A Million-Year Gearbox
AI and the journey of human cooperation
Imagine a world where gears didn’t exist. No bicycles, no clocks, no engines—just human effort and raw materials. Then, one day, someone carved a notched wheel and realized it could transfer force from one place to another. It was a small discovery, almost unnoticeable, but it planted the seed of something far greater.
Over centuries, simple wooden gears turned to metal. Windmills ground grain, water wheels powered hammers, and clockmakers tinkered with tiny mechanisms. Then came the industrial age—pistons, steam engines, and eventually the gearbox, and automated transmissions - masterpieces of engineering that allowed humans to harness power efficiently. But there was a problem. As machines became more advanced, their rigid mechanics struggled with flexibility. A spinning shaft couldn’t bend, a turning wheel needed constant power without interruption, and so the Universal Joint (U-Joint) was born—allowing rotation at an angle but with imperfections. It wasn’t until the Constant Velocity (CV) Joint that motion finally became smooth, uninterrupted, and harmonious across all angles. It took 500 years of collective human ingenuity to refine this simple idea into the technology that powers every car on the road today. Certainly we can appreciate this journey as we can much of modern technology.
Now, step back from mechanics and look at a journey much older— systems of human coordination.
A Million-Year Gearbox
Long before we had gears, before we had writing, before we even had money, our ancestors were solving a far greater problem—how to work together efficiently for their common well-being. We can guess that early groups of humans gathered not because they were told to, but because they needed each other to survive and thrive. Like the first useful gears, they passed food, watched each other’s children, and shared knowledge through stories around the fire.
One the shoulders of this came increased specialization, and with it, a new challenge—organizing. Who hunts? Who plants? Who harvests? Who makes the tools? Instead of keeping rigid roles, they developed rotating labor associations (ROLAs)—like the Mweria of Kenya, the Letsema of South Africa, and the Ubuntu spirit that spread across communities. They pooled commitments, helping each other in cycles, ensuring that everyone’s fields were plowed, houses were built, and no one was left behind and trust could be built. These are the oldest economic systems known to humanity and span the entire planet.
“A gearbox without oil grinds to a halt; a society without trust does the same.”
This wasn’t a random arrangement; it was an optimized system, likely fine-tuned over hundreds of thousands of years. It was the gearbox of human coordination, shifting work where it was needed, smoothing the burden across the community, and ensuring everyone could thrive and trust in each other. The origins of multilateral offsetting, credit clearing, poly-centric networks of associations and modern contract law can all be found in these ancient proto-social systems.
We do not invent cooperation—we inherit it.
But just like early gear boxes and U-Joints, some had inefficiencies and limitations when faced with extreme extraction. Some people took much more than they gave. Some hoarded resources while others starved. Some found they could dominate and stop others from coordination and sharing and instead force them into dependency. Rigid power structures formed, money replaced trust, and suddenly, the gears of cooperation started grinding against each other - while the power of centralization took form.
And now? We find ourselves at a crossroads.
The wisdom of the past is the blueprint for the future.
Just as the CV Joint in cars solved the problem of smooth, flexible motion, Commitment Pooling solved the problem of smooth, flexible cooperation for our ancestors. Instead of relying on rigid financial systems, we can return to our roots—making commitments, honoring reputation, and ensuring reciprocity flows. We can as well make sure the tools of connecting are not kept in silos, or behind desks or $ gated halls - but freely available and abundantly understood by all.
And just as machines we built improved to use computational intelligence, so too has our coordination. AI systems, like the Ulimisana Optimization Algorithm (The UOA paper is a must read), are now modeling forms of Commitment Pooling and Rotating Labor Associations for problem-solving—like digital versions of Mweria in Kenya, where AI agents take turns optimizing solutions, and gaining trust in each other, just as humans once took turns plowing fields.
In this light - we can see a path where AI is not replacing us—it’s continuing the journey with us. It’s learning to cooperate using and building on the same principles our ancestors perfected.
Picking Up the Torch
This is about us humans standing on the shoulders of giants and building on the past, iterating, improving, refining and caring. Commitment Pooling isn’t new—it’s where our ancestors already arrived. We are simply picking up the torch, carrying forward their wisdom into a new era. See how it’s being implemented with decentralized ledger technology today in Kenya.
No great mechanism is built overnight—neither were or are great societies.
This is our a crucial moment. Just as engineers mastered harmonious mechanical motion, we now have the opportunity to master harmonious social coordination—to ensure everyone is included, every contribution valued, and every commitment honored. Read the book Grassroots Economics for more depth on core protocols.
The journey is long, we are not the first to walk it and must not be the last.
And if history has taught us anything, it’s that we only succeed when we move forward—together, no matter how long the journey.
Special thanks to Wakanyi and Chris Hoffman with Humanity Link Foundation for taking crucial steps forward in our understanding and access to systems and tools that enhance and further our humanity.
Very good essay. But I wouldn’t mind an actual gearbox that lasted a little longer too. And a few other appliances…
yes yes - harness what we have not extract is the way forward with AI - because essentially this Artificial Intelligence is built off Ancient Intelligence!