The term “tokenisation of humans” refers to a concept or process that intersects technology, economics, and social sciences, especially within the context of blockchain and digital identity technologies. It’s a concept, involving several different interpretations and applications, ranging from the digitisation of individual identity to the financialisation of human attributes or actions.
Digital Identity:
Such a system involves the creation of digital tokens representing an individual’s identity, credentials, or personal data on a blockchain or similar platform. This approach claims to provide individuals with greater control and security over their personal information, enabling more seamless and secure verification processes for various purposes, including banking, education, and healthcare. It is in effect, a social credit system.
Asset Tokenisation:
Refers to converting rights to an asset into a digital token on a blockchain. In a positive sense, when applied to humans, it might involve tokenising an individual’s work, creativity, or even future earnings potential, thereby allowing for innovative ways to support artists, athletes, or entrepreneurs through investments directly in their future outputs or successes.
Human Capital Contracts:
These are agreements where individuals can receive upfront capital in exchange for a percentage of their future earnings. Tokenisation can facilitate these contracts by creating tradable tokens that represent these future earnings shares, making it easier for investors to buy and sell these interests.
Privacy and Autonomy:
While tokenisation may offer new forms of financial independence and opportunities, it also raises significant privacy and autonomy concerns. There’s a fine balance between leveraging personal data for empowerment and risking exploitation or loss of privacy.
Inequality and Exploitation:
The financialisation of human activities could exacerbate social inequalities or lead to new forms of exploitation, especially if market forces unduly influence personal lives and choices.
Centralisation:
While not inherently requiring centralised government, the complex nature of human tokenisation would benefit from some centralised mechanisms to address challenges and safeguard interests.
A Governing Body:
It has been suggested that the global and interconnected nature of the tokenisation of humans, with its potential to transcend national borders and impact international financial, legal, and social systems, requires a need for oversight by a planetary governing body, akin to the World Bank. Such an organisation could provide the necessary framework for standardisation, ethical guidelines, and regulatory compliance across countries, ensuring that the tokenisation practices align with global human rights standards and economic policies. The World Bank, with its experience in international finance and development, could serve as a model for how to structure this oversight, offering a platform for collaboration among nations, facilitating the exchange of best practices, and providing guidance on mitigating risks associated with financial inequalities and privacy concerns. This level of oversight would not only address the technical and ethical complexities inherent in human tokenisation but also attempt to ensure that the benefits of such systems are equitably shared and that they contribute positively to global development goals.
Indentured Servitude:
The ethical concerns surrounding the tokenisation of humans are profound, primarily because this concept touches the very core of individual autonomy, privacy, and the sanctity of human life. By converting a human existence into tradable assets or commodities, there’s a risk of commodifying individuals, reducing people to mere economic units rather than recognising them as beings with inherent rights and dignity. Such a system, if implemented globally, could exacerbate existing inequalities, allowing the wealthy and powerful to exploit and control others by owning a stake in their lives, talents, or future earnings. This dynamic could delete the concept of free will, making individuals beholden to the interests of those who hold their tokens, effectively modernising a form of indentured servitude. The notion of reducing human attributes to assets that can be bought, sold, and traded runs counter to progressive ideals of freedom, equality, and democracy, suggesting that instead of advancing society, it could regress to a new form of feudalism where individuals are not owners of their destinies but slaves to a market that values them only for their economic output.
Student Loans are a Precursor:
The concept of student loans can be seen as a precursor to the tokenisation of humans by introducing the idea of financialising an individual’s future potential and earnings. Student loans involve borrowing money to pay for education with the expectation that the individual’s future earnings will increase as a result of the education received, thereby enabling them to repay the loan. This financial arrangement puts a price on future labour and success, linking an individual’s economic value directly to their educational achievements and future income. This mirrors the foundational principle of human tokenisation, where aspects of an individual’s potential, skills, or future outputs are converted into financial instruments or digital assets. Both concepts operate on the premise of investing in future potential, but tokenisation could extend this principle further by creating a more direct and tradeable representation of an individual’s capabilities or earnings, thereby expanding the scope of financialisation of personal attributes and activities.
The educational credit system has also been a precursor to tokenisation of humans.
Summary:
The tokenisation of humans, while innovative in its approach to leveraging blockchain technology for the digital representation of personal attributes, skills, and potential, inherently presents substantial opportunities for misuse and exploitation by those with corrupt intentions. The very mechanism that allows for the democratisation of investment in human capital also opens doors to significant ethical, privacy, and security vulnerabilities. When personal attributes and future potentials are commodified and traded, there is a heightened risk of reducing individuals to mere assets, subject to market fluctuations and investor interests. This commodification can lead to increased surveillance, loss of personal autonomy, and the potential for new forms of discrimination and exploitation, especially among vulnerable populations. Moreover, the complexity and novelty of such a system might obscure transparency, making it difficult for participants to fully understand the implications of their involvement. Thus, while aiming to progress towards a more interconnected and technologically advanced society, the tokenisation of humans could paradoxically entrench inequalities and erode foundational societal values, marking it as an undesirable path for the future.