Kolja Sahm
Research on Autonomy in Decentralized and Intelligent Systems
Autonomy can be understood as a system’s capacity to respond to uncertainty.
My research investigates how autonomy emerges, how it can be operationalized, and how it may ultimately be measured within decentralized governance architectures, artificial intelligence systems, and complex socio-technical infrastructures.
Using Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) as an empirical laboratory, I develop a formal framework that translates the abstract concept of autonomy into observable and measurable structural properties. The framework provides a basis for systematically comparing governance architectures and evaluating the degree to which systems exhibit autonomous characteristics.
Beyond decentralized governance, this work extends toward intelligent agents and multi-agent systems, raising broader questions about agency, responsibility, and the conditions under which autonomy becomes meaningful in artificial systems.
At the same time, my research engages with philosophical and ethical perspectives that critically examine the very notion of autonomy. Drawing in part on Buddhist thought, which challenges the idea of a stable, independent self, this work explores whether what we describe as “autonomy” is a fundamental property of systems or an emergent and context-dependent construct.
This dual perspective—combining formal system modeling with philosophical critique—aims to clarify not only how autonomy can be built and measured, but also under which conceptual conditions it remains a meaningful and coherent concept.
Kolja Sahm
PhD Researcher