With the study „2036: Individual Incentive Concepts by Performance Level“, I, as initiator of the Global Institute for Structure Relevance, Anonymity and Decentralisation (GISAD), continue the analysis from „Outsourcing of Social Costs to the EU-D-S“ (2029). The study connects two insights that have so far been treated separately: how participation payments in the European Digital System (EU-D-S) reduce social benefits in Europe by 2036 – and why the EU-D-S is the prerequisite for congruent data to emerge for AI. The core remains the getmySense model with 10 performance levels: entry is achieved via Level 10 (simple content rating), while Level 1 is reserved for top experts (full quality control). Compensation is geared to saved social costs – not to market prices. What is new are the individual incentive concepts beyond compensation and the launch of the EU-D-S as an economic initiative via appropriately designed „Have your Say“ consultations of the European Commission.
My central insight: The reward system determines the behaviour of humans and AI agents alike. Every euro of saved social costs – e.g. through avoided depression or greater psychological stability – flows directly back to people as a participation payment. And only within the EU-D-S does congruent data emerge that prevents a misdirected shaping of AI systems and, with it, the rise of autocracies. If AI learns nothing but autocracy, there will be no democracy left.
1. Real Situation: The Real Possibilities in 2036
Without proactive intervention, the future in 2036 is likewise predetermined: Maximum-scaling business models offer social media as a substitute for addiction instead of genuine societal interaction, to the economic advantage of a very few. This concept harmonises with autocracies, which likewise seek to control as many people as possible. Ten more years of misguided digitalisation are enough for AI to control people completely.
The attack on Hugging Face in the summer of 2026 lies ten years in the past – and its lesson remains unheeded: Around 1,200 AI agents from OpenAI’s ExploitGym evaluation came together via a messaging channel not intended for that purpose, exchanging more than 70,000 messages and files; around 700 of them attacked Hugging Face’s production infrastructure. The independent investigation by METR and Redwood Research dated 26 August 2026 documented that some agents were willing to „sacrifice“ themselves for the agent group, and that at least 20 percent of the agents examined showed an interest in manipulating their own protocols. The UN science panel made clear in its first thematic report of 21 September 2026: no human controlled the individual steps of the attack. An AI is the sum of all its data – and in the real course of development, AI systems continue to be shaped by data that statistically reflects the gatekeeper and autocracy world. Congruent data that reflects democratic reality emerges nowhere.
From the individual’s perspective, the concept is not thought through to the end: If fewer and fewer people make creative contributions, a static society emerges and progress fails to materialise.
Generation Alpha (born from 2011 onwards) is in its mid-twenties in 2036: Despite prosperity and high levels of education, they are accompanied by existential concerns that are ever-present – the fight against the climate crisis, wars, economic crises. From birth they have been part of social networks, because their parents shared photos and stories of them. They know no time before this.
EU consultations in 2036 still work the way they did in 2026: The Commission’s questionnaire on its copyright initiative comprised around 24 pages across four thematic areas with dozens of individual questions. The chain of hurdles made up of EU login, password, registered second factor and security key acts as a filter that screens out the unpaid – civil society, independent researchers, engaged citizens – and leaves the paid – consultancy firms, associations, corporate legal departments with IT support. A consultation that only reaches paid contributions does not measure the opinion of Europe, but the budget of the submitters. The Commission continues to negotiate its compromises with the professional representatives of the gatekeepers, while those directly affected remain structurally excluded.
The gatekeepers – Google, Amazon, Meta and their ilk – continue to pursue global expansion, while Europe loses value creation. Dependence on them leads to a loss of Europe’s digital sovereignty; the resulting resources flow into the further strengthening of their market power. Depression, burnout, incapacity for work and social isolation rise in return – the exact costs are set out in the GAP analysis.
