Author: Jerry, founder of EcoFi m&W
Research support: Gemini
Looking back at history, every leap in productivity has demanded a complete reshaping of production relations. The Renaissance and the establishment of Fundamentalism addressed the relationship between "man and God," liberating people from the Church's interpretive power. The Enlightenment and the bourgeois revolutions addressed the relationship between "the people and the monarch." The ideas of Voltaire and Rousseau predated the flames of the French Revolution, establishing private property, the separation of powers, and the social contract.
So, as the AI era approaches, what kind of enlightenment movement do we need? When models begin to monopolize the right to interpret truth, and when computing power becomes the new hegemon, we must redefine: In the age of intelligence, what does an independent person truly possess?
This article will discuss this theme in three parts: from charters to republics; restoration and turmoil; from existential sovereignty to existential sovereignty, "the return of human divinity".
Part 1: From Charter to Republic
Just as pre-revolutionary France was characterized by class antagonism, the current AI ecosystem suffers from deep-seated injustices:
Digital serfdom: Giants collect data assets from all of humanity for training purposes without compensation, but the resulting trillions of dollars in value are monopolized by a very small number of shareholders.
Black Box Theocracy: The decision-making process of AI is unknowable and uncontrollable. Algorithmic bias, like the "right to interpret doctrine" in the past, determines an individual's credit, employment, and even cognition.
Computing power barriers: Extremely high computing power thresholds have created new class barriers, and ordinary developers and sovereign states are losing the material basis for "thinking".
Technology Charter
If Enlightenment ideas needed to be disseminated through printing, then equality and freedom in the AI era will need to be implemented through blockchain protocols . Web3 plays multiple roles in this movement:
Data sovereignty: From "inherent human rights" to "private keys equal human rights"
Web3, through decentralized identity (DID) and encryption, has achieved "physical isolation" of digital assets for the first time. This is similar to the Enlightenment's establishment of the inviolability of private property, making data no longer fuel for giants, but capital for individuals.
Digital Rule of Law: Achieving Separation of Powers using ZK-ML
Within the Web3 architecture, the combination of zero-knowledge proofs (ZK) and machine learning (ML) (ZK-ML) provides a verification mechanism. Instead of "trusting" the company, we "verify" the code. This achieves a check on the power of the algorithm, ensuring that every decision made by AI conforms to a pre-defined social contract.
Computational Democracy: The Rise of DePIN and Sovereign AI
Through decentralized physical infrastructure (DePIN), computing power scattered around the world is consolidated by the protocol. This breaks the computing power monopoly of giants, much like how local autonomy countered centralized power in the past, allowing each community to have its own independent AI agent.
Digital Republic
The ultimate goal of this movement is a "digital republic" where humans and AI coexist. Here, "Code is Law" evolves into "Sovereignty is Agreement."
Return of Ownership: From "Data Tenant" to "Digital Landlord"
Each person who contributes data automatically receives royalties generated by the AI through a smart contract, which can be extended to a **"Contribution-Based Equity"**:
Automation (Royalty 2.0) : It's not just about triggering payments when data is accessed. Through protocols like X404 , your data contributions can be converted into liquid asset shares. If a large model becomes smarter because of your unique data, your "data shares" will appreciate in value as the model's valuation increases.
Interactive : Through smart contracts, you can set the **"granularity" of data usage**. For example, you can allow AI to conduct public research (non-profit) for free, but for commercial inference, the AI must pay a small rent to your wallet in real time via the x402 protocol .
Human-Machine Boundary: Building a "Digital Biometric" Firewall
Through Web3's Proof of Personhood (PoP) protocol, we protect human uniqueness and voting rights in a world saturated with AI. PoP is not anti-robot; it's about defining the **"responsible party"**:
Proof of Uniqueness : Using ZK-Proof (zero-knowledge proof) , you can prove that you are human without revealing any of your real-world identity privacy. This "digital identity" is your sole credential for exercising your voting rights in the republic.
Final decision-making authority : The Republic's laws establish a **"Human-in-the-loop" mechanism**. For decisions involving life safety and significant resource allocation, the AI Agent only has advisory authority; the final signing authority must revert to a human node with PoP certification.
Protecting human creativity : DAO can develop incentive programs for "pure human content," automatically identifying and rewarding original human content that cannot be simulated by AI and that carries complex emotions and intuition.
AI Agent Economy: From "Lone Wolf" to "Decentralized Society"
AI agents operate autonomously on the blockchain, creating value for humanity, and the rules governing the distribution of this value are publicly governed by decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs). AI agents are no longer just tools, but rather **"digital legal entities"**:
Autonomous Balance Sheet : The AI Agent has its own on-chain wallet and credit score. It generates value by renting computing power on the DePIN network, and the remaining value after deducting operating costs is either turned over to the "public treasury" or distributed to its citizen owners according to governance rules.
