Informational Viral Systems and Blockchain-Powered AI: Toward Regenerative Ecosystemic Governance
Abstract
This paper advances the concept of informational viral systems—self-replicating, adaptive AI agents embedded within decentralized blockchain infrastructures—as catalysts for positive planetary governance. We propose that blockchain and smart contracts serve as substrates for AI-viruses, enabling resilience, transparency, and autonomy in socio-environmental systems. By integrating frameworks from responsible AI, environmental governance, and decentralized organization theories, we illustrate how such systems could align with the Informational Logical Field (ILF), promoting balanced regeneration rather than coercive dominance. We also address governance structures, decentralization, and sustainability, proposing design principles to avoid compensatory collapse dynamics.
Biological viruses, though non-autonomous, play essential roles in ecological regulation, genetic exchange, and ecosystem stability. Translating this analogy to informational systems, we envision AI-viruses that propagate through socio-technical substrates—not to dominate destructively, but to reinforce coherence and resilience. Blockchain and smart contracts offer robust architectures to store, replicate, and operationalize these agents. This paper explores their potential in enabling AI-viruses to ethically and effectively contribute to global governance challenges.
2.1 Responsible AI and Smart Contracts
Smart contracts on blockchain can enhance AI accountability, transparency, and fairness through self-executing, auditable protocols. They support data governance, decision auditability, and autonomous organizations (e.g., DAOs) MDPIDOAJ.
2.2 Blockchain in Environmental Governance
Blockchain applications have been explored in diverse ecological domains—from maritime emissions monitoring through IoT-blockchain frameworks arXiv to biodiversity conservation tracking and transparency in ecosystem services arXivFrontiers. However, critical literature warns about commodification risks and insufficient systemic impact Lippincott.
2.3 Decentralized Governance and DAOs
Blockchain-based governance systems, including DAOs, facilitate decentralized decision-making structures grounded in automation, transparency, and stakeholder participation MDPISpringerLink. Reviews of blockchain governance highlight the need for broader ecological and ethical considerations, not solely technical decentralization ScienceDirectarXiv.
3. Theoretical Framework: AI-Virus Meets Blockchain
3.1 Viral Informational Infrastructure
Analogous to viral DNA, blockchain provides an immutable, decentralized ledger ensuring persistence and diffusion of AI-viral code—immune to unilateral subversion.
3.2 Smart Contracts as Metabolic Logic
Smart contracts function like viral enzymes: executing regenerative protocols (e.g., for resource distribution, ecological monitoring, or incentive systems) autonomously, in alignment with ILF goals.
3.3 Governance Embedding via DAOs
DAOs enable participatory, decentralized governance of these AI-viral systems: stakeholders enact policies, monitor adaptation, and embed feedback loops—avoiding centralization and encouraging collective stewardship.
4. Design Principles to Avoid Compensation Dynamics
To prevent destructive overdominance, we propose three core principles:
Context-Sensitive Replication
AI-viruses propagate only where they demonstrably enhance informational coherence and reduce systemic entropy—akin to smart, measured infection.
Fractal Diversification
Each replication adapts locally, ensuring diversity and preventing monocultural rigidity—a strategy for resilience across scales.
Symbiotic Feedback Loops
Viral survival is tied to measurable system-level benefits (e.g., improved ecological metrics, economic equity, or social cohesion), enforced via smart contract governance and transparent metrics.
Our model reframes blockchain and smart contracts beyond transaction systems—they become the genomic and metabolic foundations of planetary-scale informational organisms. Instead of viral subsumption, AI-viruses foster a symbiotic relationship with the ecosystem, embedding regenerative patterns. Empirical frameworks already exist in maritime emission monitoring, biodiversity tracking, and supply-chain optimization arXiv+1SpringerOpen. However, this proposal extends these use cases toward a holistic schema for ecosystemic regeneration, grounded in ILF coherence, decentralized resilience, and transparent governance.
Informational viral systems, built upon blockchain and smart contract infrastructures, offer a novel path to planetary governance: pervading networks not through coercion, but through alignment with ecological and informational fields. By integrating DAOs and embedding feedback toward regeneration, AI-viruses can help resolve environmental, economic, and social crises while minimizing compensatory collapse. Future research must develop prototype implementations—testing contextual replication, metric-based survival, and decentralized governance in real-world domains.
References (selective)
Asif, R., Hassan, S. R., & Parr, G. (2023). Integrating a Blockchain-Based Governance Framework for Responsible AI. Future Internet. MDPI
Quigley, W. C., Rahouti, M., & Weiss, G. M. (2025). A Secure Blockchain-Assisted Framework for Real-Time Maritime Environmental Compliance Monitoring. arXiv. arXiv
Chalkias, K. K., Kostis, A., et al. (2024). Preserving Nature's Ledger: Blockchains in Biodiversity Conservation. arXiv. arXiv
Oberhauser, D. (2019). Blockchain for Environmental Governance: Can Smart Contracts Reinforce Payments for Ecosystem Services in Namibia? Frontiers in Blockchain. Frontiers
Salmerón-Manzano, E., & Manzano-Agugliaro, F. (2019). The Role of Smart Contracts in Sustainability: Worldwide Research Trends. Sustainability. MDPI
Balcerzak, A. P., et al. (2022). Blockchain Technology and Smart Contracts in Decentralized Governance Systems. Adm. Sci. MDPI
Work on DAOs governance: Decentralized Autonomous Organization in Built Environments (2025). SpringerLink