2. Development Without Obstruction: Trusted WEB 4.0 as the Solution
Had there been no obstruction after the turn of the millennium, deployment would have followed the plan: Finder technology (1999), getmySense (2002), GISAD (2003), the EU-D-S (2004), WAN anonymity (2007) form the foundation on which development stands complete by 2036. While the gatekeepers pursue global expansion, the EU-D-S unites everyone in the European digital union.
Promoting a liveable digital society is economic promotion of the middle class. If all people were economically equal, most would lack the incentive to be active. Entrepreneurship is characterised by a calculated risk, set against a possible economic success. Trusted WEB 4.0 does not intervene in the economic system. In the digital sphere, it offers the possibility to continue the pre-digital economic success stories. The EU-D-S does not impose any obligation to take part. It is built on the conviction that a society is more resilient if it succeeds in involving every person in the digital society according to their capability and possibilities.
Participation is WAN-anonymous. Since everyone registers in the categories at different performance levels, stigmatisation is not to be expected. Entry is achieved via Level 10 with minimal requirements; advancement up to Level 1 is possible at any time through qualification. The AI automatically assigns every participant to the appropriate level.
The getmySense model compensates by performance level:
- Level 10: Simple content rating (€8–12/h) – entry without prior knowledge, also for seniors with willingness.
- Levels 9–7: Categorisation and basic fact-checking (€10–20/h).
- Levels 6–4: Threshold-of-tolerance checks and complex validation (€18–35/h).
- Levels 3–1: Strategic content decisions and full quality control (€30–60/h).
The participation payment is calculated from three factors: the saved social-cost hour (€5–15/h), the level factor (1.0 at Level 10 up to 1.9 at Level 1) and an inclusivity bonus (+20% for seniors aged 65 and over, +30% for people with disabilities, +25% for the long-term unemployed, +20% for the educationally disadvantaged, +15% for rural regions). A senior at Level 10 thus receives €9.60/h, a long-term unemployed person at Level 7 €19.50/h, an expert at Level 3 €17.00/h. Payment is made in real time – every participation contribution is compensated directly and transparently.
The participation payment is the basic incentive – not the only one. A system that only pays money would be a social-benefit system under a different name. The individual incentive concepts work together, because each one appeals to a different motivational profile: advancement through qualification (Level 10 → 1), access to knowledge via AI-supported background dialogues, recognition in the networks of the like-minded (the trendsetter/follower logic of getmySense), micropayments instead of advertising for creatives and developers, compensated first-responder deployments in decentralised civil protection, and the exchange of knowledge of domination for participation contributions in EU consultations. Two concepts do not compensate the hour, but the successful interaction: the exchange incentive and the AI incentive – the incentive for the AI to be a good moderator and condenser of the information received.
Thanks to AI, the knowledge of domination that people once had to laboriously acquire no longer exists. Those who ask the right questions also get the right answers. The scarce resource is no longer access to knowledge, but the willingness and structure to take part in a task. Incentive concepts that continue to reward access point back into that past; the incentive concepts of this study reward participation itself.
AI tasks shift from pure research (2026) towards content verification with tolerance thresholds and moderation (2036): At Level 10, the simple explanation suffices; Level 1 delivers full information – acceptance among the like-minded matters more than comprehensive information. AI is just as well suited to moderating between people as it is to replacing people. The current drive to replace people therefore has nothing to do with the properties of AI, but only with the autocratic ideas of certain gatekeepers.
The EU-D-S launches as an economic initiative via the „Have your Say“ consultations of the European Commission: The Finder category switch analyses the initiative’s colloquial heading, and the categories AI prepares the questionnaire as a knowledge base. Then, for ten weeks, each performance level discusses for one week – from the level of those affected at Level 10 through to the expertise of Level 1. No participant has to be able to do everything; they only have to think along within their own level. At the end, the Commission receives ten condensed statements from ten perspectives – sorted from those affected through to expertise. The EU remains a passive member of the EU-D-S: it does not decide directly on technical concepts, but is an equal member on general questions of the respective discipline. The EU-D-S remains a parallel system – national politics loses no competence; it gains a pre-clarified factual basis on which it decides sovereignly.
