Human-Machine Interdependence Beyond Ai Development: the Case of Bitcoin

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze Bitcoin as an identifiable system of human-machine interdependence. The authors start with a brief historical outline of the Bitcoin project and discuss questions that Bitcoin poses to social sciences, such as whether Bitcoin is money, how the Bitcoin project relates to economic theory, what determines the value of a Bitcoin, and what are the conditions for trust in Bitcoin? Finally, what happens when the Bitcoin project becomes a reality? In what follows, the authors correlate the existence of Bitcoin with the spread of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies as active intermediaries and participants in human interactions. After observing the similarities and differences between AI and the Bitcoin project, the idea of whether Bitcoin can act as “artificial money” for AI is discussed, and the reality of human-machine interdependence is exemplified. In conclusion, the authors define Bitcoin as a particular system of human-machine interdependence initially conceived as an alternative to money; however, in reality, it supplements the existing economic order.