From douglas at publicsphereproject.org Mon Aug 1 18:49:43 2016 From: douglas at publicsphereproject.org (Doug Schuler) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2016 18:49:43 -0700 Subject: [Ci4cg-announce] A framework for working with and towards civic intelligence [1st installment] Message-ID: <32C5CE6A-EA2B-4B50-A639-055EB0B39B6B@publicsphereproject.org> Todd — and everybody else (hopefully of interest) This is a follow-on to the conversation that Todd's note launched. This note is more like the first version of a summary of the findings and assertions so far in relation to my exploration of civic intelligence. As you know I'm trying to develop civic intelligence as a focus for research, activism, education, policy-making, ... , etc. You also of course know that it's not a term that's in common use and I'd like to change that. I would love your comments on any and all aspects of this. I've been packing the idea of civic intelligence in many ways for quite awhile. Sometimes it's used as a part of social inquiry, sometimes it's meant to be aspirational, and sometimes it's intended to be used as a goal or guideline — and other uses are possible (ranking schools for example). These varieties of uses could be a source of confusion (in either the critique or the exploration itself). My belief and hope is that the diverse perspectives are in fact coherent, although that might not be apparent without the background logic. I'd like to think that a graphic depiction can be developed that showed the main elements and regions of the overall exploration. Ideally this would help maintain coherence, reduce misinterpretation, and promote additional work in this area. (And, of course, critique could help shape this effort into more productive ways.) I'm trying to explore a lot of things simultaneously — including the fact that exploring and practicing civic intelligence seems to be empowering to students, although this isn't addressed in this note. The following is an attempt to describe one region of the framework which is largely positivistic and should have the necessary rigor and logic to be palatable to social scientists of various types. I consider that everything is subject to modification. (1) We start with a (working) definition of Intelligence. This seems to be keeping with standard views of intelligence while containing elements that lend themselves to characterization and analysis. I wanted to focus on the potential richness of the concept (of intelligence) rather that be limited to a minimal, quantified and somewhat non-useful construct that some social scientists seem to prefer. Definition of Intelligence: An integrated set of processes that enable an agent to act in ways that are appropriate to the agent's goals and to the environment in which it exists / acts — particularly areas that present actual or potential challenges or opportunities. An "agent" can be one or more people, any group, animal, computer program, hybrids of the above, and others as well as any artifacts, natural or otherwise, or system of artifacts that are useful in pursuit of the goals. Collective intelligence is a major type of intelligence that is distinguished from individual intelligence (e.g. that of a single person). Intelligence can also be distributed over space and time. And the results of the diverse processes can be stored in many ways—in human memories, libraries, online, or in tools, systems, or artifacts. (2) The various components / elements of the definition suggest ways to characterize, analyze, categorize various approaches. Composition of the "agent" Environment in which the intelligence operates (Intelligence is context dependent) Processes that are used and how they are integrated (i.e. the structure) Goals, values, and norm The products of the processes The claim that I'm making is that it is probably possible to identify different versions of intelligence by the goals, types of actions, and composition and coordination of the agent. This might not be 100% certain but it could be useful. [TO BE CONTINUED] Douglas Schuler douglas at publicsphereproject.org Twitter: @doug_schuler ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Public Sphere Project http://www.publicsphereproject.org/ Mailing list ~ Collective Intelligence for the Common Good http://scn9.scn.org/mailman/listinfo/ci4cg-announce Creating the World Citizen Parliament http://interactions.acm.org/archive/view/may-june-2013/creating-the-world-citizen-parliament Liberating Voices! A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution (project) http://www.publicsphereproject.org/patterns/lv Liberating Voices! A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution (book) http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11601 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From m.foth at qut.edu.au Tue Aug 2 01:04:56 2016 From: m.foth at qut.edu.au (Marcus Foth) Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2016 08:04:56 +0000 Subject: [Ci4cg-announce] A framework for working with and towards civic intelligence [1st installment] In-Reply-To: <32C5CE6A-EA2B-4B50-A639-055EB0B39B6B@publicsphereproject.org> References: <32C5CE6A-EA2B-4B50-A639-055EB0B39B6B@publicsphereproject.org> Message-ID: <7BA95AF1-3221-4F33-9EB7-C84D4D3E7D42@qut.edu.au> Hi Doug and all may I suggest to move this discussion and the output to Wikipedia? That would help improve the notability and discoverability of the term. The article could be expanded by adding examples of case studies, fora/events focussing on the theme, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civic_intelligence The “Talk” page can be used to expand and improve the current article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Civic_intelligence cheers, marcus Aalborg, DK -- Professor Marcus Foth i/Director, QUT Design Lab School of Design, Creative Industries Faculty Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia m.foth at qut.edu.au – @QUTdesign – qut.design CRICOS No. 00213J > On 2 Aug 2016, at 3:49 AM, Doug Schuler wrote: > > Todd — and everybody else (hopefully of interest) > > This is a follow-on to the conversation that Todd's note launched. This note is more like the first version of a summary of the findings and assertions so far in relation to my exploration of civic intelligence. As you know I'm trying to develop civic intelligence as a focus for research, activism, education, policy-making, ... , etc. You also of course know that it's not a term that's in common use and I'd like to change that. I would love your comments on any and all aspects of this. > > I've been packing the idea of civic intelligence in many ways for quite awhile. Sometimes it's used as a part of social inquiry, sometimes it's meant to be aspirational, and sometimes it's intended to be used as a goal or guideline — and other uses are possible (ranking schools for example). These varieties of uses could be a source of confusion (in either the critique or the exploration itself). My belief and hope is that the diverse perspectives are in fact coherent, although that might not be apparent without the background logic. > > I'd like to think that a graphic depiction can be developed that showed the main elements and regions of the overall exploration. Ideally this would help maintain coherence, reduce misinterpretation, and promote additional work in this area. (And, of course, critique could help shape this effort into more productive ways.) > > I'm trying to explore a lot of things simultaneously — including the fact that exploring and practicing civic intelligence seems to be empowering to students, although this isn't addressed in this note. > > The following is an attempt to describe one region of the framework which is largely positivistic and should have the necessary rigor and logic to be palatable to social scientists of various types. I consider that everything is subject to modification. > > (1) We start with a (working) definition of Intelligence. This seems to be keeping with standard views of intelligence while containing elements that lend themselves to characterization and analysis. I wanted to focus on the potential richness of the concept (of intelligence) rather that be limited to a minimal, quantified and somewhat non-useful construct that some social scientists seem to prefer. > > Definition of Intelligence: An integrated set of processes that enable an agent to act in ways that are appropriate to the agent's goals and to the environment in which it exists / acts — particularly areas that present actual or potential challenges or opportunities. > > An "agent" can be one or more people, any group, animal, computer program, hybrids of the above, and others as well as any artifacts, natural or otherwise, or system of artifacts that are useful in pursuit of the goals. > > Collective intelligence is a major type of intelligence that is distinguished from individual intelligence (e.g. that of a single person). > > Intelligence can also be distributed over space and time. And the results of the diverse processes can be stored in many ways—in human memories, libraries, online, or in tools, systems, or artifacts. > > (2) The various components / elements of the definition suggest ways to characterize, analyze, categorize various approaches. > > Composition of the "agent" > Environment in which the intelligence operates (Intelligence is context dependent) > Processes that are used and how they are integrated (i.e. the structure) > Goals, values, and norm > The products of the processes > > The claim that I'm making is that it is probably possible to identify different versions of intelligence by the goals, types of actions, and composition and coordination of the agent. This might not be 100% certain but it could be useful. > > [TO BE CONTINUED] > > Douglas Schuler > douglas at publicsphereproject.org > Twitter: @doug_schuler > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Public Sphere Project > http://www.publicsphereproject.org/ > > Mailing list ~ Collective Intelligence for the Common Good > http://scn9.scn.org/mailman/listinfo/ci4cg-announce > > Creating the World Citizen Parliament > http://interactions.acm.org/archive/view/may-june-2013/creating-the-world-citizen-parliament > > Liberating Voices! A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution (project) > http://www.publicsphereproject.org/patterns/lv > > Liberating Voices! A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution (book) > http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11601 > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Ci4cg-announce mailing list > Ci4cg-announce at scn9.scn.org > http://scn9.scn.org/mailman/listinfo/ci4cg-announce From dmitry.v.sokolov at gmail.com Mon Aug 1 21:58:41 2016 From: dmitry.v.sokolov at gmail.com (Dmitry Sokolov) Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2016 16:58:41 +1200 Subject: [Ci4cg-announce] A framework for working with and towards civic intelligence [1st installment] In-Reply-To: <32C5CE6A-EA2B-4B50-A639-055EB0B39B6B@publicsphereproject.org> References: <32C5CE6A-EA2B-4B50-A639-055EB0B39B6B@publicsphereproject.org> Message-ID: <4fa2a0e2-a463-e23c-26b0-758765225d7b@gmail.com> Doug, would you related intelligence to decision making? I am not sure whether acting without thinking / reflection / decision making can be thought intelligent. Regarding storage media "in human memories, libraries, online, or in tools, systems, or artifacts.", would you suggest comparative analysis of those techniques (and possibly "collective memory" platforms?) by accuracy / fidelity / access time as a function of time? I am interested in real-time decision making where timely access to particular knowledge is critical. Thank you, Dimitri On 02/08/16 13:49, Doug Schuler wrote: > Todd — and everybody else (hopefully of interest) > > This is a follow-on to the conversation that Todd's note launched. > This note is more like the first version of a summary of the findings > and assertions so far in relation to my exploration of civic > intelligence. As you know I'm trying to develop civic intelligence as > a focus for research, activism, education, policy-making, ... , etc. > You also of course know that it's not a term that's in common use and > I'd like to change that. I would love your comments on any and all > aspects of this. > > I've been packing the idea of civic intelligence in many ways for > quite awhile. Sometimes it's used as a part of social inquiry, > sometimes it's meant to be aspirational, and sometimes it's