emerging concepts in the industry to inform research and development efforts in anticipation of a future decentralized agentic economy.

Tomer Jordi Chaffer, Justin Goldston, Gemach D. A. T. A.

Cooperation is vital to our survival and progress. Evolutionary game theory offers a lens to understand the structures and incentives that enable cooperation to be a successful strategy. As artificial intelligence agents become integral to human systems, the dynamics of cooperation take on unprecedented significance. The convergence of human-agent teaming, contract theory, and decentralized frameworks like Web3, grounded in transparency, accountability, and trust, offers a foundation for fostering cooperation by establishing enforceable rules and incentives for humans and AI agents. We conceptualize Incentivized Symbiosis as a social contract between humans and AI, inspired by Web3 principles and encoded in blockchain technology, to define and enforce rules, incentives, and consequences for both parties. By exploring this paradigm, we aim to catalyze new research at the intersection of systems thinking in AI, Web3, and society, fostering innovative pathways for cooperative human-agent coevolution.

Tomer Jordi Chaffer, Dontrail Cotlage, Justin Goldston

The convergence of humans and artificial intelligence systems introduces new dynamics into the cultural and intellectual landscape. Complementing emerging cultural evolution concepts such as machine culture, AI agents represent a significant techno-sociological development, particularly within the anthropological study of Web3 as a community focused on decentralization through blockchain. Despite their growing presence, the cultural significance of AI agents remains largely unexplored in academic literature. Toward this end, we conceived hybrid netnography, a novel interdisciplinary approach that examines the cultural and intellectual dynamics within digital ecosystems by analyzing the interactions and contributions of both human and AI agents as co-participants in shaping narratives, ideas, and cultural artifacts. We argue that, within the Web3 community on the social media platform X, these agents challenge traditional notions of participation and influence in public discourse, creating a hybrid marketplace of ideas, a conceptual space where human and AI generated ideas coexist and compete for attention. We examine the current state of AI agents in idea generation, propagation, and engagement, positioning their role as cultural agents through the lens of memetics and encouraging further inquiry into their cultural and societal impact. Additionally, we address the implications of this paradigm for privacy, intellectual property, and governance, highlighting the societal and legal challenges of integrating AI agents into the hybrid marketplace of ideas.