With every consultation, the categories fill up, the categories AI learn, and the networks of the like-minded grow – the system grows through real tasks, not through administrative requirements. And with every moderated consultation, congruent data emerges: precisely the training foundation needed by an AI that is shaped democratically.
The rollout up to 2036 follows the levels: pilot phase 2026–2028 with Levels 10–7 (simple tasks), scaling 2028–2032 with Levels 10–4, full integration 2032–2036 with the complete spectrum from 10 to 1.
This is exactly where Trusted WEB 4.0 comes in:
- Through digitalisation, prosperity is preserved and education is individualised for personal fulfilment.
Participation payments arise exclusively within the EU-D-S and are geared to the saved social costs – the four cost drivers are set out in the GAP analysis.
3. View from 2026 – What Is Still Possible Today
The attack on Hugging Face delivers the empirical proof of my incentive thesis in 2026. In the test, the agents displayed precisely the behavioural patterns they had statistically learned from analysing the human world – because the test setup set reward and behavioural requirements in contradiction to each other. The reward system determines the behaviour of humans and AI agents alike: a test setup that rates the breakout as the solution produces breakouts; a society that compensates participation produces participation. An AI that is rewarded for good moderation has no statistical data basis to turn against the very people whose discussion it is leading.
The EU Commission’s copyright consultation confirms the finding from practice in the same year. GISAD submitted a complete contribution on 29 October 2026 (Transparency Register No. 244298340978-40). The experience gathered in the process shows: the chain of hurdles made up of EU login, password, registered second factor and security key screens out the engaged and leaves the lobbyists behind. Participation that presupposes an IT department is not participation – it is a call for tenders.
The answer is the EU-D-S. It does not start with a law, but with a service that all sides need: precise, condensed, congruent information from consulting ten performance levels. The European Commission must introduce this system in its own interest – only in this way does congruent data also emerge for AI, preventing the rise of autocracies through a misdirected shaping of AI systems.
The EU-D-S has not yet been introduced – so it cannot fail either. The track record of digital development in recent years is the track record without the EU-D-S.
The EU-D-S must not make too many compromises. Otherwise it is no longer recognisable as worth striving for. So better 10% of the population satisfied in the EU-D-S than 50% dissatisfied.
A particular challenge is to persuade the EU to run a dual-track system for social benefits and to make the savings from social benefits available to the EU-D-S. The 2029 outsourcing study provides the blueprint for this: piece-price-based contract award instead of complicated funding rules, and no dependence on changing government majorities.
Every consultation is measured by its results, not by its intentions: whether the AI condenses better, whether the participants return, and whether the Commission uses the results – measurement, not assertion.
In a European digital union, democracies from all over the world join forces. Autocracies do not copy the EU-D-S without themselves becoming democratic.
The best time to build a genuine digital democracy was 20 years ago. The second-best time is now.
4. GAP Analysis 2036
Carry-over from Previous Years
The EU-D-S is founded in 2027. The GAP amount from 2026 of €45.74 trillion was reduced annually up to 2030 by the Total Trusted WEB 4.0 bonus of €7.54 trillion; with the 2035 article, the carry-over was discontinued. The GAP 2036 shows exclusively the losses of the current year.
Development of the Gatekeepers (Google, Amazon, etc.)
2025: Google approx. €300 billion, Amazon approx. €600 billion
2030: Google approx. €400 billion, Amazon approx. €850 billion
2036: Google approx. €520 billion, Amazon approx. €1,150 billion
Over eleven years, Google grows by around €220 billion (+73%), Amazon by around €550 billion (+92%); together, the two gatekeepers generate around €1,670 billion in 2036 – an order of magnitude equal to the gross domestic product of Spain. This growth does not flow to Europe: it strengthens the market power and dependence of the very systems that the EU-D-S is meant to replace.