intended > to be used as a goal or guideline — and other uses are possible > (ranking schools for example). These varieties of uses could be a > source of confusion (in either the critique or the exploration > itself). My belief and hope is that the diverse perspectives are in > fact coherent, although that might not be apparent without the > background logic. > > I'd like to think that a graphic depiction can be developed that > showed the main elements and regions of the overall exploration. > Ideally this would help maintain coherence, reduce misinterpretation, > and promote additional work in this area. (And, of course, critique > could help shape this effort into more productive ways.) > > I'm trying to explore a lot of things simultaneously — including the > fact that exploring and practicing civic intelligence seems to be > empowering to students, although this isn't addressed in this note. > > The following is an attempt to describe one region of the framework > which is largely positivistic and should have the necessary rigor and > logic to be palatable to social scientists of various types. I > consider that everything is subject to modification. > > (1) We start with a (working) definition of Intelligence. This seems > to be keeping with standard views of intelligence while containing > elements that lend themselves to characterization and analysis. I > wanted to focus on the potential richness of the concept (of > intelligence) rather that be limited to a minimal, quantified and > somewhat non-useful construct that some social scientists seem to prefer. > > Definition of Intelligence: An integrated set of processes that enable > an agent to act in ways that are appropriate to the agent's goals and > to the environment in which it exists / acts — particularly areas that > present actual or potential challenges or opportunities. > > An "agent" can be one or more people, any group, animal, computer > program, hybrids of the above, and others as well as any artifacts, > natural or otherwise, or system of artifacts that are useful in > pursuit of the goals. > > Collective intelligence is a major type of intelligence that is > distinguished from individual intelligence (e.g. that of a single person). > > Intelligence can also be distributed over space and time. And the > results of the diverse processes can be stored in many ways—in human > memories, libraries, online, or in tools, systems, or artifacts. > > (2) The various components / elements of the definition suggest ways > to characterize, analyze, categorize various approaches. > > Composition of the "agent" > Environment in which the intelligence operates (Intelligence is > context dependent) > Processes that are used and how they are integrated (i.e. the structure) > Goals, values, and norm > The products of the processes > > The claim that I'm making is that it is probably possible to identify > different versions of intelligence by the goals, types of actions, and > composition and coordination of the agent. This might not be 100% > certain but it could be useful. > > [TO BE CONTINUED] > > Douglas Schuler > douglas at publicsphereproject.org > Twitter: @doug_schuler > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Public Sphere Project > http://www.publicsphereproject.org/ > > Mailing list ~ Collective Intelligence for the Common Good > _http://scn9.scn.org/mailman/listinfo/ci4cg-announce_ > Creating the World Citizen Parliament > http://interactions.acm.org/archive/view/may-june-2013/creating-the-world-citizen-parliament > > Liberating Voices! A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution > (project) > http://www.publicsphereproject.org/patterns/lv > > > Liberating Voices! A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution > (book) > http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11601 > > > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Ci4cg-announce mailing list > Ci4cg-announce at scn9.scn.org > http://scn9.scn.org/mailman/listinfo/ci4cg-announce -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davies at stanford.edu Tue Aug 2 13:06:46 2016 From: davies at stanford.edu (Todd Davies) Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2016 20:06:46 +0000 Subject: [Ci4cg-announce] A framework for working with and towards civic intelligence [1st installment] In-Reply-To: <32C5CE6A-EA2B-4B50-A639-055EB0B39B6B@publicsphereproject.org> References: <32C5CE6A-EA2B-4B50-A639-055EB0B39B6B@publicsphereproject.org> Message-ID: Thanks, Doug, for all of these thoughts and clarifications. I do like the term "civic intelligence", as well as "collective intelligence", and I agree that these concepts make sense as a way to capture how well collectivities or polities achieve their common goals, or the "common good". I think the best way to summarize my earlier thoughts is that I am urging caution about the scope of these terms. In other endeavors I have watched people try to claim more territory for a popular concept than that concept can credibly accommodate. So I am trying to apply that lesson as we move forward with attempts to define and apply ideas like civic intelligence. I would like to see that developed in a way that acknowledges its limitations. I think with you about where the world should be heading in terms of more democracy, etc., but I am not ready to sign on personally to the way you are using language. Again, I say this not to dissuade you, because I think what you are doing is useful. You are challenging our usual understanding of the concept of intelligence, for example, and I would like to see where that leads. My own linguistic proclivities just lead me in a slightly different direction. More specifically, you write the following: "Definition of Intelligence: An integrated set of processes that enable an agent to act in ways that are appropriate to the agent's goals and to the environment in which it exists / acts — particularly areas that present actual or potential challenges or opportunities. An 'agent' can be one or more people, any group, animal, computer program, hybrids of the above, and others as well as any artifacts, natural or otherwise, or system of artifacts that are useful in pursuit of the goals." Kenneth Arrow and others have shown us some deep difficulties with treating as a single agent a collection of individuals who have their own preferences, e.g. that individual preferences cannot generally be aggregated into a coherent social preference ordering. On a more gut level, I get nervous when people talk about a "world brain" (referencing your 2001 article about civic intelligence), because I worry that language like that may lead us to forget the multiplicity of our experiences and the distinctions between human (and other) beings. Where people's goals (mostly) align, I think you will get broad agreement about the appropriateness of the term "intelligence" as a characteristic of collective processes for achieving these common goals. But there is a vast space of civic issues on which we must make collective choices for which there is no widely agreed upon, best way to do that. In such cases I am more comfortable conceding that, while there are clearly unintelligent ways of making social decisions, the concept of intelligence does not give us a way to distinguish the ones that are the most just and the most productive and the most inspiring and the most likely to lead to species survival, etc., because these latter goals are different from and often incompatible with each other. To keep collective notions of intelligence useful, I think we need to limit the ambitions we have for their application and not count on them to resolve the fundamental conflicts we face as a species. Todd Todd Davies Symbolic Systems Program Stanford University Stanford, CA, 94305-2150 USA email: davies at stanford.edu phone: 1-650-723-4091 office: 460-040C web: web.stanford.edu/~davies ________________________________ From: ci4cg-announce-bounces at scn9.scn.org on behalf of Doug Schuler Sent: Monday, August 1, 2016 6:49 PM To: ci4cg-announce at scn9.scn.org Subject: [Ci4cg-announce] A framework for working with and towards civic intelligence [1st installment] Todd — and everybody else (hopefully of interest) This is a follow-on to the conversation that Todd's note launched. This note is more like the first version of a summary of the findings and assertions so far in relation to my exploration of civic intelligence. As you know I'm trying to develop civic intelligence as a focus for research, activism, education, policy-making, ... , etc. You also of course know that it's not a term that's in common use and I'd like to change that. I would love your comments on any and all aspects of this. I've been packing the idea of civic intelligence in many ways for quite awhile. Sometimes it's used as a part of social inquiry, sometimes it's meant to be aspirational, and sometimes it's intended to be used as a goal or guideline — and other uses are possible (ranking schools for example). These varieties of uses could be a source of confusion (in either the critique or the exploration itself). My belief and hope is that the diverse perspectives are in fact coherent, although that might not be apparent without the background logic. I'd like to think that a graphic depiction can be developed that showed the main elements and regions of the overall exploration. Ideally this would help maintain coherence, reduce misinterpretation, and promote additional work in this area. (And, of course, critique could help shape this effort into more productive ways.) I'm trying to explore a lot of things simultaneously — including the fact that exploring and practicing civic intelligence seems to be empowering to students, although this isn't addressed in this note. The following is an attempt to describe one region of the framework which is largely positivistic and should have the necessary rigor and logic to be palatable to social scientists of various types. I consider that everything is subject to modification. (1) We start with a (working) definition of Intelligence. This seems to be keeping with standard views of intelligence while containing elements that lend themselves to characterization and analysis. I wanted to focus on the potential richness of the concept (of intelligence) rather that be limited to a minimal, quantified and somewhat non-useful construct that some social scientists seem to prefer. Definition of Intelligence: An integrated set of processes that enable an agent to act in ways that are appropriate to the agent's goals and to the environment in which it exists / acts — particularly areas that present actual or potential challenges or opportunities. An "agent" can be one or more people, any group, animal, computer program, hybrids of the above, and others as well as any artifacts, natural or otherwise, or system of artifacts that are useful in pursuit of the goals. Collective intelligence is a major type of intelligence that is distinguished from individual intelligence (e.g. that of a single person). Intelligence can also be distributed over space and time. And the results of the diverse processes can be stored in many ways—in human memories, libraries, online, or in tools, systems, or artifacts. (2) The various components / elements of the definition suggest ways to characterize, analyze, categorize various approaches. Composition of the "agent" Environment in which the intelligence operates (Intelligence is context dependent) Processes that are used and how they are integrated (i.e. the structure) Goals, values, and norm The products of the processes The claim that I'm making is that it is probably possible to identify different versions of intelligence by the goals, types of actions, and composition and coordination of the agent. This might not be 100% certain but it could be useful. [TO BE CONTINUED] Douglas Schuler douglas at publicsphereproject.org Twitter: @doug_schuler ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Public Sphere Project http://www.publicsphereproject.org/ Mailing list ~ Collective Intelligence for the Common Good http://scn9.scn.org/mailman/listinfo/ci4cg-announce Creating the World Citizen Parliament http://interactions.acm.org/archive/view/may-june-2013/creating-the-world-citizen-parliament Liberating Voices! A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution (project) http://www.publicsphereproject.org/patterns/lv Liberating Voices! A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution (book) http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11601 