Who governs our reality?

Speaking at the AIBC Asia conference in Manila, Dr Jane Thomason, World Metaverse Chair and an AIBC ambassador, said power over the digital economy is increasingly concentrated among a small number of actors — from cloud providers and platform companies to regulators and early blockchain adopters — raising urgent questions about accountability in a rapidly codified society.

“Who controls the cloud? In the West, it’s three companies. Who controls the platforms? Four companies,” Thomason said. “We are no longer governed solely by those elected to govern us. The infrastructure — the cloud, the cables, the platforms — shapes how society operates.”

She added that undersea cables, which carry the vast majority of global data traffic, and dominant cloud providers form the backbone of a system in which control over data and digital infrastructure confers significant influence over economies and societies.

The shift mirrors the evolution of gaming, which Thomason described not as entertainment but as “infrastructure”: a $300 billion industry that now underpins broader digital ecosystems. Modern gaming environments combine software, hardware, data flows and social systems in ways that are increasingly mirrored in sectors from healthcare to education and finance.

“Gaming has become the first large-scale experiment in codified governance,” she said. “In Web3 environments, players aren’t just users — they are citizens. They own assets, they vote, they participate in economies.”

Platforms such as Roblox and blockchain-based games function more like jurisdictions than traditional games, she said, with rules enforced through code and economic incentives embedded in design.

The risks are not theoretical. In countries such as the Philippines, play-to-earn gaming briefly provided households with real income, but when values collapsed, so did livelihoods tied to them.

Thomason said this shift reflects a broader move toward a “codified society,” in which governance is embedded in digital systems rather than traditional institutions. Governments, banks and hospitals are increasingly adopting the same architecture developed in gaming: programmable rules, infrastructural governance and distributed — yet still concentrated — power.

Four groups are now shaping these systems, she said: platform firms such as Amazon Web Services, Tencent and Epic Games; states and regulators; standards-setting bodies wielding geopolitical influence; and users, who largely remain passive “rule-takers,” often accepting terms of service without scrutiny.

“Standard-setting has become a form of soft power,” she added, noting that countries are increasingly competing to influence global technology frameworks.

The growing reliance on code presents unique challenges. Unlike traditional policy, digital rules operate at machine speed and can be difficult to reverse. “A smart contract cannot be paused midway,” Thomason said, underscoring the risks of deploying systems without fully understanding their consequences.

Key governance challenges

She outlined five key governance challenges in Web3 systems: programmable money, where financial rules are embedded in code; the concentration of power among developers; privacy risks tied to codified digital identity; governance models dominated by token holders; and “function creep,” where data collected for one purpose is repurposed for surveillance at scale.

Concerns are particularly acute in sectors such as healthcare, where sensitive medical and genomic data is increasingly routed through cloud infrastructure beyond the scope of traditional regulations such as HIPAA, she said.

The rise of artificial intelligence and decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs) further complicates accountability. “Who is responsible when an AI agent or a DAO makes a high-stakes decision?” Thomason asked.

She argued that ethics must be treated as core infrastructure rather than an afterthought. “If governance is executed through code, then ethics must be built into the code from the start,” she said.

This would require systems designed with safeguards such as human oversight, mechanisms for contesting decisions, fallback options and strict limitations on data use. Without such measures, she warned, technological systems risk entrenching inequality and concentrating power.

“The benefits of this transformation are not being shared equally,” she said. “The global stakes are high.”

Thomason called on policymakers to adapt quickly, warning that many lack the technical understanding needed to address emerging risks. Governance, she said, must be “encoded at the design layer,” supported by clear validation standards, accountability frameworks and institutional capacity.

“Ultimately, the question is simple,” she said. “Whose values are being written into the systems that will govern our future?”