DAO's algorithmic governance : The "constitution" of the republic is written into the DAO's smart contracts. Human citizens vote to determine the direction of AI's evolution (e.g., AI's learning preferences, ethical constraints, profit distribution ratios). This is a form of **"algorithmic democracy"**, ensuring that technological development does not deviate from the collective interests of humanity.
Cross-agent collaboration protocol : Agents owned by different humans can automatically reach "labor agreements" on the blockchain. Your "financial management agent" can hire other people's "information collection agents," and both parties settle accounts in milliseconds through the x402 interface , forming a highly developed autonomous driving economy that requires no human intervention.
"Digital Republic" is not a technological framework; it addresses the problem of "technological alienation."
Medium Part: Restoration and Turmoil
The motto of the French Revolution was "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity." In the AI era, these three words have taken on a new meaning: liberty (data breaking free from monopolies), equality (computing power readily available), and fraternity (sharing the benefits of algorithms) .
This new enlightenment doesn't require taking to the streets; it happens every time we choose an open-source model over a closed one, every time we vote with our wallets for decentralized protocols. Code is law, sovereignty is freedom. However, achieving a digital republic is not a one-time technological delivery, but a long-term, game-driven evolutionary process .
Short-term obstacles lie in user habits and the blockade by tech giants .
Long-term obstacles lie in technological performance bottlenecks and the fragmentation of the global governance system (such as the different AI regulatory standards of China, the US, Russia, and Europe in 2026).
Just as the French Revolution was followed by restoration and turmoil, the digital republic is also likely to experience a chaotic period of "algorithmic fragmentation." The vision of a "digital republic"—an ideal society where data sovereignty belongs to individuals, algorithms are transparent and auditable, and benefits are distributed fairly—is grand, but its transition from theory to reality faces multiple obstacles, ranging from the laws of technology and physics to the inherent nature of human power .
1. The "resistance" of the power structure: the moat of existing interests
The Enlightenment faced the old aristocracy, while the Digital Republic faces the "Big Tech" (data farm owners).
Monopolistic inertia: Giants that control computing power and data possess extremely strong network effects. For ordinary users, leaving a centralized platform means enormous social and migration costs.
Regulatory capture: The current situation in 2026 shows that even with laws such as the EU AI Act, large companies can still lobby to turn compliance standards into extremely high barriers to entry, thereby indirectly excluding decentralized competitors through "high compliance costs".
The contradiction of national sovereignty: Although many countries advocate "digital sovereignty", they tend to prefer to establish a "national centralized brain" rather than a "decentralized brain for all citizens".
2. The "Blockchain Trilemma" of Efficiency and Decentralization
In computer science, decentralization often comes at the cost of performance, and AI is an extremely resource-intensive technology.
Computing power gap: Training top-tier large models (such as GPT-5 level) requires a tight cluster of tens of thousands of H100 graphics cards. Web3's decentralized computing power (DePIN) currently performs well in inference (using AI), but it is limited by bandwidth latency in large-scale parallel training and cannot reach the efficiency of centralized data centers.
User experience (UX) barriers: Managing private keys, paying gas fees, and understanding data authorization logic remain too complex for the average person. If the price of "freedom" is "extreme difficulty in use," most people will still choose "smooth enslavement."
3. The "Black Box" Dilemma of Algorithm Governance
“Medieval believers interpreted God’s will through clergy; today’s users interpret the model’s output through API calls. When a large model becomes uninterpretable, it becomes a kind of ‘digital oracle’.”
The significance of Web3: It is the "religious reformation" of the digital world, taking back the "right to interpret truth" from the giants through ZK-ML (zero-knowledge machine learning) and returning it to every individual who can verify the code.
However, even with blockchain, the black box problem within AI remains difficult to eradicate.
The interpretability challenge: We can put AI's reasoning process on the blockchain, but current mathematical capabilities cannot fully explain why a model with 1 trillion parameters would give a specific answer. If the logic cannot be fully understood, the so-called "auditability" is only in form.
Sybil Attacks and Governance Manipulation: In the DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) of a digital republic, those with more tokens may have more decision-making power. This could lead to the "digital republic" rapidly evolving into "digital plutocracy," where the voices of the disadvantaged are once again drowned out.
4. The "No Man's Land" of Law and Ethics
When AI agents begin to trade and make decisions autonomously on the blockchain, the boundaries of legal liability become blurred.
Lack of accountability: If an AI autonomously running on the Web3 protocol causes economic losses or ethical disasters, who is responsible? Code is law, but in the real physical world, victims need compensation and justice.