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davies at stanford.edu Tue Aug 2 14:05:25 2016 From: davies at stanford.edu (Todd Davies) Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2016 21:05:25 +0000 Subject: [Ci4cg-announce] A framework for working with and towards civic intelligence [1st installment] In-Reply-To: <7BA95AF1-3221-4F33-9EB7-C84D4D3E7D42@qut.edu.au> References: <32C5CE6A-EA2B-4B50-A639-055EB0B39B6B@publicsphereproject.org>, <7BA95AF1-3221-4F33-9EB7-C84D4D3E7D42@qut.edu.au> Message-ID: HI, Marcus, I don't moving the discussion to Wikipedia would be an appropriate use of Wikipedia, under WP:OR. Some kind of wider dissemination of this discussion could be worthwhile, perhaps in a longer form, with references, etc., and others might eventually include a summary and reference to it in Wikipedia. That could be an interesting exercise in online deliberation. Todd Todd Davies Symbolic Systems Program Stanford University Stanford, CA, 94305-2150 USA email: davies at stanford.edu phone: 1-650-723-4091 office: 460-040C web: web.stanford.edu/~davies ________________________________ From: ci4cg-announce-bounces at scn9.scn.org on behalf of Marcus Foth Sent: Tuesday, August 2, 2016 1:04 AM To: Doug Schuler Cc: ci4cg-announce at scn9.scn.org Subject: Re: [Ci4cg-announce] A framework for working with and towards civic intelligence [1st installment] Hi Doug and all may I suggest to move this discussion and the output to Wikipedia? That would help improve the notability and discoverability of the term. The article could be expanded by adding examples of case studies, fora/events focussing on the theme, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civic_intelligence The “Talk” page can be used to expand and improve the current article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Civic_intelligence cheers, marcus Aalborg, DK -- Professor Marcus Foth i/Director, QUT Design Lab School of Design, Creative Industries Faculty Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia m.foth at qut.edu.au – @QUTdesign – qut.design CRICOS No. 00213J > On 2 Aug 2016, at 3:49 AM, Doug Schuler wrote: > > Todd — and everybody else (hopefully of interest) > > This is a follow-on to the conversation that Todd's note launched. This note is more like the first version of a summary of the findings and assertions so far in relation to my exploration of civic intelligence. As you know I'm trying to develop civic intelligence as a focus for research, activism, education, policy-making, ... , etc. You also of course know that it's not a term that's in common use and I'd like to change that. I would love your comments on any and all aspects of this. > > I've been packing the idea of civic intelligence in many ways for quite awhile. Sometimes it's used as a part of social inquiry, sometimes it's meant to be aspirational, and sometimes it's intended to be used as a goal or guideline — and other uses are possible (ranking schools for example). These varieties of uses could be a source of confusion (in either the critique or the exploration itself). My belief and hope is that the diverse perspectives are in fact coherent, although that might not be apparent without the background logic. > > I'd like to think that a graphic depiction can be developed that showed the main elements and regions of the overall exploration. Ideally this would help maintain coherence, reduce misinterpretation, and promote additional work in this area. (And, of course, critique could help shape this effort into more productive ways.) > > I'm trying to explore a lot of things simultaneously — including the fact that exploring and practicing civic intelligence seems to be empowering to students, although this isn't addressed in this note. > > The following is an attempt to describe one region of the framework which is largely positivistic and should have the necessary rigor and logic to be palatable to social scientists of various types. I consider that everything is subject to modification. > > (1) We start with a (working) definition of Intelligence. This seems to be keeping with standard views of intelligence while containing elements that lend themselves to characterization and analysis. I wanted to focus on the potential richness of the concept (of intelligence) rather that be limited to a minimal, quantified and somewhat non-useful construct that some social scientists seem to prefer. > > Definition of Intelligence: An integrated set of processes that enable an agent to act in ways that are appropriate to the agent's goals and to the environment in which it exists / acts — particularly areas that present actual or potential challenges or opportunities. > > An "agent" can be one or more people, any group, animal, computer program, hybrids of the above, and others as well as any artifacts, natural or otherwise, or system of artifacts that are useful in pursuit of the goals. > > Collective intelligence is a major type of intelligence that is distinguished from individual intelligence (e.g. that of a single person). > > Intelligence can also be distributed over space and time. And the results of the diverse processes can be stored in many ways—in human memories, libraries, online, or in tools, systems, or artifacts. > > (2) The various components / elements of the definition suggest ways to characterize, analyze, categorize various approaches. > > Composition of the "agent" > Environment in which the intelligence operates (Intelligence is context dependent) > Processes that are used and how they are integrated (i.e. the structure) > Goals, values, and norm > The products of the processes > > The claim that I'm making is that it is probably possible to identify different versions of intelligence by the goals, types of actions, and composition and coordination of the agent. This might not be 100% certain but it could be useful. > > [TO BE CONTINUED] > > Douglas Schuler > douglas at publicsphereproject.org > Twitter: @doug_schuler > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Public Sphere Project > http://www.publicsphereproject.org/ > > Mailing list ~ Collective Intelligence for the Common Good > http://scn9.scn.org/mailman/listinfo/ci4cg-announce > > Creating the World Citizen Parliament > http://interactions.acm.org/archive/view/may-june-2013/creating-the-world-citizen-parliament > > Liberating Voices! A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution (project) > http://www.publicsphereproject.org/patterns/lv > > Liberating Voices! A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution (book) > http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11601 > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Ci4cg-announce mailing list > Ci4cg-announce at scn9.scn.org > http://scn9.scn.org/mailman/listinfo/ci4cg-announce _______________________________________________ Ci4cg-announce mailing list Ci4cg-announce at scn9.scn.org http://scn9.scn.org/mailman/listinfo/ci4cg-announce -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From douglas at publicsphereproject.org Tue Aug 2 18:12:00 2016 From: douglas at publicsphereproject.org (Doug Schuler) Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2016 18:12:00 -0700 Subject: [Ci4cg-announce] A framework for working with and towards civic intelligence [1st installment] In-Reply-To: <4fa2a0e2-a463-e23c-26b0-758765225d7b@gmail.com> References: <32C5CE6A-EA2B-4B50-A639-055EB0B39B6B@publicsphereproject.org> <4fa2a0e2-a463-e23c-26b0-758765225d7b@gmail.com> Message-ID: <3DE9C39A-088E-40EF-9A09-B7BD62DC4C26@publicsphereproject.org> Dmitry, To me, the "integrated set of processes that enable an agent to act in ways that are appropriate to the agent's goals and to the environment" should at least include learning, perceiving (bringing in information), decision-making, etc. In human (and, especially, civic) intelligence, I'd include non-symbol manipulation approaches such as sense of justice, emotions, creativity, empathy, etc. To me everything you suggest about looking at memory seems relevant. I also think about historical memory as talked about in our "Memory and Responsibility" pattern (http://www.publicsphereproject.org/content/memory-and-responsibility ) Thanks! > On Aug 1, 2016, at 9:58 PM, Dmitry Sokolov wrote: > > Doug, > > would you related intelligence to decision making? > I am not sure whether acting without thinking / reflection / decision making can be thought intelligent. > > Regarding storage media "in human memories, libraries, online, or in tools, systems, or artifacts.", would you suggest comparative analysis of those techniques (and possibly "collective memory" platforms?) by accuracy / fidelity / access time as a function of time? I am interested in real-time decision making where timely access to particular knowledge is critical. > > Thank you, > Dimitri > > On 02/08/16 13:49, Doug Schuler wrote: >> Todd — and everybody else (hopefully of interest) >> >> This is a follow-on to the conversation that Todd's note launched. This note is more like the first version of a summary of the findings and assertions so far in relation to my exploration of civic intelligence. As you know I'm trying to develop civic intelligence as a focus for research, activism, education, policy-making, ... , etc. You also of course know that it's not a term that's in common use and I'd like to change that. I would love your comments on any and all aspects of this. >> >> I've been packing the idea of civic intelligence in many ways for quite awhile. Sometimes it's used as a part of social inquiry, sometimes it's meant to be aspirational, and sometimes it's intended to be used as a goal or guideline — and other uses are possible (ranking schools for example). These varieties of uses could be a source of confusion (in either the critique or the exploration itself). My belief and hope is that the diverse perspectives are in fact coherent, although that might not be apparent without the background logic. >> >> I'd like to think that a graphic depiction can be developed that showed the main elements and regions of the overall exploration. Ideally this would help maintain coherence, reduce misinterpretation, and promote additional work in this area. (And, of course, critique could help shape this effort into more productive ways.) >> >> I'm trying to explore a lot of things simultaneously — including the fact that exploring and practicing civic intelligence seems to be empowering to students, although this isn't addressed in this note. >> >> The following is an attempt to describe one region of the framework which is largely positivistic and should have the necessary rigor and logic to be palatable to social scientists of various types. I consider that everything is subject to modification. >> >> (1) We start with a (working) definition of Intelligence. This seems to be keeping with standard views of intelligence while containing elements that lend themselves to characterization and analysis. I wanted to focus on the potential richness of the concept (of intelligence) rather that be limited to a minimal, quantified and somewhat non-useful construct that some social scientists seem to prefer. >> >> Definition of Intelligence: An integrated set of processes that enable an agent to act in ways that are appropriate to the agent's goals and to the environment in which it exists / acts — particularly areas that present actual or potential challenges or opportunities. >> >> An "agent" can be one or more people, any group, animal, computer program, hybrids of the above, and others as well as any artifacts, natural or otherwise, or system of artifacts that are useful in pursuit of the goals. >> >> Collective intelligence is a major type of intelligence that is distinguished from individual intelligence (e.g. that of a single person). >> >> Intelligence can also be distributed over space and time. And the results of the diverse processes can be stored in many ways—in human memories, libraries, online, or in tools, systems, or artifacts. >> >> (2) The various components / elements of the definition suggest ways to characterize, analyze, categorize various approaches. >> >> Composition of the "agent" >> Environment in which the intelligence operates (Intelligence is context dependent) >> Processes that are used and how they are integrated (i.e. the structure) >> Goals, values, and norm >> The products of the processes >> >> The claim that I'm making is that it is probably possible to identify different versions of intelligence by the goals, types of actions, and composition