Autonomous vehicles – an awesome concept. Punching in your destination, having a nap and waking up where you need to be – what could be better.
But this has been talked about to death so let’s look at something new and exciting!
Now if you’re deep down the rabbit hole of blockchains and cryptocurrencies, you’ll have heard of Decentralised Autonomous Organisations – DAO’s. For the rest of us though, a DAO is basically an organisation that exists only as computer code. It is controlled by no-one, has a set of rules held on a blockchain and can hold assets of its own.
Back to our self-driving cars and a fantastic example of a potential DAO is a taxi that owns itself. Essentially, it would drive around taking people to their destinations, perhaps using an app similar to Uber. The money it collects is used to pay for electricity when it needs charging and repairs when it needs repairing.
But wait, who would set this up and why? Perhaps an entrepreneur may buy the vehicle and program the DAO to pay herself a fee for the first two years. After that, the DAO taxi will adjust its fare so it breaks even and become a service to the community for the rest of eternity. Well at least until roads no longer exist…
Now let’s have a look at this concept from a strata perspective. A Body Corporate is an entity where control is decentralised throughout the owners - decision power ought to be spread between owners per their unit entitlements. The functions it undertakes are relatively standardised being:
1. Taking votes by owners on issues
2. Setting the budget and levies
3. Maintaining the building
4. Paying bills
5. Making insurance claims
There is nothing that a Body Corporate does that couldn’t have rules defined in a DAO. This would ensure fairness for all owners and end many inefficiencies that exist in the current human-to-human decision-making process.
The owners could also vote on code changes. Perhaps new legislation comes out requiring the Body Corp to do something different – the owners would just vote to implement new code, allowing them to comply.
This of course isn’t without risk. If the Body Corp DAO holds the sinking and admin funds, it could be vulnerable to cyber-attacks. Famously, one of the first DAO’s “The DAO” had code vulnerability and 3.6M Ether (worth about AUD$3.3B as of writing) was taken.
Whilst this concept seems weird and wonderful, in actuality it is not that far away. Companies like Stratabox are working on interfaces for owners to interact, Claim Central have a unique platform that connects repairers with Body Corporates and your beloved StrataRatings, will assist the Body Corp DAO to make insurance purchasing decisions.
Ahh, the future...