Tau: Internet Champion of the Knowledge Markets

Knowledge markets and Agoras

Intuitively many people already know what a knowledge market is. If you break it down to questions and answers then you can think of many problems where in order to solve the problem you have a list of questions and in order to answer a particular question relevant to solving your problem you need certain knowledge. It is known that someone or something somewhere has the missing piece to the knowledge puzzle necessary for you to solve your problem.

Examples are provided below on how the knowledge market may be applied

The Bitcoin price forecast example:

Lets say you want some actionable piece of information about the price of Bitcoin? In specific you want to know what the price range will be on a certain date? This is a question which could be answered if you had enough data. This is a question which if you had the right knowledge would become obvious and it is time sensitive.

If you were omniscient to know what every rich investor is doing at all times then no one would be able to buy or sell without you knowing it's coming. This advanced knowledge warning you of the big buys and dumps allow you to adjust your buy or sell orders to benefit from whichever decisions big investors make. As you can see here the ability to predict the price movement is a matter of receiving certain signals or data in enough time to act upon it before it happens. If for example we think of price forecasts like we do weather forecasts then with enough knowledge we may be able to look ahead to see price and the higher the quality of the knowledge available to work with the more accurate the prediction for the forecast.

The COVID-19 example:

Another example I can provide which can produce something useful for the world and which highlights the collaborative elements of Tau at this time is to use Agoras to solve some of the problems we face with COVID-19. Tau provides the mechanism to connect minds (human or otherwise) by formalizing communication, aggregation of data such as opinion maps, reached agreements, and more. This is made possible by the use of a powerful logical solver among other innovations. Agoras will provide the economic mechanisms to leverage the innovations and discussion scaling properties from Tau. The COVID-19 example is even more relevant than the previous example because it highlights the discussion scaling feature which is likely going to be necessary for solving a problem on the scale of COVID-19.

One example question which could be asked or which would be asked in the very beginning is “What is COVID-19?”. When the pandemic emerged one of the most important decisions made by the Chinese state was to release the genetic information allowing for the most basic question of what it is to be answered. We know now that delays in getting knowledge in the case of a pandemic can result in lost time which can reduce the ability to save the maximum amount of lives.

The genome sequence of COVID-19 allowed for “identification” to take place. This identification answers the what part of what is COVID-19 in the most accurate manner known by science at the time. This sequence would be a sort of knowledge which a third party could provide and in most cases would have every motivation to do so for free to save as many lives as possible. In the case of Agoras if it has some sort of reputation system then certain kinds of knowledge deemed life saving or extremely important for the world could give the sender or donator hero status which is a bit different from the first more simple example of simple monetary benefit.

To go beyond merely identifying we may also have more elaborate problems to solve and to solve these more complex problems we likely will need to apply the more sophisticated functions of Tau/Agoras. The ability to ask a question about how to stop the spread of COVID-19 could lead to any number of additional questions ultimately which can only be solved by certain known medical algorithms. For example it may be possible to feed into Agoras formal representation of medical knowledge so that certain questions about COVID-19 can be answered in a manner which does not contradict previously known medical knowledge.

An example would be how to disinfect or decontaminate a virus such as COVID-19. This sort of knowledge could be deduced if you have enough knowledge of viruses such as a knowledge base of viruses of this particular type (Coronavirus) and can then know the behavior of all of this type of virus is similar enough that for example UV light, alcohol, bleach, can be expected to destroy the virus. This is the sort of common sense knowledge that a knowledge base would allow because it wouldn't contradict previous knowledge of this type of virus (assuming COVID-19 is accurately identified by genetics) for the virus to somehow survive UV of the correct wave length.

So a user could ask the question about how to destroy COVID-19 and someone could provide the proof based on formal knowledge on what should destroy it. Of course an expert could also respond without a proof based on formal knowledge but armed with a proof we would know from knowledge of physics, the electromagnetic spectrum, and the history of that kind of virus, that UV will kill Coronavirus. This may not be the best example but it’s an example I could think of.

What if we have a problem even tougher? What if we simply do not know enough about chemistry and need to apply computational resources to produce an answer? The good thing is that Agoras will allow for a computational resources market (Zennet) allowing for activities such as protein folding, or vaccine candidate search, or other forms of useful simulations. If a question is complex, tough, then Agoras has an ability to scale itself to answer the question using Zennet.

Finally and importantly for solving a problem as big as COVID-19 we would have the unique to Agoras capability of worldview alignment. That is to say when you express your values they are aggregated over time and structured logically into a coherent worldview. This would allow you to participate in discussions or collaborative problem solving in a way which does not violate your value system or particular worldview.

Actionability and time sensitivity of knowledge delivery

Imagine if you could look into the future even by 5 seconds to see what the market would do? It would give you the sort of advantage which would likely be similar to the advantage Biff Tannen had in Back to the Future 2. For many activities whether it be investing in real estate, trading crypto, or hacking, it involves at the core of the process "search and identify". Agoras helps the question asker to search more effectively by monetizing via bounty the acquisition of necessary knowledge to achieve the answer. The providers of knowledge can be anyone and the asker can be anyone, and through this you get a monetized knowledge search.

Some knowledge is more valuable the sooner it is received. It would be helpful in my opinion if Agoras allows the user to configure these sort of time sensitivity parameters into the contract so that the reward for example represents the value of the knowledge. To provide an example of actionability I would say suppose there is some knowledge somewhere that a child is on the train tracks and the train is coming? This knowledge would be actionable if it's given to the right person at the right time (the person in the best position to stop the tragedy). If I'm the user and the knowledge reaches me but I'm too far away from the child to reach the child before the train does then the knowledge is not actionable because I did not receive it in time or because I received it but could not do anything with it.

Wouldn't it be nice if the user could configure Agoras so that they can define what they mean by actionable knowledge and then set up the reward mechanisms so that the probability of them receiving that highly valued knowledge is greater?

Be your own knowledge bank and protect your assets

Some say the bank is robbed with the gun and the world is robbed with the bank. I use this phrase because knowledge itself is able to be stored in a knowledge bank. Agoras will have this knowledge bank (called a shared knowledge base), and will likely also have private knowledge banks (private knowledge bases). I use the phrase knowledge bank because knowledge base assumes free access and distribution without the sort of ownership rights which may exist in practice on Agoras. So if you have your own particular knowledge bank this in my opinion is potentially disruptive in the same way as the phrase "Be your own bank" is disruptive.

The knowledge you have are knowledge assets. In the world of today the people who have knowledge worth billions go unrecognized until such a time where the opportunity exists for them to monetize that knowledge. Bitcoin when it arrived was an example of such an opportunity where people who had knowledge worth billions (cryptography knowledge is an example) were suddenly put into a position where they could apply their knowledge in a manner which could be beneficial to them. This also included a lot of luck as it is my opinion people who do get wealthy even if it's from knowledge it still involves a lot of luck.

To understand this better you must read: http://www.idni.org/blog/economics-of-knowledge