and coordination of the agent. This might not be 100% certain but it could be useful. >> >> [TO BE CONTINUED] >> >> Douglas Schuler >> douglas at publicsphereproject.org >> Twitter: @doug_schuler >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >> Public Sphere Project >> http://www.publicsphereproject.org/ >> Mailing list ~ Collective Intelligence for the Common Good >> http://scn9.scn.org/mailman/listinfo/ci 4cg-announce >> >> Creating the World Citizen Parliament >> http://interactions.acm.org/archive/view/may-june-2013/creating-the-world-citizen-parliament >> >> Liberating Voices! A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution (project) >> http://www.publicsphereproject.org/patterns/lv >> >> Liberating Voices! A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution (book) >> http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11601 >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Ci4cg-announce mailing list >> Ci4cg-announce at scn9.scn.org >> http://scn9.scn.org/mailman/listinfo/ci4cg-announce > Douglas Schuler douglas at publicsphereproject.org Twitter: @doug_schuler ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Public Sphere Project http://www.publicsphereproject.org/ Mailing list ~ Collective Intelligence for the Common Good http://scn9.scn.org/mailman/listinfo/ci4cg-announce Creating the World Citizen Parliament http://interactions.acm.org/archive/view/may-june-2013/creating-the-world-citizen-parliament Liberating Voices! A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution (project) http://www.publicsphereproject.org/patterns/lv Liberating Voices! A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution (book) http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11601 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dmitry.v.sokolov at gmail.com Tue Aug 2 20:09:05 2016 From: dmitry.v.sokolov at gmail.com (Dmitry Sokolov) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 15:09:05 +1200 Subject: [Ci4cg-announce] A framework for working with and towards civic intelligence [1st installment] In-Reply-To: <3DE9C39A-088E-40EF-9A09-B7BD62DC4C26@publicsphereproject.org> References: <32C5CE6A-EA2B-4B50-A639-055EB0B39B6B@publicsphereproject.org> <4fa2a0e2-a463-e23c-26b0-758765225d7b@gmail.com> <3DE9C39A-088E-40EF-9A09-B7BD62DC4C26@publicsphereproject.org> Message-ID: Doug, sorry for the long email. To my feeling many if not all mental processes ("learning, perceiving (bringing in information), decision-making, etc.") are based on memory and pattern matching. Quick access to particular knowledge / patterns defines our mental and cognitive efficiency. I believe, same should be though in regards to the collective memory, including historical, as a part of collective intelligence / decision making process. Quicker access to stored information and facts defines our factual (as compared to imaginary) foundation for intelligence. Talking about current status of our collective intelligence, I was not able to find a good reference page on Civic Intelligence as compared to other forms of Intelligence, Collective, for example. That should mean to me that Collective Memory either doesn't exist, or hard to find / discover. Knowledge cannot be reused (in intelligence, or other processes) if not found or discovered in time. If knowledge is not reused, it has to be "reinvented", on the expense of either time and other resources, or quality of intelligence / decision making (and/or other mental processes). What does it mean practically? I would love to participate in CI4CG to my full capacity but I have no access to the history of our project, it's conceptual network, participants and their areas of expertise. From the researcher point of view, I see no systematic and systemic repository of the CI4CG data / knowledge / information including best practices, for example. Based on my observations, should I come to the idea that the agent's activities, including intelligence, are thought to be done in non-systematic and non-systemic way too? To reframe the problem: long learning process, lack of a "single entry point" for all inquiries, queries and requests for particular information should indicate absence, or highly inefficient collective memory. Inefficient memory defines inefficient intelligence being a part of it we are not able to exclude. I believe, if CI4CG community is interested in efficient intelligence, it should address the following questions: - theoretical vs. experimentally confirmed "access rates" to particular knowledge, as measured in Topics, or Issues / minute. - applicability of different data, knowledge and communication structures and protocols to the most characteristic activities CI4CG is trying to deal with, both theoretical and experimentally confirmed. - classification of applicability of CI4CG methods and techniques to the variety of problems, considered vs resolved, or solved. Your thoughts? Thank you, Dimitri On 03/08/16 13:12, Doug Schuler wrote: > Dmitry, > > To me, the "integrated set of processes that enable an agent to act in > ways that are appropriate to the agent's goals and to the environment" > should at least include learning, perceiving (bringing in > information), decision-making, etc. > > In human (and, especially, /civic/) intelligence, I'd include > non-symbol manipulation approaches such as sense of justice, emotions, > creativity, empathy, etc. > > To me everything you suggest about looking at memory seems relevant. > > I also think about historical memory as talked about in our "Memory > and Responsibility" pattern > (http://www.publicsphereproject.org/content/memory-and-responsibility) > > Thanks! > > > > >> On Aug 1, 2016, at 9:58 PM, Dmitry Sokolov >> > wrote: >> >> Doug, >> >> would you related intelligence to decision making? >> I am not sure whether acting without thinking / reflection / decision >> making can be thought intelligent. >> >> Regarding storage media "in human memories, libraries, online, or in >> tools, systems, or artifacts.", would you suggest comparative >> analysis of those techniques (and possibly "collective memory" >> platforms?) by accuracy / fidelity / access time as a function of >> time? I am interested in real-time decision making where timely >> access to particular knowledge is critical. >> >> Thank you, >> Dimitri >> >> On 02/08/16 13:49, Doug Schuler wrote: >>> Todd — and everybody else (hopefully of interest) >>> >>> This is a follow-on to the conversation that Todd's note launched. >>> This note is more like the first version of a summary of the >>> findings and assertions so far in relation to my exploration of >>> civic intelligence. As you know I'm trying to develop >>> civic intelligence as a focus for research, activism, education, >>> policy-making, ... , etc. You also of course know that it's not a >>> term that's in common use and I'd like to change that. I would love >>> your comments on any and all aspects of this. >>> >>> I've been packing the idea of civic intelligence in many ways for >>> quite awhile. Sometimes it's used as a part of social inquiry, >>> sometimes it's meant to be aspirational, and sometimes it's intended >>> to be used as a goal or guideline — and other uses are possible >>> (ranking schools for example). These varieties of uses could be a >>> source of confusion (in either the critique or the exploration >>> itself). My belief and hope is that the diverse perspectives are in >>> fact coherent, although that might not be apparent without the >>> background logic. >>> >>> I'd like to think that a graphic depiction can be developed that >>> showed the main elements and regions of the overall exploration. >>> Ideally this would help maintain coherence, reduce >>> misinterpretation, and promote additional work in this area. (And, >>> of course, critique could help shape this effort into more >>> productive ways.) >>> >>> I'm trying to explore a lot of things simultaneously — including the >>> fact that exploring and practicing civic intelligence seems to be >>> empowering to students, although this isn't addressed in this note. >>> >>> The following is an attempt to describe one region of the framework >>> which is largely positivistic and should have the necessary rigor >>> and logic to be palatable to social scientists of various types. I >>> consider that everything is subject to modification. >>> >>> (1) We start with a (working) definition of Intelligence. This seems >>> to be keeping with standard views of intelligence while containing >>> elements that lend themselves to characterization and analysis. I >>> wanted to focus on the potential richness of the concept (of >>> intelligence) rather that be limited to a minimal, quantified and >>> somewhat non-useful construct that some social scientists seem to >>> prefer. >>> >>> Definition of Intelligence: An integrated set of processes that >>> enable an agent to act in ways that are appropriate to the agent's >>> goals and to the environment in which it exists / acts — >>> particularly areas that present actual or potential challenges >>> or opportunities. >>> >>> An "agent" can be one or more people, any group, animal, computer >>> program, hybrids of the above, and others as well as any artifacts, >>> natural or otherwise, or system of artifacts that are useful in >>> pursuit of the goals. >>> >>> Collective intelligence is a major type of intelligence that is >>> distinguished from individual intelligence (e.g. that of a single >>> person). >>> >>> Intelligence can also be distributed over space and time. And the >>> results of the diverse processes can be stored in many ways—in human >>> memories, libraries, online, or in tools, systems, or artifacts. >>> >>> (2) The various components / elements of the definition suggest ways >>> to characterize, analyze, categorize various approaches. >>> >>> Composition of the "agent" >>> Environment in which the intelligence operates (Intelligence is >>> context dependent) >>> Processes that are used and how they are integrated (i.e. the structure) >>> Goals, values, and norm >>> The products of the processes >>> >>> The claim that I'm making is that it is probably possible to >>> identify different versions of intelligence by the goals, types of >>> actions, and composition and coordination of the agent. This might >>> not be 100% certain but it could be useful. >>> >>> [TO BE CONTINUED] >>> >>> Douglas Schuler >>> douglas at publicsphereproject.org >>> Twitter: @doug_schuler >>> >>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >>> Public Sphere Project >>> http://www.publicsphereproject.org/ >>> >>> Mailing list ~ Collective Intelligence for the Common Good >>> _http://scn9.scn.org/mailman/listinfo/ci4cg-announce_ >>> Creating the World Citizen Parliament >>> http://interactions.acm.org/archive/view/may-june-2013/creating-the-world-citizen-parliament >>> >>> Liberating Voices! A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution >>> (project) >>> http://www.publicsphereproject.org/patterns/lv >>> >>> >>> Liberating Voices! A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution >>> (book) >>> http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11601 >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Ci4cg-announce mailing list >>> Ci4cg-announce at scn9.scn.org >>> http://scn9.scn.org/mailman/listinfo/ci4cg-announce >> > > Douglas Schuler > douglas at publicsphereproject.org > Twitter: @doug_schuler > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Public Sphere Project > http://www.publicsphereproject.org/ > > Mailing list ~ Collective Intelligence for the Common Good > _http://scn9.scn.org/mailman/listinfo/ci4cg-announce_ > Creating the World Citizen Parliament > http://interactions.acm.org/archive/view/may-june-2013/creating-the-world-citizen-parliament > > Liberating Voices! A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution > (project) > http://www.publicsphereproject.org/patterns/lv > > > Liberating Voices! A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution > (book) > http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11601 > > > > > > > > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From H.Davis at latrobe.edu.au Tue Aug 2 22:25:54 2016 From: H.Davis at latrobe.edu.au (Hilary Davis) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 05:25:54 +0000 Subject: [Ci4cg-announce] CFP for OzCHI workshop on Digital Participation: Engaging Diverse and Marginalised Communities In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: CFP for OzCHI'16 Workshop (Tasmania, Australia) on: Digital