💰Interspecies Money🕸️

11 Feb

The Iberian Wolf. It is estimated that only 2,000-3,000 still survive.

Summary:

Interspecies Money is a combinatorial technology breakthrough that uses the latest modelling, monitoring and financial technologies to give non-human species economic agency in the most biodiverse-rich regions of the world.

The Problem(s)

Nature only gains economic value when dead
- Our economic systems fail to assign value living organisms. For instance, large whales may be worth US$2 million per animal because of their ability to draw down carbon.
The Borders of Human–Non-Human life are fragile
- These areas where humanity and nature overlap, areas of co-habitation, preserve the widest biological and cultural diversity but remain very fragile. Often the human communities have very little economic opportunity other than plundering their surrounding natural wealth.
Nearing a mass extinction event
- As a result, we are on the verge of creating the sixth mass extinction in 500 million years. Yet, we currently spend 5x more on pet food than on conservation.
AI amplifying Antropocentrism
- As more information, value and decision-making is mediated via AI-based systems, nature is at risk of not evolving as part of the next layer of human-machine consciousness. As AI ramps up, the voice of nature will become ever-distant unless we actively look to build out a human-machine-nature interface.

The Scape

Imagine in the not-so-distant future, economic bridges have been built across human and non-human species. At the edges of society, where human–non-human cohabitation is most prolific – biodiversity-rich areas – rare species are paying their local communities for their protection via bespoke digital currencies.

Today, the lowland sheep-farmers in Galicia are compensated by the Iberian Wolf's digital twin as the pack begins their descent from the Sierra de Courel on an impending raid. One of the last hubs of this keystone species, the wolf no longer has the farming community actively pursuing their extinction here. On the contrary, the local community have stopped the deforestation of the region, being paid in part by the Wolves themselves.

Similarly, the Nubian Giraffe situated in North-East Africa, whose dwindling population has recently plateaued, has directed a large portion of its capital toward the local community building better monitoring systems and strengthening their anti-poaching facilities. Having proved successful, some their funds are beginning to flow to the Oxpecker – a species of bird that cleans the giraffe and prevent infection.

Across the world, these biodiversity-rich regions have become hubs of a new monetary system – and consequently a new economy – that works in service to life. Incorporating nature into our economic systems, other species now have voice. With their digital twins being allocated and then reallocating digital currencies, they have been given the agency to increase their chances of survival.

How has does this biocentric monetary system work?

Well, it has been unlocked by a combination of technologies, that while still far from perfect, are enabling nature to actively shape economic flows.

Firstly, shaped by the latest scientific research, digital twins for each specie are being developed. These AI-assisted digital twins are designed to represent the interests of that animal – each ascribed to an individual identity. Constantly updated by the latest data captured on the intricate web of monitoring tech – robotics, bioacoustic systems and AI-vision – these digital twins are becoming increasingly cognisant of the real needs those they represent. Every day, the interplay of AI-based monitoring, modelling and non-human representation is synergising the human-machine-nature interface.

Secondly, there is a distributed computing system for any given bioregion that utilises AI to model species interactions and dependencies, and the carrying capacity of each region. Using these predictive models, carefully designed algorithms allocate this digital currency to each specie dependent upon its 'regenerative' impact on the ecosystem and its rarity. Those species that play the biggest role in upholding ecological complexity – often termed keystone species – and those that are nearing extinction, find themselves with large sums of capital to spend on community actions designed to improve their opportunity to thrive.

Thirdly, all of these transactions are recorded on a transparent, immutable blockchain-based ledger, often with a centralised hub of experts and stakeholders reviewing the efficacy of the local protection and the algorithmic design.

Today, with these economies growing in value, these centralised hubs have become known as 'banks of other species' playing the coordination role of a central bank, yet stewarded by a whole range of stakeholders including government, indigenous communities and non-human representatives.

Behind the emergence of interspecies money lies a powerful story of controversy, pragmatism and idealism, reflecting both the techno-optimism of modernity and the ancient animism found across human history.

The 2020's proved catalytic as awareness and affordability crossed paths. The realisation grew that, in words of Kim Stanley-Robinson, "the ultimate source of value is the biosphere itself." At the same time, with the richest areas of human–non-human cohabitation still largely underdeveloped, there was the opportunity to affordably roll out digital currencies before the extractive practices of modern industrial economies had been embedded. It became a race to establish interspecies money before they were priced out by the extractive, anthropogenic economy.

Proving a wise investment, as these emerging economies have grown – both in population and economic strength – the value of these initial digital currencies, held by non-humans, has increased. Indeed, in certain areas they have become known 'sovereign wealth fund for other species'.

Driving finance into the local community in recognition of their 'regenerative' stewardship of their co-habitat, interspecies money has brought some of the poorest communities new economic lifelines. One's designed to incentivise mutual-flourishing across socio-environmental systems.

To begin with, the interspecies money acted mostly as a 'discovery tool payment mechanism', incentivising local communities to identify and understand different species – their population, behaviours and needs. Yet, by increasing supply through transaction fees, the sale of data to the private sector and wider private-public sector investment for its range of contributions to the economy – from biodiversity offsetting to the control of zoonotic disease – it has become a self-financing data generation and biodiversity protection system.

In the words of the interspecies money pioneer, Jonathan Ledgard, “An Internet of Life makes more sense than an Internet of Things... [bringing] humans, non- humans, and machine intelligences closer together"

Yet, there were notable concerns from the outset. Would incorporating nature into an economy that has brought it to the edge of breakdown just drive further complications?

As a notion of constraint, interspecies money across the world is designed to be reviewed by 2130. As agreed upon, dissolution of the monetary systems will be enacted and nature 'set free' if the bioregion's ecological health has been re-established and the extractive economic practices wound-down.

In this manner, the case for paying for species survival blended the futuristic and ancient, recognised intrinsic and economic value, and balanced the technologically-assisted pursuit of knowledge and the animate reality of life.

Downstream Value Creation

The Demonstration Effect
- With communities well-versed in regenerative stewardship practices gaining more economic value, the ripple effect has been rapid with many communities looking to replicate these successes.
Improving cohabitation across biodiversity hubs
- For communities living on the border of dense human society and rich biodiversity hotspots, co-habitation is now incentivised. Now, nature is valued whilst it is still living.
The Symbiotic Economy
- Designed to help money-poor, biodiversity-rich communities prosper, interspecies money is one of the many pathways for alternative forms of development. As non-extractive development ensues, the monetary value held by non-humans also increases. As "other species become a source of income and investment capital for humans", so non-human voices become more powerful and their agendas more respected. Anthropocentrism evolves towards Biocentrism.
The nature–machine-human interface deepens
- As human interaction is increasingly digitised, mediated by machines, "there is an existential risk that we could end up far from our evolutionary state". By integrating the voice and interests of non-humans into the central systems of mediation, we ensure nature does not disappear from our consciousness. Embedded into the computational networks, nature comes closer to AI.