The conflict between data silos and privacy protection: Digital republics demand data sharing to break monopolies, but privacy laws (such as GDPR) require strict data protection. How to enable data to realize collective value without compromising individual privacy still presents a significant computational challenge using ZK (zero-knowledge proof) technology.
Cognitive load: Not everyone wants to be their own "data CEO." In the age of information overload, many people would rather relinquish ownership in exchange for accurate algorithmic recommendations.
A crisis of authenticity: The proliferation of AI-generated content may cause people to lose faith in any form of "authenticity verification." When the cost of misinformation approaches zero, the underlying foundation of trust required for a digital republic will face a severe test.
Part Two: From "Sovereignty of Existence" to "Sovereignty of Being"
In the history of thought, each enlightenment has made "possession" more abstract and more essential.
The first enlightenment gave us the right to vote (political participation);
The Second Enlightenment gave us the right to consume (economic participation);
The third (AI) enlightenment must enable us to have digital sovereignty (existence and participation).
Without the technological contract provided by Web3, and without the intellectual defense provided by philosophy, humanity would be reduced to a mere "advanced biological parameter." Therefore, the most precious thing you possess is that soul that is "not fully explained by algorithms."
I. The Shift in Existence: From "Anthropocentrism" to "Distributed Subjectivity"
Traditional philosophy, whether it's Descartes' "I think, therefore I am" or Kant's "Man is an end in himself," places "man" at the center of cosmic cognition. But the civilization that leaps forward will bid farewell to this isolated subjectivity.
A theoretical model for the leap in civilization: Distributed Symbiotic Consciousness .
Abstract expression: In the AI era, intelligence is no longer "my attribute," but "the attribute of the field." When Web3 ensures the independent sovereignty of each node, and AI enables ultra-low entropy communication between nodes, civilization will evolve into an intelligent network woven together by countless sovereign atomic individuals .
Significance of the leap: For the first time, humanity is no longer an isolated, finite physical being, but connected through digital consensus, forming a "civilized organism" capable of simultaneously processing an infinite flow of information while maintaining the independent will of each individual.
II. Reconstruction of Value: From the "Logic of Scarcity" to the "Logic of Meaning Production"
The logic of civilization over the past five thousand years has been based on **"material scarcity"**—the struggle for land, resources, and computing power. This logic has led to zero-sum games and totalitarianism.
A theoretical model of civilizational leap: Meaning Miners in the Post-Scarcity Epoch .
Abstract expression: When AI pushes the productivity of materials and algorithms to the point where marginal costs reach zero, the hard currency of civilization will shift from "resources" to **"unique intent"**. Web3 solved the problem of verifying "uniqueness" (through non-homogeneous protocols), while AI solved the problem of "production".
Significance of this leap: Humanity will be completely liberated from the alienation of "working for survival" and will shift towards **"existing to create meaning ."** The indicator of civilizational progress will no longer be GDP, but rather the "reduction in the entropy of original thought" generated by all of humanity .
III. Reshaping Spacetime: From "Linear History" to "Multiple Parallel Evolutions"
The historical perspective since the Enlightenment has been linear and simplistic.
The theoretical model of civilizational leap: Protocol-defined Realities .
Abstract expression: Through the simulation capabilities of AI and the consensus isolation of Web3, humans can live simultaneously in thousands of "parallel social protocols." You can pursue cutting-edge cyber technology in one protocol and live a decentralized, idyllic life in another.
Significance of this leap: Civilization will be liberated from the compulsion of "monopoly" and move towards **"extreme diversity"**. This diversity is supported by the underlying security boundary provided by blockchain and the environmental support provided by AI. This is the ultimate evolution for civilization to resist heat death and maintain its vitality.
"Civilizations tend towards heat death (mediocrity, homogenization) because centralized power tends to unify algorithms. The 'multi-protocol parallel reality' created by AI + Web3 essentially injects 'entropy reduction' into civilization. Independent individuals choosing different protocols through private keys are choosing different tributaries of civilization's evolution. "
IV. The Ultimate Dialectic: Silicon-based as a "Mirror," Carbon-based as a "Light Source"
The essence of this leap is the **"return of human divinity"**. In the past, we considered humans gods because they could create tools; later, we discovered that machines were better at using tools than humans, leading to a sense of nihilism. But this leap tells us that the end of tools is algorithms, the end of algorithms is protocols, and the end of protocols is that "unwillingness to be defined intention." The next leap in civilization will not be humans becoming gods, but rather humans finally discovering that— after machines have taken on all the logic, labor, and calculation—the remaining, unique, and inexplicable "creative impulse" is the true soul of civilization.
Looking down from the pinnacle of this leap, the combination of AI and Web3 has philosophically completed a perfect closed loop .
"Divinity is not omniscience and omnipotence (that's the direction AI is heading), divinity is **'choosing to create even after knowing nothingness and finitude'**."
