Collective Intelligence
I have just sent to a publisher the third book I have written on AI in the last twenty-four months. That’s how fast moving and important this technology is. I believe it is comparable to mathematics in scope and potential impact. The phrase I use to describe this versatility is “AI-enabled research, innovation and entrepreneurship.” In other words, AI is now fundamental to impact at scale regardless of the relevant discipline.
Many are focused on the opportunities with AI for improved efficiency and productivity. Some are focused on improving the algorithms and computing technology. A few are focused on new ways of thinking about algorithms. What I am thinking about is Augmented Collective Intelligence (ACI).
The history of ACI probably begins in 1962 with Douglas Engelbart’s paper, Augmenting Human Intellect, in which he argues for human-computer systems that amplify collective cognition. In 1994, Pierre Lévy proposed the early Internet as a collective intelligence that emerges from collective interactions between humans and machines in a global online communication network.[1] Thomas W. Malone’s MIT Center for Collective Intelligence was founded in 2006 to focus on how to design organizations to leverage the potential of information technology. His 2018 book Superminds might have signaled human-AI collaboration as the analytical pairing for the future. This is the closest academic precursor to ACI, but it stops short. Malone’s AI is primarily computational and tool-like, not epistemological. He does not address the most urgent problems — climate, healthcare, food/water — as the primary domain in which to apply a refined collective approach. His framing is largely organizational and managerial rather than civilizational and governance oriented. This is precisely where my newest book advances the argument Malone framed.
My book shows how the intellectual foundation for the 21st century is framed by four concepts.
· Asymmetry of information — the condition in which one party to a transaction or interaction possesses superior knowledge relative to another, which may prompt opportunistic behavior
· Complex adaptive systems — networks of agents that interact to generate emergent macro-level behaviors that cannot be predicted from individual components
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· Polycentricity — a governance architecture in which authority is distributed across multiple levels of decision-making, focused on bottom up
· Artificial Intelligence — the science and engineering to perform tasks that would typically require human intelligence
Nobel Laureate (2001) George Akerlof first formalized the idea of asymmetry of information in a 1970 paper, “The Market for Lemons: Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism”, published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics. Complex adaptive systems were researched initially by Nobel Laureate Murray Gell-Mann (Physics), Nobel Laureate Kenneth Arrow (Economics), the polymath John Holland and colleagues at the Santa Fe Institute. Polycentricity was a concept introduced by another Nobel Laureate, Elinor Ostrom (Economics). Artificial Intelligence I might initially credit to Alan Turing (conceptual) and Claude Shannon (mathematical). If I was to add another computing researcher, John von Neumann, I would have three of the most influential men in the 20th century (and perhaps the Top 20 of all time). Who else can claim to provide the foundational thinking for two Industrial Revolutions (Computing and AI).
These four concepts provide the pathway that extends Malone’s thinking to agency, implementation and scale. These four concepts are the foundational means whereby humanity may cooperate, solve the urgent problems and continue to defy extinction. This is a brief overview of my next book.
“Throughout our evolution, our most extraordinary ability as humans is, without doubt, our ability to collaborate with each other. Our story is very much about how we gradually learned to solve problems together in increasingly larger groups.”[2]
My two recent books on AI. The Second Renaissance; The Renaissance Rewired.
[1] https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/culturalhistorical-perspectives-on-collective-intelligence/what-is-collective-intelligence/ED6DBEA4032697D3FAC84AEF7382B457
[2] https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/culturalhistorical-perspectives-on-collective-intelligence/what-is-collective-intelligence/ED6DBEA4032697D3FAC84AEF7382B457
