The Machine

Bots are robots which have no physical presence as they exist purely on the internet. In their simplest form, a bot could be an algorithm which works autonomously on the web performing a desired function such as fetching data from one place and bringing it to another. At their most complex, the are near fully autonomous and can drive cars or fly planes.

As of yet, although rampant on the internet (it is estimated that 64% of internet traffic are bots), they have not been given legal status to operate independently in the physical world, this is one major reason why Elon Musk is having such difficulty in pushing through autonomous driving cars.

Autonomous Organisations

Figure 1. The ultimate form of a corporation is the Autonomous organisation.

As businesses are becoming increasingly mechanised this has brought about the possibility of using bots on the internet controlling robots in the physical world to make fully Autonomous Organisations. Take for example a traditional coffee shop, by replacing the baristas with automated vending machines (See Figure 1.) the corporation that owns the coffee shop can eliminate the most costly and inefficient part of any business, it workers. These hybrid bot / robot system already exist and are called Decentralized Semi Autonomous Organizations (or DAOs for short).

The Paperclip Maximizer

A DAO running a coffee shop is pretty harmless. However, it sets precedent in that an autonomous corporation without read only human-centred, tenets in its incorporation statement is a machine primarily built for profit and uncontrolled might play out the Paperclip Maximizer scenario envisaged by Nick Bostrom.

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