Anthony Butler

From Hierarchy to Intelligence: How AI Rewrites the Theory of the Firm

In 1937, Ronald Coase posed a question that still underpins modern economics: if markets are efficient, why do firms exist at all? His answer was simple but profound. Firms exist because coordination through the market is costly. Negotiating contracts, discovering prices, aligning incentives, and managing uncertainty all impose friction. The

From AutoResearch to Proof-of-Improvement: Decentralising Optimisation and Discovery

Autonomous research systems, such as Andrej Karpathy’s autoresearch, demonstrate a simple yet powerful paradigm for iterative model improvement. In this framework, an agent modifies a training script, executes short experiments, evaluates performance against a defined metric, and retains only those changes that yield measurable improvements. While minimal in implementation,

Cryptographic Dead-Man Switches for Sovereign Infrastructure

Recent attacks targeting data center infrastructure in the UAE and Bahrain highlight an uncomfortable reality: digital infrastructure is increasingly becoming a geopolitical target. Modern states depend deeply on digital systems. Government services, financial infrastructure, national registries, and increasingly artificial intelligence systems all run on large-scale compute platforms. If the domestic

The AI Productivity Paradox?

Most people believe AI is already transforming workplace productivity. Tools like ChatGPT are everywhere. Workers are writing faster, coding more efficiently, and summarising dense documents in seconds. But here’s a less popular, but increasingly important idea: The productivity gains from today’s AI tools largely accrue to the employee—

The Sovereignty Imperative: Five Layers of AI Independence

With artificial intelligence becoming increasingly important economically and politically, terms like "Sovereign Cloud" and "Sovereign AI" are frequently used in policy discussions. However, they often lack clear, comprehensive definitions. Many existing definitions—particularly those promoted by technology vendors—fall significantly short of what governments should consider to establish genuine strategic

On AI Embassies

AI Embassies: Securing Sovereign AI Infrastructure As governments increasingly rely on artificial intelligence (AI) for national security, public services, and economic management, protecting AI systems has become an urgent priority. The compromise of critical AI systems could have cascading effects across defense, healthcare, and economic stability. While "sovereign clouds" offer

The Evolution of Interfaces: A Hybrid Future

The history of user interfaces is one of constant evolution—from the command-line interfaces of early computing to the graphical systems that democratised technology. Now, with the rise of AI-driven conversational interfaces like ChatGPT, we're seeing a new paradigm emerge. But does this shift represent progress, or does it reveal

Building National AI Sovereignty: A Strategic Framework

"Just deploy local data centers and you'll have AI sovereignty." I hear this surprisingly often from senior leaders and from vendors arguing that local deployment is the same as sovereign deployment. Unfortunately, this view isn't just oversimplified—it's dangerously inadequate in a world in which AI is becoming increasingly important

A graph pathfinding approach to FX liquidity challenges

In blockchain networks that are focused on enabling PvP cross-border payments, such as the BIS Innovation Hub’s mBridge, addressing the FX conversion requirement is important. There may be a challenge with these multi-currency payment networks around the liquidity of certain currency pairs. This can, of course, be solved by

Liquidity-saving mechanisms in trade credit networks: Optimising corporate liquidity

Trade Credit Liquidity Savings Mechanism vFTrade Credit Liquidity Savings Mechanism vF.pdf1 MBdownload-circle Trade credit, or the delayed payment for intermediate goods, has been reported as an important source of short-term external finance for many non-financial firms. The value of trade payables is comparable with that of outstanding corporate bonds

IP considerations in consulting/services agreements

As a result of Vision 2030, there is a tremendous amount of innovation occurring across every dimension of Saudi Arabia: from the digital transformation of government, the development of the gigaprojects (such as NEOM), or the vast efforts of the Public Investment Fund to accelerate the growth of the non-oil

Designing a privacy preserving rCBDC

There has been a lot of global debate about privacy in the context of retail CBDCs, particularly in the context of them being a replacement for cash. The perception is that the introduction of a retail CBDC would enable broad surveillance powers for the government as well as the ability

Decentralized Liquidity Savings Mechanisms with Privacy-Preserving Cryptography

In the context of the wCBDC discussion, there is a lot of focus on the standard lifecycle of the CBDC from issuance through to redemption but not as much consideration of the possible liquidity implications. One of the most powerful concepts in financial markets is the concept of the Liquidity

Money is a General Purpose Technology

There are certain technologies that are characterised as General Purpose Technologies (GPTs). These are technologies, like electricity or the computer, that have a very large economic impact: often at a national or global level. They are characterised by their broad usefulness and applicability to different sectors and applications; they are,

ChatGPT is the ‘Netscape moment’ for artificial intelligence’

Originally published in Arab News. It is impossible for anyone to have missed the excitement generated by ChatGPT. Countless articles on the subject have been written, including many by ChatGPT. While underlying technologies, such as deep learning, are not new, ChatGPT’s rich conversational interface has captured the popular imagination

AI might not take jobs but it will take tasks

Artificial intelligence (AI) and specifically Large Language Models (LLMs) are what is defined in the economics literature, as a General Purpose Technology. These are specific classes of technology that demonstrate improvements over time, become pervasive throughout the economy, and typically lead to the spawning of complementary innovations and positive spillover

On impossible grammars and Large Language Models

The interest in Large Language Models (LLMs) has led to a resurgence of popular interest in cognitive science. One of the interesting questions that come up is whether these models understand language; that is, whether they have developed some form of cognitive ability. The results of models such as GPT4

Living and working in the metaverse

Originally published in Arab News. In the 1930s, Nobel Prize-winning economist Ronald Coase wrote a seminal essay on the nature of the firm, explaining the reason for the emergence and growth of companies. He argued that firms are what they are because of transaction costs. It is not cost-effective to

Intellectual Property and the Metaverse

Amidst all the excitement about the metaverse, it's always interesting to think about what else needs to evolve; what are the second-order effects that we need to consider. There are, broadly, an interesting set of legal issues and questions that arise from the metaverse. I have written, for example, about

A “Turing Test” for Virtual Worlds

I recently read Reality+:Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy by New York University's Professor David Chalmers. It's one of the more interesting and intellectually challenging books written on what is today being characterised broadly as the "metaverse": with Chalmers using the emergence of virtual worlds as a mechanism

Interview with MEA Finance on applications of AI in financial advisory services

Originally published at https://issuu.com/meafinance/docs/september-2022/22 At the beginning of 2022, several new Robo Advisory platforms were launched in GCC, can we expect to see many more coming online in the near future? The first robo-advisors appeared in 2010 and the market has grown rapidly in

Emerging metaverse security and privacy threats

The metaverse has captured everyone's imagination – including mine – particularly as we start think through the economic and social possibilities that it can unlock. As with most things though, there are also risks and threats; and, as companies and governments think through the great potential, they should also consider potential risks.

Accellerating decentralized innovation in biotech

Most people will have heard of Moore's Law as it relates to the computer industry but there's a similar – though diametrically opposed -- law that governs the pharmacutical indusry known as Eroom's Law. Eroom's Law states that the speed of drug development declines and costs double every nine years. This

Power laws, population, and prosperity

This week, I was discussing the plans announced by the Saudi government last year to double the population of Riyadh by 2030. I mentioned, much to the apparent surprise of some of the audience, that doubling the population of the city could help make the city a much greener and

On identifying talent

There are few decisions that can have as great a positive – or negative – impact on a company or a team than hiring decisions: talent allocation is, after all, the fuel behind economic growth. As such, being able to interview well is a super-power; part art, part science but a fundamentally