A discussion between a DeXe contributor and the founder of Grantorb
The latest incarnation of Artificial Intelligence (as Large Language Models, or LLMs) is already changing how we work. Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) are changing the way we organize. Now, the two breakthroughs are converging to truly level the field for anyone to actively participate in shaping their own future and that of humanity.
For context, there are tens of thousands of DAOs. Of those tracked by Deep DAO, the top 2,400 DAOs have a total treasury of over $20B and almost 11 million members; yet less than ⅓ has participated in active governance of the DAO at least once, and less than 1% of DAOs have over 100 members. Since DAOs are meant to democratize power and wealth, such a high degree of centralization of both and the lack of popular participation in DAOs is a critical concern. But LLMs can change that.
In DeXe Protocol’s recent DAO Talk Panel, they focused on exactly how that may happen (and indeed already is). For this discussion, the host was joined by Deepa, the Founder of ‘grantorb.com,’ a platform that uses AI to unlock millions in grant funding. She was the perfect choice to comprehend the full extent of AI’s impact on DAOs, having worked extensively at the intersection of technology, nonprofits, and fundraising with a focus specifically on both DAOs and AI. Below are some insights from that discussion.
How AI could help conceptualize and onboard for a DAO
Used properly, AI is meant not to replace humans but to do the most menial tasks for them so they can focus on the uniquely human higher-level tasks. Thus, AI can help with explaining your vision for a new DAO to others, from conceptualizing to making the language more accessible for, for example, non-technical or non-artistic audiences. The original idea will still be yours since it takes human originality to come up with something interesting and meaningful enough to attract a following. The AI just saves you time in typing it up, editing it, and breaking into digestible pieces.
Once people join your DAO, you can use AI to create for them customized, individualized onboarding, helping guide all kinds of new members with different experiences, skills, and interests through the onboarding process without one-size-fits all approach that makes one spend hours reading documentation and previous discussions, saving a lot of team resources in the process. In DAOs, as with any organization, many people fall off right at the onboarding stage because of the learning curve being too steep, the rules and values not being communicated clearly, and answers not being adequately answered, among other reasons. Personalized AI-powered onboarding can easily solve those issues.
To quote Deepa, “There’s so much to update them on. I think if every DAO had a knowledge graph about everything, it would be very easy with AI. Someone just keeps updating that graph with the different stages of the DAO.”
Making the DAO multilingual
Not all of our planet’s 8 billion inhabitants speak English, and even fewer as a first language. AI can enable instant — quality — translation of all guides and discussions, truly democratizing DAO participation. It can go further by, for example, translating tech, design, marketing, legal, and other concepts into the “language” of the individual user.
AI bringing efficiency to DAO management
Already, AI can help in assigning open tasks in a DAO. Imagine it doing so by matching them with member skills, reputation, and activity. AI can also send members personalized reminders for proposals that match their interests, which would otherwise be drowned in a sea of proposals and general notifications. AI can even help optimize feedback by using each user’s personal interests and criteria for success to judge how well the proposal aligns with the DAO’s mission and with that individual’s values.
AI supercharging engagement
As could be seen from the Deep DAO statistics at the beginning of the article, DAOs suffer from a lack of engagement, which defeats their very purpose. Vastly improving onboarding, summarization, and notification goes far in improving engagement. But what else can AI do in that regard?
One idea floating around DAO governance nerds is to use gamification. AI can seamlessly gamify engagement by creating enticing and innovative reward systems, task completion points, badges, or other incentives. There is, of course, the risk of excessive gamification drawing in people into it for the gamified gains alone and not for the DAOs mission. So gamification needs to be done responsibly.
As Deepa says, “The responsibility for how responsible the AI is lies with the people designing it. If they’re ethical and doing it in good faith, the AI will be responsible.”
AI can also help create a more meritocratic form of organizing by running elaborate reputation systems. For instance, it can verify member contributions by rapidly verifying on-chain data. Looking at the vast number of data points from each contributor’s actions, AI can also help judge the efficiency of the DAO as a whole and recommend course correction.
Ultimately, it will be the humans who decide how AI is used in DAOs. With platforms like DeXe already incorporating powerful AI models that can do much of the above, the future of DAOs and AI appears locked into a marriage of efficiency and equity.
Image by Kohji Asakawa from Pixabay