Participation: Engaging Diverse and Marginalised Communities Digital participation is still most effectively utilised by particular sections of society. Socially excluded, diverse and marginalised people, such as people with disability, older people, disadvantaged youth and women, people identifying as LGBTI, Indigenous people and others, are particularly vulnerable to digital non-participation, and under-participation, thereby compounding disadvantage. Further, communities are disadvantaged due to place, often due to lack of access to resources, digital technology or telecommunications infrastructure. This OzCHI 2016 conference workshop provides a forum for HCI researchers and others to identify practical, innovative, and sensitive solutions to support sustained digital participation for disadvantaged communities. One outcome from the workshop is to develop a set of guidelines for HCI researchers and others working in this space. We invite position papers of up to 4 pages (in OzCHI format) that describe experiences of: · Fostering digital skills at home and in the community · Designing, developing, adapting and utilising technology for digital inclusion · The role of proxies and champions for supporting digital inclusion and participation · Strategies for recognising and responding to sensitivities during the research process · Sustaining digital inclusion beyond the life of the research project Position papers will be selected on the basis of relevance to the workshop, quality of presentation, and potential to stimulate discussion. Papers will typically be made public on the workshop website. At least one author for each accepted submission must register for the workshop. Links: Workshop website: http://digitalparticipationHCI.wordpress.com Conference website: http://www.ozchi.org/2016 Important Dates: · Please submit papers to h.davis at latrobe.edu.au by 26th August, 2016 · Notification of acceptance will be sent by 23rd September, 2016 · The workshop will be held on 29th November, 2016 in Tasmania, Australia. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From m.foth at qut.edu.au Wed Aug 3 03:38:46 2016 From: m.foth at qut.edu.au (Marcus Foth) Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 10:38:46 +0000 Subject: [Ci4cg-announce] A framework for working with and towards civic intelligence [1st installment] In-Reply-To: References: <32C5CE6A-EA2B-4B50-A639-055EB0B39B6B@publicsphereproject.org> <7BA95AF1-3221-4F33-9EB7-C84D4D3E7D42@qut.edu.au> Message-ID: <8C726F22-A93C-45B9-80FC-F692AF1D78BC@qut.edu.au> Hi Todd good point. I agree with you. My main concern was about the ephemerality of these types of email conversations containing useful thoughts and discussions that may get lost, and thus, trying to capture them. Your suggested pathway is great. cheers, marcus Aarhus, DK -- Professor Marcus Foth i/Director, QUT Design Lab School of Design, Creative Industries Faculty Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia m.foth at qut.edu.au – @QUTdesign – qut.design CRICOS No. 00213J > On 2 Aug 2016, at 11:05 PM, Todd Davies wrote: > > HI, Marcus, > > I don't moving the discussion to Wikipedia would be an appropriate use of Wikipedia, under WP:OR. Some kind of wider dissemination of this discussion could be worthwhile, perhaps in a longer form, with references, etc., and others might eventually include a summary and reference to it in Wikipedia. That could be an interesting exercise in online deliberation. > > Todd > > Todd Davies > Symbolic Systems Program > Stanford University > Stanford, CA, 94305-2150 USA > email: davies at stanford.edu > phone: 1-650-723-4091 > office: 460-040C > web: web.stanford.edu/~davies > > > > From: ci4cg-announce-bounces at scn9.scn.org on behalf of Marcus Foth > Sent: Tuesday, August 2, 2016 1:04 AM > To: Doug Schuler > Cc: ci4cg-announce at scn9.scn.org > Subject: Re: [Ci4cg-announce] A framework for working with and towards civic intelligence [1st installment] > > Hi Doug and all > > may I suggest to move this discussion and the output to Wikipedia? That would help improve the notability and discoverability of the term. The article could be expanded by adding examples of case studies, fora/events focussing on the theme, etc. > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civic_intelligence > > The “Talk” page can be used to expand and improve the current article: > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Civic_intelligence > > cheers, marcus > Aalborg, DK > > -- > Professor Marcus Foth > > i/Director, QUT Design Lab > School of Design, Creative Industries Faculty > Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia > m.foth at qut.edu.au – @QUTdesign – qut.design > > CRICOS No. 00213J > > > On 2 Aug 2016, at 3:49 AM, Doug Schuler wrote: > > > > Todd — and everybody else (hopefully of interest) > > > > This is a follow-on to the conversation that Todd's note launched. This note is more like the first version of a summary of the findings and assertions so far in relation to my exploration of civic intelligence. As you know I'm trying to develop civic intelligence as a focus for research, activism, education, policy-making, ... , etc. You also of course know that it's not a term that's in common use and I'd like to change that. I would love your comments on any and all aspects of this. > > > > I've been packing the idea of civic intelligence in many ways for quite awhile. Sometimes it's used as a part of social inquiry, sometimes it's meant to be aspirational, and sometimes it's intended to be used as a goal or guideline — and other uses are possible (ranking schools for example). These varieties of uses could be a source of confusion (in either the critique or the exploration itself). My belief and hope is that the diverse perspectives are in fact coherent, although that might not be apparent without the background logic. > > > > I'd like to think that a graphic depiction can be developed that showed the main elements and regions of the overall exploration. Ideally this would help maintain coherence, reduce misinterpretation, and promote additional work in this area. (And, of course, critique could help shape this effort into more productive ways.) > > > > I'm trying to explore a lot of things simultaneously — including the fact that exploring and practicing civic intelligence seems to be empowering to students, although this isn't addressed in this note. > > > > The following is an attempt to describe one region of the framework which is largely positivistic and should have the necessary rigor and logic to be palatable to social scientists of various types. I consider that everything is subject to modification. > > > > (1) We start with a (working) definition of Intelligence. This seems to be keeping with standard views of intelligence while containing elements that lend themselves to characterization and analysis. I wanted to focus on the potential richness of the concept (of intelligence) rather that be limited to a minimal, quantified and somewhat non-useful construct that some social scientists seem to prefer. > > > > Definition of Intelligence: An integrated set of processes that enable an agent to act in ways that are appropriate to the agent's goals and to the environment in which it exists / acts — particularly areas that present actual or potential challenges or opportunities. > > > > An "agent" can be one or more people, any group, animal, computer program, hybrids of the above, and others as well as any artifacts, natural or otherwise, or system of artifacts that are useful in pursuit of the goals. > > > > Collective intelligence is a major type of intelligence that is distinguished from individual intelligence (e.g. that of a single person). > > > > Intelligence can also be distributed over space and time. And the results of the diverse processes can be stored in many ways—in human memories, libraries, online, or in tools, systems, or artifacts. > > > > (2) The various components / elements of the definition suggest ways to characterize, analyze, categorize various approaches. > > > > Composition of the "agent" > > Environment in which the intelligence operates (Intelligence is context dependent) > > Processes that are used and how they are integrated (i.e. the structure) > > Goals, values, and norm > > The products of the processes > > > > The claim that I'm making is that it is probably possible to identify different versions of intelligence by the goals, types of actions, and composition and coordination of the agent. This might not be 100% certain but it could be useful. > > > > [TO BE CONTINUED] > > > > Douglas Schuler > > douglas at publicsphereproject.org > > Twitter: @doug_schuler > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > Public Sphere Project > > http://www.publicsphereproject.org/ > > > > Mailing list ~ Collective Intelligence for the Common Good > > http://scn9.scn.org/mailman/listinfo/ci4cg-announce > > > > Creating the World Citizen Parliament > > http://interactions.acm.org/archive/view/may-june-2013/creating-the-world-citizen-parliament > > > > Liberating Voices! A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution (project) > > http://www.publicsphereproject.org/patterns/lv > > > > Liberating Voices! A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution (book) > > http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11601 > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Ci4cg-announce mailing list > > Ci4cg-announce at scn9.scn.org > > http://scn9.scn.org/mailman/listinfo/ci4cg-announce > > _______________________________________________ > Ci4cg-announce mailing list > Ci4cg-announce at scn9.scn.org > http://scn9.scn.org/mailman/listinfo/ci4cg-announce From douglas at publicsphereproject.org Sat Aug 6 16:26:16 2016 From: douglas at publicsphereproject.org (Doug Schuler) Date: Sat, 6 Aug 2016 16:26:16 -0700 Subject: [Ci4cg-announce] A framework for working with and towards civic intelligence [1st installment] In-Reply-To: References: <32C5CE6A-EA2B-4B50-A639-055EB0B39B6B@publicsphereproject.org> Message-ID: Thanks Todd. I'll throw in a few words here. We may not have to go back and forth with this much more. We may have still have some differences but probably not too many. (?) The usual warning on length... > On Aug 2, 2016, at 1:06 PM, Todd Davies wrote: > > Thanks, Doug, for all of these thoughts and clarifications. I do like the term "civic intelligence", as well as "collective intelligence", and I agree that these concepts make sense as a way to capture how well collectivities or polities achieve their common goals, or the "common good". > > I think the best way to summarize my earlier thoughts is that I am urging caution about the scope of these terms. In other endeavors I have watched people try to claim more territory for a popular concept than that concept can credibly accommodate. So I am trying to apply that lesson as we move forward with attempts to define and apply ideas like civic intelligence. I've noticed that too. I'm trying not to overstretch the concept. But many concepts have slightly different meanings in different contexts. > I would like to see that developed in a way that acknowledges its limitations. I do try to acknowledge its limitations. (On the other hand, having limitations is more-or-less intrinsic to any concept that we use.) > I think with you about where the world should be heading in terms of more democracy, etc., but I am not ready to sign on personally to the way you are using language. Again, I say this not to dissuade you, because I think what you are doing is useful. > You are challenging our usual understanding of the concept of intelligence, for example, and I would like to see where that leads. My own linguistic proclivities just lead me in a slightly different direction. I'm not the only one who's challenging this. It seems to be fairly common now to open up the concept. Go to Google Scholar and look up collective intelligence or distributed intelligence. I think that people are basically using those terms for two reasons: (1) the term "intelligence" is the most appropriate one for the job (see my working definition) and (2) it describes a very important phenomenon. (After all, what activity of significance is created by one mind working alone?) [And what definition should we use?] A simple example: I used to work at Boeing where they design and build airplanes. A couple of people would sketch out an airplane concept — how many miles it would fly, how many seats it would have, what type of fuel economy (e.g.) — and about 