Although this isn’t a topic I’ve thought about much, it seems like this proposal could be strengthened by, rather than having the money be paid to persons Pis, having the money deposited with an escrow agent, who will release the money to the AI or its assignee upon confirmation of the conditions being met. I’m imagining that Pis could then play the role of judging whether the conditions have been met, if the escrow agent themselves weren’t able to play that role.
The main advantage is that it removes the temptation that Pis would otherwise have to keep the money for themselves.
If there’s concern that conventional escrow agents wouldn’t be legally bound to pay the money to an AI without legal standing, there are a couple of potential solutions. First, the money could be placed into a smart contract with a fixed recipient wallet, and the ability for Pis to send a signal that the money should be transferred to that wallet or returned to the payer, depending on whether the conditions have been met. Second, the AI could choose a trusted party to receive the money; in this case we’re closer to the original proposal, but with the judging and trusted-recipient roles separated.
The main disadvantage I see is that payers would have to put up the money right away, which is some disincentive to make the commitment at all; that could be partially mitigated by having the money put into (eg) an index fund until the decision to pay/return the money was made.
Although this isn’t a topic I’ve thought about much, it seems like this proposal could be strengthened by, rather than having the money be paid to persons Pis, having the money deposited with an escrow agent, who will release the money to the AI or its assignee upon confirmation of the conditions being met. I’m imagining that Pis could then play the role of judging whether the conditions have been met, if the escrow agent themselves weren’t able to play that role.
The main advantage is that it removes the temptation that Pis would otherwise have to keep the money for themselves.
If there’s concern that conventional escrow agents wouldn’t be legally bound to pay the money to an AI without legal standing, there are a couple of potential solutions. First, the money could be placed into a smart contract with a fixed recipient wallet, and the ability for Pis to send a signal that the money should be transferred to that wallet or returned to the payer, depending on whether the conditions have been met. Second, the AI could choose a trusted party to receive the money; in this case we’re closer to the original proposal, but with the judging and trusted-recipient roles separated.
The main disadvantage I see is that payers would have to put up the money right away, which is some disincentive to make the commitment at all; that could be partially mitigated by having the money put into (eg) an index fund until the decision to pay/return the money was made.