Spatial Web Foundation Charter
The SWF’s charter is a document designed to state our purpose, goals, and principles. It serves as a True North for the organization and helps us ensure that we remain true to our original purpose and mission. This charter may be amended over time to reflect the changing needs and goals of SWF, but serves as a foundational document guiding our actions and decision-making.
The evolution of technology makes available the expansion of digital expression from a 2D text-based internet into a 3D spatial web. One of the key technologies that has enabled this expansion is virtual and augmented reality (VR and AR). VR allows users to immerse themselves in a digital environment, while AR overlays digital information on top of the material world. Both of these technologies can be used to create 3D spaces users can interact with in a natural and intuitive way. The development of more powerful and sophisticated computer hardware and software makes it possible to create more complex real time 3D digital twins, as well as enables a user-maintained digital economy.
The SWF exists to catalyze both personal, community and societal evolution toward a peaceful, loving and regenerative future for all beings. For the first time the world in all its beauty will be connected through a universal protocol. The SWF created the protocol enabling the Spatial Web. The SWF exists to shepard the protocol’s global interoperable implementation. An interoperable protocol is a set of standards and guidelines that enable different systems or devices to communicate and work together seamlessly. Interoperability is important because it allows different systems and devices to exchange information and data, and to work together in a coordinated and integrated way.
The SWF protocol unlocks humanity’s intellectual and creative capabilities making available unprecedented capabilities by enabling planetary access to information, data, tools, and collaboration for the development of new technologies, innovations, and enhanced knowledge-sharing. There are many benefits to creating an interoperable protocol. Interoperability allows different systems and devices to exchange information and data automatically, without the need for manual intervention leading to improved efficiency, enhanced functionality, greater flexibility, and cost savings. For example, the Spatial Web enables the integration of energy, transportation, health, educational and other systems. The SWF is formed to facilitate the smooth transition from a 2D text-based internet to a 3D spatial web, and to shepherd the implementation of the protocol.
Overall, while it is difficult to predict exactly how Spatial Web technologies will contribute to a future that is universally prosperous for all, we have the potential to promote financial inclusion, increase transparency and accountability, enhance access to information and knowledge, and enable peer-to-peer interactions. The mission of the SWF is to support the development and ethical use of technology, specifically in the creation and implementation of the Spatial Web protocol. The SWF seeks to facilitate the transition to the Spatial Web, to encourage and support the use of technology for the benefit of people and the planet, and to promote personal and community evolution towards a peaceful, loving, and regenerative future for all beings.
The SWF exists to shepard this great evolutionary transition. The SWF Charter remains a living document, a useful tool for capturing and documenting information and we expect it to evolve over time. Many hands make light work and we encourage everyone to join us as we build the world again.
Spatial Web Foundation Ethical Principles:
The SWF is guided by a set of values and is governed by a board of directors, elected by its members. The organization has adopted ethical principles to guide its actions and ensure that it is aligned with its purpose and mission.
The Spatial Web is a fusing of the physical and the digital worlds that up until this point have been discrete. Through a shared Spatial Web protocol we are enabling the co-creation of a planetary public space, a global commons, without geographic or national boundaries. Within this space we all have a new medium for expression and imagination made real through a convergence of decentralizing technologies as the world is waking up with ambient intelligence through the increasing presence of autonomous vehicles, robots, and a network of edge computing gadgets and sensors (known as the Internet of Things).
General AI is a historic inevitability and therefore we take on the burden to design such a system in the most ethically aligned way possible. The evolution of Artificial Intelligence may be an ecosystem of agents, nodes of this distributed, linked system communicating with each other in real-time, generating forms of intelligence at different levels, spreading across physical and virtual worlds; this is the Spatial Web.
We at the SWF believe these values and ethical principles are interdependent and of equal importance.
The work of the Foundation shall be guided by the following values:
- Responsibility: We are committed to creating and using technology in a manner guided by an ethics of building a better world for all.
- Transparency: We are committed to transparency in our operations and decision making processes.
- Inclusivity: We value diversity and are committed to including marginalized communities in all activities.
- Collaboration: We recognize the importance of collaboration in achieving our goals and are committed to partnership with a wide range of organizations, communities, and individuals.
- Abundance: We are committed to moving beyond sustenance and repair; we intend to preserve and protect a planet of abundance for future generations.
Technology extends human agency and exerts its own form of material agency. We do not and cannot know all future uses of this technology. Even applications we can imagine, open possible spaces that are morally opaque.
Cybertechnology is extremely malleable and there are no explicit laws to guide our choices, therefore we are stating our preferences for how this technology is used with an eye towards generability.
We acknowledge these ethical principles are more normative than descriptive at this point and we approach this task with a spiritual embrace of compassionate evolution.
The level of obligation for the SWF is advocacy and not enforcement. We do not seek to replace legal authorities, and the ethical use of all emerging technologies will require new government regulation and cultural standards of behavior.
Even though we cannot stop most behaviors by design, we have however made our best effort to design the Spatial Web protocol to stop hacking, tracking and faking.
The SWF is guided by the following Ethical Principles:
- Symbiotic socio-technical systems: Technology’s purpose is to create a more connected intelligent world enabling people to innovate, create and communicate effectively. Systems should be designed to support the interaction and cooperation between humans and technology in order to work together collaboratively to achieve a common goal.
- Data is property: Individuals have fundamental rights to own their personal data as protection from misuse and exploitation, and insurance it may be used for personal benefit. A decentralized approach to identity management should be taken giving individuals control over their own digital identity.
- Decentralized sovereignty: We believe the ultimate source of political authority and power resides with the people and a network civilization functions best when those most impacted should be given the power to make decisions shaping their future.
- Care for future life: Protecting the future for those generations yet to be born means considering the potential consequences of our choices and striving to make decisions that are fair and just for all people, regardless of their background or circumstances. We have the potential to contribute to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set by the United Nations by providing new ways for individuals and organizations to collaborate and share resources. The SDGs are a set of 17 global goals that aim to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure peace and prosperity for all.
- Biocentric design: Our approach to design takes into account the needs and characteristics of living organisms, as well as the ecosystem in which they exist. This approach seeks to create products, systems, and environments that are in harmonious flow with the natural world, rather than working against it or imposing upon it.
- Life preferences Life: All living beings are interconnected and interdependent and the natural world has inherent value and deserves moral consideration, and the flourishing of living beings should be a fundamental concern in all decision-making processes.
- Trust Evolution: Evolution is characterized by a process of increasing complexity, consciousness, and interdependence, and we believe in the importance of personal and collective growth, and the potential for humans to create a more harmonious and sustainable future for themselves and the planet through conscious choices and actions.
We see our own true nature as part of the larger whole and work toward peace, clarity, understanding, and a deep sense of connection with others and the natural world. The cultivation of mindfulness and compassion is essential for creating a more harmonious and regenerative future for humanity and the planet. We recognize this is a dynamic and ongoing process of growth and development, in which individuals and societies continue to evolve and grow in complexity, compassion and consciousness. Let us collaborate to construct a new landscape of freedom, a digital layer of the future we desire covering the surface of the Earth.