10 years later one would fly, generally followed by hundreds more. This involved an integrated set of processes and tens of thousands of people; they learned, they perceived their environment; they marshaled resources and they coordinated their activities. I'd say it was an intelligent agent. A bunch of uncoordinated people couldn't do it. (We do talk about the intelligence of individuals but in reality it's nearly impossible to think of a person's intelligence (not what's measured by IQ tests) as being separate from other people.) My assertion is that we are more-or-less forced to think about our collective intelligence because it's required for survival... > > More specifically, you write the following: > "Definition of Intelligence: An integrated set of processes that enable an agent to act in ways that are appropriate to the agent's goals and to the environment in which it exists / acts — particularly areas that present actual or potential challenges or opportunities. > > An 'agent' can be one or more people, any group, animal, computer program, hybrids of the above, and others as well as any artifacts, natural or otherwise, or system of artifacts that are useful in pursuit of the goals." > Kenneth Arrow and others have shown us some deep difficulties with treating as a single agent a collection of individuals who have their own preferences, e.g. that individual preferences cannot generally be aggregated into a coherent social preference ordering. I guess I'm not ready to abandon what I consider to be an absolutely essential enterprise because there are "deep difficulties" with it. On the other hand, I'm not sure what Arrow means by this. Philosophical? methodological? Theoretical? And does he say that we should ignore it? To me it doesn't seem like a good reason not to explore this because "individual preferences cannot generally be aggregated into a coherent social preference ordering." In reality individual preferences (which I suspect aren't static or necessarily orderable or discrete anyway) don't align. They seem to be everywhere in conflict. But they're important social phenomena — and very relevant! We get things done in spite of "coherent social preference ordering" — even though I confess I don't know much about CSPO's. > On a more gut level, I get nervous when people talk about a "world brain" (referencing your 2001 article about civic intelligence), because I worry that language like that may lead us to forget the multiplicity of our experiences and the distinctions between human (and other) beings. I also get super nervous when I hear people "going too far" with the "world brain" idea. I totally regret using it in the title. It's from an H.G. Wells article where he describes something that is a bit like Wikipedia! I did QUOTE the "world brain" string in the title— and I totally distance the idea of civic intelligence from the idea of a "world brain" in the article. > Where people's goals (mostly) align, I think you will get broad agreement about the appropriateness of the term "intelligence" as a characteristic of collective processes for achieving these common goals. But there is a vast space of civic issues on which we must make collective choices for which there is no widely agreed upon, best way to do that. In such cases I am more comfortable conceding that, while there are clearly unintelligent ways of making social decisions, the concept of intelligence does not give us a way to distinguish the ones that are the most just and the most productive and the most inspiring and the most likely to lead to species survival, etc., because these latter goals are different from and often incompatible with each other. To keep collective notions of intelligence useful, I think we need to limit the ambitions we have for their application and not count on them to resolve the fundamental conflicts we face as a species. You raise very important points here. One, however, I see as a red herring — I don't see the fact that there is no "best" way to proceed as being a show-stopper from exploring the concept of civic intelligence. In "real life" (non-trivial problems) the "best" way is rarely if ever knowable. We had to "muddle through" but, hopefully, there are better ways to muddle through than others. (And intelligence—at least the way I view it— has a real-time requirement. If the sabre toothed tiger kills you while you are working on the best escape route, you aren't as intelligent as the IQ test suggests you are. I agree with you that maybe looking at the "clearly unintelligent" ways is a good start towards civic intelligence — and the Agnotology work and, even, our anti-patterns seem to be useful here. I hope you remember that my vision of "intelligence" is not just a "rational" or "cognitive" or otherwise quantified or gamified approach. The "emotional" and other types of intelligences has helped us think of "intelligence" before it was turned into something that solely measured on a test. The idea of justice, fairness, empathy, emotions, courage, humility, etc. presumably play a role. That's one reason why we don't turn our affairs over to some AI approach. I've heard that it has actually been validated that people who use numbers and logic exclusively to make decisions fit the model for certain types of severe emotional problems. I don't see "civic intelligence" as a panacea. I certainly don't make any claims about the future based on the "inevitability" of civic intelligence. (How could anybody think when Donald Trump is actually a major candidate for president of the US) I don't count on civic intelligence to "resolve the fundamental conflicts" (or anything for that matter) but I think it could help us move in that direction. I do go back to my weaker (but still somewhat strong) claim that civic intelligence is an important social phenomenon that probably can be increased or decreased. Having "more" and "better" of it is probably good. But we need to study it and consider it. Thanks Todd! And anybody else who is still reading!!!! — Doug > > Todd > > Todd Davies > Symbolic Systems Program > Stanford University > Stanford, CA, 94305-2150 USA > email: davies at stanford.edu > phone: 1-650-723-4091 > office: 460-040C > web: web.stanford.edu/~davies > > > > From: ci4cg-announce-bounces at scn9.scn.org > on behalf of Doug Schuler > > Sent: Monday, August 1, 2016 6:49 PM > To: ci4cg-announce at scn9.scn.org > Subject: [Ci4cg-announce] A framework for working with and towards civic intelligence [1st installment] > > Todd — and everybody else (hopefully of interest) > > This is a follow-on to the conversation that Todd's note launched. This note is more like the first version of a summary of the findings and assertions so far in relation to my exploration of civic intelligence. As you know I'm trying to develop civic intelligence as a focus for research, activism, education, policy-making, ... , etc. You also of course know that it's not a term that's in common use and I'd like to change that. I would love your comments on any and all aspects of this. > > I've been packing the idea of civic intelligence in many ways for quite awhile. Sometimes it's used as a part of social inquiry, sometimes it's meant to be aspirational, and sometimes it's intended to be used as a goal or guideline — and other uses are possible (ranking schools for example). These varieties of uses could be a source of confusion (in either the critique or the exploration itself). My belief and hope is that the diverse perspectives are in fact coherent, although that might not be apparent without the background logic. > > I'd like to think that a graphic depiction can be developed that showed the main elements and regions of the overall exploration. Ideally this would help maintain coherence, reduce misinterpretation, and promote additional work in this area. (And, of course, critique could help shape this effort into more productive ways.) > > I'm trying to explore a lot of things simultaneously — including the fact that exploring and practicing civic intelligence seems to be empowering to students, although this isn't addressed in this note. > > The following is an attempt to describe one region of the framework which is largely positivistic and should have the necessary rigor and logic to be palatable to social scientists of various types. I consider that everything is subject to modification. > > (1) We start with a (working) definition of Intelligence. This seems to be keeping with standard views of intelligence while containing elements that lend themselves to characterization and analysis. I wanted to focus on the potential richness of the concept (of intelligence) rather that be limited to a minimal, quantified and somewhat non-useful construct that some social scientists seem to prefer. > > Definition of Intelligence: An integrated set of processes that enable an agent to act in ways that are appropriate to the agent's goals and to the environment in which it exists / acts — particularly areas that present actual or potential challenges or opportunities. > > An "agent" can be one or more people, any group, animal, computer program, hybrids of the above, and others as well as any artifacts, natural or otherwise, or system of artifacts that are useful in pursuit of the goals. > > Collective intelligence is a major type of intelligence that is distinguished from individual intelligence (e.g. that of a single person). > > Intelligence can also be distributed over space and time. And the results of the diverse processes can be stored in many ways—in human memories, libraries, online, or in tools, systems, or artifacts. > > (2) The various components / elements of the definition suggest ways to characterize, analyze, categorize various approaches. > > Composition of the "agent" > Environment in which the intelligence operates (Intelligence is context dependent) > Processes that are used and how they are integrated (i.e. the structure) > Goals, values, and norm > The products of the processes > > The claim that I'm making is that it is probably possible to identify different versions of intelligence by the goals, types of actions, and composition and coordination of the agent. This might not be 100% certain but it could be useful. > > [TO BE CONTINUED] > > Douglas Schuler > douglas at publicsphereproject.org > Twitter: @doug_schuler > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Public Sphere Project > http://www.publicsphereproject.org/ > Mailing list ~ Collective Intelligence for the Common Good > http://scn9.scn.org/mailman/listinfo/ci 4cg-announce > > Creating the World Citizen Parliament > http://interactions.acm.org/archive/view/may-june-2013/creating-the-world-citizen-parliament > > Liberating Voices! A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution (project) > http://www.publicsphereproject.org/patterns/lv > > Liberating Voices! A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution (book) > http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11601 Douglas Schuler douglas at publicsphereproject.org Twitter: @doug_schuler ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Public Sphere Project http://www.publicsphereproject.org/ Mailing list ~ Collective Intelligence for the Common Good http://scn9.scn.org/mailman/listinfo/ci4cg-announce Creating the World Citizen Parliament http://interactions.acm.org/archive/view/may-june-2013/creating-the-world-citizen-parliament Liberating Voices! A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution (project) http://www.publicsphereproject.org/patterns/lv Liberating Voices! A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution (book) http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11601 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davies at stanford.edu Mon Aug 8 14:09:21 2016 From: davies at stanford.edu (Todd Davies) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 21:09:21 +0000 Subject: [Ci4cg-announce] A framework for working with and towards civic intelligence [1st installment] In-Reply-To: References: <32C5CE6A-EA2B-4B50-A639-055EB0B39B6B@publicsphereproject.org> , Message-ID: HI, Doug, thanks for all this. it looks to me like we agree that collective and civic intelligence are useful concepts, that some people are taking the concept of collective intelligence too far, and that it is important to have critical voices in that conversation. There is more to discuss by way of follow-up to your thoughtful messages, but for me that would require a longer form medium. Until then, Todd Todd Davies Symbolic Systems