PennTags Feed for /tag/collective_intelligence

EBSCOhost: Law and Technology: The End of the Generative Internet

Zittrain, Jonathan. "Law and Technology: The End of the Generative Internet." Communications of the ACM. Vol. 52.1 (2009) 18-20.

Zittrain offers a fascinating take on the generative nature of the Internet, which he believes is being destroyed by new developments in technology. Using the iPhone as a case study, the author declares that its generative content is minimal and full of restrictions. The article explains that the first iPhone left no place for innovation from outside developers. Furthermore, Apple turned the phone of any developer that had changed the code into an "iBrick". A sense of vindication is palpable in an addendum to the piece that praises the iPhone SDK and the apps created by outside developers. However, the author argues that Apple always holds all the power over the applications. From allowing developers to create in the first place to putting their apps in the store to making them featured apps to removing them all together, there can be no doubt that Apple exerts immense control over their platform. Nonetheless, Zittrain draws the conclusion that currently Apple's gate keeping tendencies are beneficial to the majority of users that want outside control.

This article seems a bit confused at times as it tries to reconcile Apple's overarching theme of control with its occasional message of openness. The apps created by third-party developers using the iPhone SDK connect to James Surowiecki's "The Wisdom of Crowds". The most successful and most downloaded apps are those created by Apple outsiders, which demonstrates the importance of collective intelligence. By opening up the app industry to anyone who is interested in participating, Apple was able to acquire an extremely diverse array of apps. However, in relation to "The Wireless Carterfone", there are still many qualifications and approval procedures that force developers to jump through multiple hoops before getting their app in the store. The entire idea of a generative internet relates to the reoccurring idea in technology literature of open content. Although outside developers can create iPhone apps, these apps are certainly not open content. Essentially, outside developers cannot come in and edit these pre-existing apps. While the Apple SDK is available, the ability to edit or build-on to apps is not. It's also interesting to examine this piece in relation to iPhone jailbreaking. Although jailbreaking has raised many questions regarding its legality, the action could be seen as an extension of the generative internet. Until a phone is jailbroken, a user does not truly have the opportunity to create generative content on their iPhone.

Handbook of Collective Intelligence

This compilation of research based at the Center for Collective Intelligence at MIT sets up basic information about collective intelligence, its history, how it's used and what factors facilitate and inhibit it from functioning to its best potential. Collective intelligence is harnessed and used by business organizations, computer science and AI, nature and prediction markets. Factors that facilitate it are diversity of opinion, informal structure, shared vocabulary and infrastructure, intrinsic motivation and monetary incentives. Its greatest inhibiting factors are biases, the bandwagon effect, homogeneity, polarization of the group and cultural boundaries that produce outlying data.

This site attempts to harness collective intelligence to accumulate the best info and research on the topic, and for that reason I felt it was an important addition to a paper on harnessing collective intelligence. Besides a very detailed aggregation of information the Handbook provides interesting facilitating and inhibiting factors that serve as a contrast for those provided by Suroweicki.

Prediction Markets as an Aggregation Mechanism for Collective Intelligence

Collective Intelligence is described here as a tool to be harnessed, since crowds can also have negative or difficult characteristics in most other contexts and are generally not preferred to deal with "directly". The formed collective can almost be thought of as a almost a distinct individual or expert according to Watkins. Prediction markets here are examined as "sophistocated aggregation tools" bringing together communities of self-selected individuals who already perhaps have an emotional investment in the issues. Watkins is also concerned with issues of trust and how to cultivate public trust in collective intelligence as a reliable source of information.

Watkins touches on the characteristics of particular communities and the individuals who are drawn to prediction markets, an area that I plan on focusing on more intesively through the study of forums and demographic data on each of the particular sites. In additon, the notion of trusting this collective prediction over that of the experts interacts interestingly with Surowiecki's theory that they experts often partake in the predicting.

The Wisdom of Crowds

James Surowiecki outlines through cultural examples the basic idea of collective intelligence and that time after time it is shown that the group estimate to a given problem is more accurate than most of all of the individual guesses. He then lays out a key set of characteristics for what makes a wise crowd. They are: diversity of opinion, meaning that users come from many different intellectual backgrounds; independence, that they do not rely heavily on the opinions of others; decentralized, meaning people can draw upon local knowledge, and a means for aggregating their opinions. He states that while the average is often mediocre in most cases, in decision making it is most often the best. Though he also states that collective intelligence is not always perfect, citing certain examples where experts certainly know better than the crowd.

Surowiecki lays out the particular parameters I will esxamine as a starting point in my research project in looking at the particular incentives of marketing techniques used to maintain a flourishing prediction market. The implications for data gathered from prediction markets will examine the future role of experts, building off of Surowiecki's comments. In addition this work will mark the branching off point from where I examine other definitions of "wise crowds" and how important his characteristics actually are.

Incentives for Assembling Prediction Market Communities that will Best Harness Collective Intelligence

Convergence culture : where old and new media collide / Henry Jenkins.

Jenkins, Henry, 1958- . Convergence culture : where old and new media collide / Henry Jenkins. [9780814742815 (cloth : alk. paper) ] New York : New York University Press, 2006.
Call#: Annenberg Library Reserve P94.65.U6 J46 2006

"Photoshop for Democracy: The New Relationship between Politics and Popular Culture"

In chapter six, Jenkins discusses the role of popular culture in emerging political communities. Jenkins (as is the case throughout Convergence Culture) is focused on how old and new media interact and the dynamics of collaboration and participation. While Jenkins recognizes the scoff-factor when implying the concept of “photoshop for democracy” (user-generated images that often map themes from popular culture onto the political campaign) is any sort of substitute for real political activism, he insists that this kind of user-generated content and mass dispersion is a serious act of citizenry. In fact, using popular culture as a means of engaging voters might just be the most effective way of re-establishing interest in politics as a part of our everyday lives. Jenkins focuses on the 2004 election and recognizes that the next step is to think of “democratic citizenship as a lifestyle.” Furthermore, online political communities seem to be segregating voters, as opposed to encouraging dialogue across ideologies. Although he seems to offer popular culture as a kind of national balm for the ailments of political fragmentation, Jenkins recognizes the inherent limits of its role in (or applicability as a model for) contemporary political communities.

For me, the most useful parts of this argument is the attention he pays to the increasing participation of average Americans (now as monitorial citizens as opposed to informed citizens) in the media landscape and the possibilities for the integration of politics and popular culture. However, he doesn’t seem to offer any real solution for the acutely polarized political landscape.