Programmable Money & Auto Public Offerings (by Silly Rabbit)
August 1, 2017·0 comments·narrative
The capacity to automate is expanding into domains previously thought immune: algorithms are matching professional photographers, AI systems are planning ahead by imagining consequences, and investment banks have mapped the automation of half their IPO preparation work. But there's a deeper disruption emerging. As these systems become programmable at the level of incentives and money itself, knowledge about how they work becomes obsolete almost as soon as it's gained.
- Goldman Sachs has systematically automated the work that once occupied junior investment bankers earning $326,000 a year. The automation wasn't incremental. They mapped half the entire IPO preparation process into code, displacing specific, well-compensated professional roles.
- The disruption isn't limited to finance. Algorithms are now selecting landscape photography at near-professional quality, and AI systems developed by DeepMind have acquired the ability to imagine potential consequences before acting, making them more efficient at planning than systems without this capacity.
- The real shift is structural, not technological. Blockchain and smart contracts are making money itself programmable. When money is programmable, incentives become programmable. When incentives are programmable, behavior itself becomes programmable.
- Each advance in understanding creates a paradox. The more data we gather and the better we map these systems, the faster the systems adapt and change. Knowledge that changes behavior quickly becomes outdated.
- What remains unclear is which professional domains are actually protected from this wave. If complexity and expertise stop guaranteeing economic insulation, what happens to the career paths that built the last fifty years of professional life?
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