Program Stanford University Stanford, CA, 94305-2150 USA email: davies at stanford.edu phone: 1-650-723-4091 office: 460-040C web: web.stanford.edu/~davies ________________________________ From: ci4cg-announce-bounces at scn9.scn.org on behalf of Doug Schuler Sent: Saturday, August 6, 2016 4:26 PM To: Todd Davies Cc: ci4cg-announce at scn9.scn.org Subject: Re: [Ci4cg-announce] A framework for working with and towards civic intelligence [1st installment] Thanks Todd. I'll throw in a few words here. We may not have to go back and forth with this much more. We may have still have some differences but probably not too many. (?) The usual warning on length... On Aug 2, 2016, at 1:06 PM, Todd Davies > wrote: Thanks, Doug, for all of these thoughts and clarifications. I do like the term "civic intelligence", as well as "collective intelligence", and I agree that these concepts make sense as a way to capture how well collectivities or polities achieve their common goals, or the "common good". I think the best way to summarize my earlier thoughts is that I am urging caution about the scope of these terms. In other endeavors I have watched people try to claim more territory for a popular concept than that concept can credibly accommodate. So I am trying to apply that lesson as we move forward with attempts to define and apply ideas like civic intelligence. I've noticed that too. I'm trying not to overstretch the concept. But many concepts have slightly different meanings in different contexts. I would like to see that developed in a way that acknowledges its limitations. I do try to acknowledge its limitations. (On the other hand, having limitations is more-or-less intrinsic to any concept that we use.) I think with you about where the world should be heading in terms of more democracy, etc., but I am not ready to sign on personally to the way you are using language. Again, I say this not to dissuade you, because I think what you are doing is useful. You are challenging our usual understanding of the concept of intelligence, for example, and I would like to see where that leads. My own linguistic proclivities just lead me in a slightly different direction. I'm not the only one who's challenging this. It seems to be fairly common now to open up the concept. Go to Google Scholar and look up collective intelligence or distributed intelligence. I think that people are basically using those terms for two reasons: (1) the term "intelligence" is the most appropriate one for the job (see my working definition) and (2) it describes a very important phenomenon. (After all, what activity of significance is created by one mind working alone?) [And what definition should we use?] A simple example: I used to work at Boeing where they design and build airplanes. A couple of people would sketch out an airplane concept — how many miles it would fly, how many seats it would have, what type of fuel economy (e.g.) — and about 10 years later one would fly, generally followed by hundreds more. This involved an integrated set of processes and tens of thousands of people; they learned, they perceived their environment; they marshaled resources and they coordinated their activities. I'd say it was an intelligent agent. A bunch of uncoordinated people couldn't do it. (We do talk about the intelligence of individuals but in reality it's nearly impossible to think of a person's intelligence (not what's measured by IQ tests) as being separate from other people.) My assertion is that we are more-or-less forced to think about our collective intelligence because it's required for survival... More specifically, you write the following: "Definition of Intelligence: An integrated set of processes that enable an agent to act in ways that are appropriate to the agent's goals and to the environment in which it exists / acts — particularly areas that present actual or potential challenges or opportunities. An 'agent' can be one or more people, any group, animal, computer program, hybrids of the above, and others as well as any artifacts, natural or otherwise, or system of artifacts that are useful in pursuit of the goals." Kenneth Arrow and others have shown us some deep difficulties with treating as a single agent a collection of individuals who have their own preferences, e.g. that individual preferences cannot generally be aggregated into a coherent social preference ordering. I guess I'm not ready to abandon what I consider to be an absolutely essential enterprise because there are "deep difficulties" with it. On the other hand, I'm not sure what Arrow means by this. Philosophical? methodological? Theoretical? And does he say that we should ignore it? To me it doesn't seem like a good reason not to explore this because "individual preferences cannot generally be aggregated into a coherent social preference ordering." In reality individual preferences (which I suspect aren't static or necessarily orderable or discrete anyway) don't align. They seem to be everywhere in conflict. But they're important social phenomena — and very relevant! We get things done in spite of "coherent social preference ordering" — even though I confess I don't know much about CSPO's. On a more gut level, I get nervous when people talk about a "world brain" (referencing your 2001 article about civic intelligence), because I worry that language like that may lead us to forget the multiplicity of our experiences and the distinctions between human (and other) beings. I also get super nervous when I hear people "going too far" with the "world brain" idea. I totally regret using it in the title. It's from an H.G. Wells article where he describes something that is a bit like Wikipedia! I did QUOTE the "world brain" string in the title— and I totally distance the idea of civic intelligence from the idea of a "world brain" in the article. Where people's goals (mostly) align, I think you will get broad agreement about the appropriateness of the term "intelligence" as a characteristic of collective processes for achieving these common goals. But there is a vast space of civic issues on which we must make collective choices for which there is no widely agreed upon, best way to do that. In such cases I am more comfortable conceding that, while there are clearly unintelligent ways of making social decisions, the concept of intelligence does not give us a way to distinguish the ones that are the most just and the most productive and the most inspiring and the most likely to lead to species survival, etc., because these latter goals are different from and often incompatible with each other. To keep collective notions of intelligence useful, I think we need to limit the ambitions we have for their application and not count on them to resolve the fundamental conflicts we face as a species. You raise very important points here. One, however, I see as a red herring — I don't see the fact that there is no "best" way to proceed as being a show-stopper from exploring the concept of civic intelligence. In "real life" (non-trivial problems) the "best" way is rarely if ever knowable. We had to "muddle through" but, hopefully, there are better ways to muddle through than others. (And intelligence—at least the way I view it— has a real-time requirement. If the sabre toothed tiger kills you while you are working on the best escape route, you aren't as intelligent as the IQ test suggests you are. I agree with you that maybe looking at the "clearly unintelligent" ways is a good start towards civic intelligence — and the Agnotology work and, even, our anti-patterns seem to be useful here. I hope you remember that my vision of "intelligence" is not just a "rational" or "cognitive" or otherwise quantified or gamified approach. The "emotional" and other types of intelligences has helped us think of "intelligence" before it was turned into something that solely measured on a test. The idea of justice, fairness, empathy, emotions, courage, humility, etc. presumably play a role. That's one reason why we don't turn our affairs over to some AI approach. I've heard that it has actually been validated that people who use numbers and logic exclusively to make decisions fit the model for certain types of severe emotional problems. I don't see "civic intelligence" as a panacea. I certainly don't make any claims about the future based on the "inevitability" of civic intelligence. (How could anybody think when Donald Trump is actually a major candidate for president of the US) I don't count on civic intelligence to "resolve the fundamental conflicts" (or anything for that matter) but I think it could help us move in that direction. I do go back to my weaker (but still somewhat strong) claim that civic intelligence is an important social phenomenon that probably can be increased or decreased. Having "more" and "better" of it is probably good. But we need to study it and consider it. Thanks Todd! And anybody else who is still reading!!!! — Doug Todd Todd Davies Symbolic Systems Program Stanford University Stanford, CA, 94305-2150 USA email: davies at stanford.edu phone: 1-650-723-4091 office: 460-040C web: web.stanford.edu/~davies ________________________________ From: ci4cg-announce-bounces at scn9.scn.org > on behalf of Doug Schuler > Sent: Monday, August 1, 2016 6:49 PM To: ci4cg-announce at scn9.scn.org Subject: [Ci4cg-announce] A framework for working with and towards civic intelligence [1st installment] Todd — and everybody else (hopefully of interest) This is a follow-on to the conversation that Todd's note launched. This note is more like the first version of a summary of the findings and assertions so far in relation to my exploration of civic intelligence. As you know I'm trying to develop civic intelligence as a focus for research, activism, education, policy-making, ... , etc. You also of course know that it's not a term that's in common use and I'd like to change that. I would love your comments on any and all aspects of this. I've been packing the idea of civic intelligence in many ways for quite awhile. Sometimes it's used as a part of social inquiry, sometimes it's meant to be aspirational, and sometimes it's intended to be used as a goal or guideline — and other uses are possible (ranking schools for example). These varieties of uses could be a source of confusion (in either the critique or the exploration itself). My belief and hope is that the diverse perspectives are in fact coherent, although that might not be apparent without the background logic. I'd like to think that a graphic depiction can be developed that showed the main elements and regions of the overall exploration. Ideally this would help maintain coherence, reduce misinterpretation, and promote additional work in this area. (And, of course, critique could help shape this effort into more productive ways.) I'm trying to explore a lot of things simultaneously — including the fact that exploring and practicing civic intelligence seems to be empowering to students, although this isn't addressed in this note. The following is an attempt to describe one region of the framework which is largely positivistic and should have the necessary rigor and logic to be palatable to social scientists of various types. I consider that everything is subject to modification. (1) We start with a (working) definition of Intelligence. This seems to be keeping with standard views of intelligence while containing elements that lend themselves to characterization and analysis. I wanted to focus on the potential richness of the concept (of intelligence) rather that be limited to a minimal, quantified and somewhat non-useful construct that some social scientists seem to prefer. Definition of Intelligence: An integrated set of processes that enable an agent to act in ways that are appropriate to the agent's goals and to the environment in which it exists / acts — particularly areas that present actual or potential challenges or opportunities. An "agent" can be one or more people, any group, animal, computer program, hybrids of the above, and others as well as any artifacts, natural or otherwise, or system of artifacts that are useful in pursuit of the goals. Collective intelligence is a major type of intelligence that is distinguished from individual intelligence (e.g. that of a single person). Intelligence can also be distributed over space and time. And the results of the diverse processes can be stored in many ways—in human memories, libraries, online, or in tools, systems, or artifacts. (2) The various components / elements of the definition suggest ways to characterize, analyze, categorize various approaches. Composition of the "agent" Environment in which the intelligence operates (Intelligence is context dependent) Processes that are used and how they are integrated (i.e. the structure) Goals, values, and norm The products of the processes The claim that I'm making is that it is probably possible to identify different versions of intelligence by the goals, types of actions, and composition and coordination of the agent. This might not be 100% certain but it could be useful. [TO BE CONTINUED] Douglas Schuler douglas at publicsphereproject.org Twitter: @doug_schuler ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Public Sphere Project http://www.publicsphereproject.org/ Mailing list ~ Collective Intelligence for the Common Good http://scn9.scn.org/mailman/listinfo/ci4cg-announce Creating the World Citizen Parliament http://interactions.acm.org/archive/view/may-june-2013/creating-the-world-citizen-parliament Liberating Voices! A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution (project) http://www.publicsphereproject.org/patterns/lv Liberating Voices! A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution (book) http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11601 Douglas Schuler douglas at publicsphereproject.org Twitter: @doug_schuler ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Public Sphere Project http://www.publicsphereproject.org/ Mailing list ~ Collective Intelligence for the Common Good http://scn9.scn.org/mailman/listinfo/ci4cg-announce Creating the World Citizen Parliament http://interactions.acm.org/archive/view/may-june-2013/creating-the-world-citizen-parliament Liberating Voices! A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution (project) http://www.publicsphereproject.org/patterns/lv Liberating Voices! A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution (book) http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11601 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davies at stanford.edu Mon Aug 8 14:25:57 2016 From: davies at stanford.edu (Todd Davies) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 21:25:57 +0000 Subject: [Ci4cg-announce] Fw: Open Call: Collective Intelligence for Democracy (MediaLab Prado, Madrid) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi, everyone, FYI. - Todd From: liberationtech on behalf of Bernardo Gutiérrez Sent: Thursday, August 4, 2016 10:39 AM To: liberationtech at lists.stanford.edu Subject: [liberationtech] Open Call: Collective Intelligence for Democracy (MediaLab Prado, Madrid) Hello you all We open the call for projects of the international workshop Collective Intelligence for Democracy from November 18th to December 2nd. Come with us to have two weeks of colaborative work, multidisciplinary teams arround projects related to democracy, citizen participation and the tools and methodologies that facilitate these processes. We will select from 5 to 8 projects, with 8 collaborators for each project. http://medialab-prado.es/article/herramientas-para-una-democracia-real-2016 thanks Bernardo -- www.codigo-abierto.cc @bernardosampa (Twitter) +34 669 09 83 65 (celular) +34 910217216 (fijo) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rogerweaton at gmail.com Mon Aug 8 10:01:55 2016 From: rogerweaton at gmail.com (Roger Eaton) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2016 10:01:55 -0700 Subject: [Ci4cg-announce] Collective communication as a big first step towards collective intelligence Message-ID: Long time reader, first time writer here on ci4cg. If you are curious about Voices of Humanity and/or want to help out please support our thunderclap here . *Across the Silos* *Introduction* Voices of Humanity is an online forum which aims to build a massive sense of human unity at all geographic levels from the local to the global. Both gender equality and respect for diversity are built in to the VoH process, so if the process takes off, as it may well do, it will be a great boost to the women’s and social justice movements as well as peace, disarmament and all the many global efforts that depend on a heartfelt sense of human unity for success. VoH participants provide their gender (female, male or simply human), generation (young, middle-aged, seniors or simply human) and location. Messages posted in the forum can be rated and the results of the ratings are easily accessible. These results are broken out into the six “voices of humanity”: Voice of Women, Voice of Men, Voice of Youth, Voice of Experience, Voice of Wisdom and Voice of Humanity as One. Moreover, location can be changed from city to metro to state to nation to planet Earth. At each geographic level, the six voices of humanity are immediately available. But why should we spend our time doing that instead of working on the issues? Well of course we need to work on the issues. But it is clear that as long as there is so much distrust between the nations and the religions, we are unlikely to achieve much and are in danger of the collapse of civilization under the pressure of climate change, environmental degradation, war, and population increase. So if we can create a widespread sense of human unity, we will be in a much better position to cooperate on our pressing problems, local, national and global. *The Difficulty - Civil Society is Broken into Silos* There is growing understanding at the higher levels of civil society that the world needs much stronger integration across the issue silos. As things are, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) each focus on one or a small cluster of related issues without much regard for wider coordination. And that is not even considering the chasms that exist between the NGO world generally and government and business. Not that there is no communication, but that the level of coordination is far from adequate to the challenges that face humanity. A few recent quotes about integrating across the silos in the work of the United Nations give an idea how the phrase is used. - The discussions called instead for using the cross-cutting nature of the women, peace and security agenda in New York and in the field to integrate the organization’s work and achieving synergies across the silos of the UN system. link - Mr. HARRIS said that if everyone was doing the same thing, there would be no need for policy integration. What distinguished the United Nations was that it gathered under one roof specialists from around the world. Its expertise was derived from a certain degree of specialization. Losing that would mean losing its ability to advise and support Member States. "We have to learn how to communicate across the silos — but not destroy the silos per se," he said. link - ... a “new sustainable infrastructure paradigm”: Environmentally sound and resilient... Integrated: Connects across the silos now isolating different systems to deliver better, more efficient services. ... Affordable ... Rich in co-benefits ... Beneficial to the local economy… link “Collective impact” is a related notion. A Stanford Social Innovation Review article by that name in 2011 has been influential. The article heading gives the big picture: “Large-scale social change requires broad cross-sector coordination, yet the social sector remains focused on the isolated intervention of individual organizations.” The article helpfully lists five conditions for collective success: 1) common agenda, 2) shared measurement systems, 3) mutually reinforcing activities, 4) continuous communication, 5) backbone support organizations. Voices of Humanity is designed to be the vehicle of choice to provide continuous communication at every geographic level and across all silos. *Community Tags* Community tags are a critical new VoH feature to be implemented in August, 2016. Message and community tags enable participants to categorize both the items they post and themselves. Thus #UNA will distinguish forum items of interest to the United Nations Association, and #UNA will also distinguish the community of UNA affiliated participants. These tags will enable the participants to find the highly rated items across the silos as well as across the genders, generations and by location from local to global. All this is in the context of human unity, because whatever specialties people are interested in, they will also be interested to see the latest highly rated items overall, i.e., the Voice of Humanity-as-One at the global level. Here are a few of the communities that we expect will find expression in the flexible Voices of Humanity framework: #UNA, #ClimateChange, #GenderEquality, #DisadvantagedMinorities, #HumanRights, #IndigenousPeoples, #InterfaithCooperation, #NuclearDisarmament, #Peace, #Refugees, #UNGoals, #Veterans, #NonviolentAction. Importantly, silos within silos can be broken out while maintaining the larger integrative community. So for instance, each of the women’s issues that fall under the #GenderEquality umbrella can have its own tags: #ViolenceAgainstWomen, #EconomicJusticeForWomen, #Women’sEducation, #ReproductiveRights and so forth. An AcrossTheSilos Community will be encouraged to act as pollinators, bringing important and relevant items from one silo to the notice of members of another silo. While issue communities are narrowly focused at the leadership level, the members of those communities often have diverse interests and realize the importance of coordination across the silos. These cross-pollinators will act to recruit new members of the AcrossTheSilos community, expanding the larger Voices of Humanity membership. The above article was published on Voices of Humanity . Roger Eaton +1 415 933 0153 Voices of Humanity -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From douglas at publicsphereproject.org Wed Aug 10 19:22:46 2016 From: douglas at publicsphereproject.org (Doug Schuler) Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 19:22:46 -0700 Subject: [Ci4cg-announce] A framework for working with and towards civic intelligence [1st installment] In-Reply-To: References: <32C5CE6A-EA2B-4B50-A639-055EB0B39B6B@publicsphereproject.org> <4fa2a0e2-a463-e23c-26b0-758765225d7b@gmail.com> <3DE9C39A-088E-40EF-9A09-B7BD62DC4C26@publicsphereproject.org> Message-ID: Sorry to be just getting back to you Dmitry. I found myself responding to lots of interesting, but long, emails, with similarly long emails. And I fear this may be one of them! We may have some disagreements on broad philosophy or perspective but hopefully we can still able to collaborate in some way. The first is that I don't see the need to boil all mental processes down to two things (memory and pattern matching). My feeling is that there are LOTS of aspects that go into *intelligence* and that I'd like to avoid what I consider a trap to try to over-simplify. I have a long list that I'll send out... it seems to me that all of these processes are somewhat different — and are likely to add some useful ideas to the mix. I agree that we don't have our history of other important information readily available. I do agree that this is a problem and I'd love to hear ideas as to how to make this come together. The motivational principles are on our web site (ci4cg.org) and there are other documents out there somewhere — and I'll try to make everything more accessible. (I'm happy to try your approach — my belief is that no one way will solve this problem...) My basic premise is that while quicker access to information would probably be useful it's really only a part of the issue. The main problem (I see) is that we need to develop better ways to promote collective (and civic) intelligence because of the urgency of the world's problems and the horrific consequences of not dealing with them. Individual intelligence is fine but how we work together is the biggest hurdle. I'm interested in the civil society side of the equation, the people who are interested in improving the situation, whose primary motivation for doing things is not because they are being paid or forced to do something. But how civil society works with other sectors is incredibly important. This means working with a large group of people who are large un-organzied. To me one of the key issues is how can we understand how to loosely coordinate our actions. This means not focusing on one way, one portal, one etc. etc. I have a long list of possible coordinating approaches and it would be interesting to see how they might work out in our microcosm. Thanks Dmitry! — Doug > On Aug 2, 2016, at 8:09 PM, Dmitry Sokolov wrote: > > