On August 29, 2025, the Deep Funding community hosted an X Space exploring one of the most urgent questions of our time:

How do decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), governance, and emerging AI systems intersect and how can we ensure these systems amplify human agency rather than diminish it?

The session was hosted by Mariam Ekpere from the Deep Funding Event Circle and featured Haley Lowy, Alignment & Coordination Officer at SingularityNET and co-lead at BGI Nexus. The conversation brought together theory, practice, and community perspectives, offering a glimpse into what the future of decentralized coordination may look like.

What Are DAOs?

Before diving into the conversation, it’s helpful to understand what Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) are.

DAOs are community-led organizations that operate without centralized leadership. Instead of decisions being made by executives or managers, DAOs use blockchain-based smart contracts and collective voting mechanisms to coordinate action.

• Rules are transparent: Everything from governance structures to treasury spending is encoded on-chain.

• Participation is open: Anyone aligned with the mission can join and contribute.

• Decisions are collective: Members vote on proposals, often weighted by tokens or reputation systems.

In short, DAOs provide a new way for people to coordinate, fund, and govern projects together, without relying on traditional hierarchical systems.

Setting the Stage

Mariam opened the session with a reminder of the historic moment we are living through:

“We are seeing DAOs promise new forms of human coordination, while AI systems are rapidly approaching human-level capabilities. The question is not whether they intersect, it’s how we shape that intersection to create the conditions for flourishing rather than dysfunction, ensuring these systems empower human agency instead of undermining it”

This framed the discussion around agency, inclusivity, and governance design which are all central to the Deep Funding mission.

DAOs as a New Kind of Social Intelligence

Haley points out that DAOs are more than “smart contracts.” They represent a new kind of human coordination, one that gains unprecedented potential when combined with AI:

• Collaboration at scale: DAOs let people coordinate without central control.

• Hybrid intelligence: With AI, DAOs may evolve into collective intelligences, blending human creativity with machine-driven sensemaking.
• The big question: Are we building better organizations, or entirely new forms of social intelligence?

Rethinking Reputation: From Scores to Growth

Reputation systems are at the heart of DAOs, but Haley warned they can either empower communities or replicate inequalities:

• Relational & developmental: Reputation should be a feedback system helping individuals and organizations learn and grow, rather than just ranking them.

• Avoiding “reputation whales”: Just as token whales dominate votes, long-term members could dominate through reputation. To prevent this, systems should include temporal decay (older contributions weigh less) and AI anti-gaming tools.

• Beyond metrics: Instead of chasing points, reputation should encourage trust, creativity, and flourishing.
  

As Haley put it:

“Reputation is not just about ranking people, it should be a shared memory of contributions that encourages growth and creativity.”

When Does AI Become a Member?

One of the most compelling questions of the session: Where do we draw the line between tool and member?

• AI already supports DAOs by distilling conversations, surfacing patterns, and aligning small decisions into broader strategies .

• In the future, AI systems themselves may hold reputation scores, judged on how well they serve community goals .

• Mariam reflected:
  “If an AI system adapts from feedback, learns from governance outcomes, and contributes meaningfully, at what point does it stop being a tool and start being a participant?”

Beyond Token-Based Voting

Token-based voting is common but flawed, often concentrating power. Alternatives discussed included:

• Reputation-weighted voting: Recognizing builders, educators, and contributors alongside token holders.

• Role-based authority: Allowing trusted contributors to guide budgets or decisions without constant votes.

• Deliberation-first models: Used in the Ambassador Program, prioritizing discussion and consensus before formal voting.
  

These approaches point toward wisdom-driven and inclusive governance, not just wealth-based governance.

AI: The Glue and Grease of Future DAOs

Scaling DAOs beyond small groups has always been hard. AI offers practical solutions:

• Maintaining institutional memory across thousands of contributors.

• Translating perspectives across diverse communities.

• Aggregating signals into shared values and strategies without requiring votes on every minor issue.
  

As Haley put it:

“AI becomes both glue and grease, it holds the organization together to a shared vision, and helps it function smoothly with less friction.”

Community Questions & Reflections

The Q&A segment spotlighted real concerns from the community:

• Abdulrahman Adigun worried about newcomers being overshadowed by “reputation whales.” Haley responded that fresh contributions must be recognized, reputation should decay over time, and AI can help surface high-quality input from new members.

• Judith Williams asked about the SingularityNET Reputation Program. Haley explained it builds on early research (2017–2018) and is now evolving through collaborations with Deep Funding, Reputo, and BGI Nexus. It’s aiming to create a transparent, participatory, and scalable system.
  

These exchanges grounded the theory in the real challenges DAOs face today, showing how design choices affect fairness and inclusivity.

Why It Matters for Deep Funding

Deep Funding’s mission is to empower communities to fund and govern the future of decentralized AI.

This conversation directly advanced that mission by:

• Highlighting reputation systems as enablers of trust and fairness.

• Exploring AI as an ally in scaling human coordination.

• Ensuring community voices shape governance design before it becomes entrenched.
  

As Mariam closed the session:

“The future of DAOs is not just about building better organizations, it’s about proving that artificial societies can empower rather than dominate. That’s work worth doing together.”

Key Takeaways

• DAOs + AI = Collective Intelligence: Together, they can achieve what neither can alone.

• Reputation Must Empower, Not Exclude: Systems should nurture growth and creativity, not domination.

• AI as Members: The line between tool and participant is already blurring.

• Beyond Tokens: Reputation, roles, and deliberation can make governance more inclusive.

• Scaling with AI: AI can maintain memory, surface shared strategies, and align large communities.

What’s Next

This conversation is just the beginning. As technology evolves, so will the questions around governance, participation, and collective intelligence.

• Stay Engaged: Deep Funding will continue hosting biweekly X Spaces on decentralized AI and governance.

• Explore Resources:
  • SingularityNET Reputation Research (archived blogs)

  • Reputo Project

  • BGI Nexus
    
• Join the Next Session:  Next week we’ll return with a new guest, a new topic, and more opportunities to shape the future of decentralized governance.