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Isn't this the problem "smart contracts" were supposed to solve? I say "supposed to," because the problem here is that if contracts are code, and code can have
by actually_a_dog 5y ago
Isn't this the problem "smart contracts" were supposed to solve? I say "supposed to," because the problem here is that if contracts are code, and code can have bugs, then contracts can have bugs. Technically, this is true of traditional contracts, but, if a traditional contract has a bug, it gets settled through the court system, not just executed as is.
- Zhyl 5y agoIt's worth noting that 'Smart Contracts' are more 'Financial Instruments as code' rather than 'Ricardian Contracts' which are what most people think when they see 'smart' and 'contract' together. I had a comment on the last time this came up where 'A computer language for law' was a bad idea unqualified, but this page actually seems to address most of the points I raised in that comment. The thrust of the comment is 'Law is not something that will be executable and that we just automate' but more 'Law is something with an underlying structure that we can use engineering tools to write, validate and understand.' That is to say, the tools are there to help the humans with doing law stuff, not doing it for them. This page is pretty wooly and high level, but it does seem to be going more down that avenue, which is laudable. It does mention smart contracts and Ethereum which I think might be distracting in the early days, but we'll see.