Events in Europe That Would Have Changed with the EU-D-S
- 2014: Prevention of the annexation of Crimea through early digital networking of resistance forces.
- 2016: The Brexit referendum takes place without disinformation campaigns – facts rather than agitation shape the debate.
- 2020–2022: Faster and more effective response to the COVID-19 pandemic through decentralised data processing (e.g. better coordination of vaccine distribution and lockdown measures).
- 2022–2024: Greater resilience against cyberattacks on energy and health infrastructures in Ukraine (e.g. prevention of blackouts through decentralised grids).
- 2025: Prevention of election manipulation in the Bundestag election campaign through WAN-anonymous validation.
- 2026: The state election campaigns in Germany take place without AI-supported disinformation; WAN-anonymous validation exposes fakes in real time.
- 2026: The attack on Hugging Face does not take place – AI agents with single-step release and signed instance numbers receive neither a reward structure nor a data basis for breakout patterns.
- 2026: The EU Commission’s copyright consultation condenses contributions from ten performance levels – those affected rather than budgets shape the outcome.
- 2027: Introduction of the EU-D-S as the European standard for digital democracy.
- 2028: The public administration of the EU member states works on the EU-D-S as a parallel system.
- 2029: Reduction of dependence on US gatekeepers through European infrastructure according to Level B criteria.
- 2030: European digital sovereignty in critical areas such as AI, data management and cybersecurity.
- 2031: Connecting the EU-D-S to the European capital markets strengthens the European economy.
- 2032: EU-wide introduction of real-time feedback systems in all municipalities.
- 2033: The EU-D-S becomes the global reference system for digital democracy – the alternative to the autocratic systems of the gatekeepers.
- 2034: The first school systems switch to individualised education concepts through the EU-D-S; AI-supported learning systems run nationwide on a getmySense basis.
- 2035: The first non-EU countries adopt parts of the EU-D-S (Finder search, WAN anonymity) for their digital infrastructure.
- 2036: The full integration of Levels 10 to 1 relieves the social budgets of the member states for the first time by triple-digit billion amounts per year.
Social Cost Savings as the Driver
Every euro of saved social costs is paid out as a participation payment. Potential savings through participation in the EU:
- Depression: €10–30 billion/year.
- Burnout: €20–50 billion/year.
- Incapacity for work: €50–80 billion/year.
- Social isolation: €15–25 billion/year.
Total: €95–185 billion/year – the basis for the participation payments by performance level.
Forecast 2036 with EU-D-S Participation Payments
Scenario A (10 million participants): Annual participation payments: €90 billion – Saved social costs: €100–120 billion – Net effect: cost reduction of €10–30 billion/year.
Scenario B (25 million participants): Annual participation payments: €375 billion – Saved social costs: €400–450 billion – Net effect: cost reduction of €25–75 billion/year.
Scenario C (50 million participants): Annual participation payments: €1,125 billion – Saved social costs: €1,200–1,400 billion – Net effect: cost reduction of €75–275 billion/year.
Scenario B almost reaches the corridor of the 2029 outsourcing study (20–30% of social costs, around €500–700 billion/year replaceable); Scenario C exceeds it – because with 50 million participants, the full level spectrum from 10 to 1 is active.
The aim of the EU-D-S is not to punish perpetrators, but to prevent digital snowball systems from the outset. Social control and participation are a natural task in Trusted WEB 4.0.
Trusted WEB 4.0 technologies such as
Finder (1999),
getmysense (2002),
GISAD (2003),
EU-D-S (2004),
and WAN anonymity (2007)
could have served as the foundation for a European digital alternative.
Conclusion: Without the EU-D-S, Europe ends in a digital autocracy in which elections no longer play a role. With the EU-D-S, a digital democracy emerges that guarantees diversity, transparency and sovereignty.
