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It's difficult to see, but we are amid the greatest crisis ever seen in the history of humanity. It is unlike other crises as the enemy wears no uniform and fighting it does require arms but the radical transformation of almost every aspect of our lifestyles. Quite rightly, we are all reluctant to change but as temperatures rise and we are affected by floods, fire and drought that we need to do something. Inducing Pivotal Mental States can help awareness on an individual level, however, to truly address the problems we need to look at our organisational systems which ultimately govern the fate of our biosphere.
Corporations are rushing to solve the crisis, however, initially, whilst many have good intentions their efficacy is limited by their primary rule coded into their incorporation statement, profit maximisation. This sets a dynamic, pitting easily obtainable negative externality generating profit against the creation and maintenance of positive externalities. When this dynamic plays out in a hyper-liquid market such as the internet, Nash's equilibrium explains why most companies adopt a strategy of avoidance of the loss in revenue from lowering negative externalities by opting for a lower cost greenwashing strategy. A simple remedy would be to remove the profit incentive and form a Not For Profit (NFP) however, this, for various reasons generates top-heavy often extremely ineffective institutions. This then begs the question, is there a way to design a new, efficient, self-perpetuating machine which does good?
When the concept of robotics was first invented, Isaac Asimov imagined the creation of autonomous intelligence in the form of androids however, a conundrum quickly arose. If a machine is developed which has autonomy and was sufficiently enabled, how can we ensure that it primarily does no harm to humans? Without any protective laws, a machine with the purpose of purely making money will destroy everything in its path to achieving its goal. As such, Asimov developed the Four laws of robotics, which meant any new robot created had to follow distinct uneditable ethical rules which were enabled to protect humans from the ruthlessness of machines:
- Zeroth Law - A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.
- First Law - A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm
- Second Law - A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
- Third Law - A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
So, if corporations are types of machines approaching autonomy with the aid of new technology, could these laws be adopted to ensure any new machine only does good?
As of yet, full autonomy does not exist, any business therefore must adopt at least one human to at least turn the machine off and on again if it fails. However, humans themselves make errors, therefore from a design sense from the outset, the weakest necessary part needs not to be ignored but dealt with first. Transparency, which many profit maximisers might think is the WORST thing you can do in business, as profit is seen as the lifeblood and is often made behind closed doors. However, Burnzero's argument is that in a hyper-liquid sector with low barriers to entry such as purely digital middleman services such as ticket sales, online education, and cloud services, increasingly the only point of differentiation is within the eco/ethical space.
This opportunity seems only available to ethically unencumbered newcomers[1], as can be seen with Stripe's Climate Service vs the more traditional services like Paypal, Humanitix vs Eventbrite or even in the success of companies like Patagonia. However, only a minority of companies in each sector are forging ahead, one elephant in the room remains, the authenticity of ethical claims. This has led to the establishment of an abundance of startups flooding the space to certify each other as supremely "green" or "ethical". The prime example of this is the "B Corporation" which relative to traditional businesses has done a world of good, however, these types of governance systems mask a fundamental conflict of interest within the commercial third-party governance space.
For instance, if a company pays a third party to certify itself as green, what if after the payment has been taken the third party fails to certify the company under the criteria? In a market with only one certifier (such as the government in the medical sector) the company has no choice but to fold. However in an open market, where there is little to no regulation and a bevvy of certifiers a negative feedback loop is generated where the lowest price with the lowest standards means the this type of industry self-regulation is ultimately ineffective.
So where to go from here? Government eco/ethical regulation would be great, but that isn't going to happen as meeting the Paris Agreement requirements will require a contraction in living standards GDP. i.e. any governmental democratic power is massively reliant on lots of non-eco/ethical activity (See most recently September 8, 2022: "UK to announce dozens of new North Sea oil and gas licences"). Self, third party and governmental regulation aren't going to solve this problem. So instead of putting a plaster on the symptoms, perhaps it's the machines themselves that are in error? Perhaps a new, competitive machine can be designed that avoids these issues from inception?
The Transparent Company
The T-Corp is an experimental new type of company which intends to solve many of these issues. Key attributes include:
Operations
The T-Corp performs all actions through a series of hierarchical, uneditable tenets. The primary tenet is Transparency, the next three tenets are setting its intention to do good, whilst aiming to reduce human and error by developing towards complete autonomy. The tenets run alongside an editable incorporation statement published on github and burnzero.com which is protected from retrospective falsification of records via its own automated open source API Twitter bot publishing updates to its dedicated account: Transparent122.
Finance
The T-Corp generates funds primarily from automated sources the first two sources are https://prepare.online/) and https://mushroomexam.com/. To meet the transparency requirements, all revenues are centrally received into an openly published Stripe account which is embedded into the Decentralised Repository (burnzero.com).
Strategy
70% of all funds received from the sources are used in our open Proposal and Commission system where anyone can apply for funds to pay themselves to help in achieving the goals set in our roadmap.Start editing
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- ↑ Can Corporations Have (Moral) Responsibility Regarding Climate Change Mitigation? Journal of Ethics, Policy & Environment, Volume 20, 2017 - Issue 3. Pages 314-332. First published online: 18th October 2017, accessed online on 4th October 2022 via https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21550085.2017.1374015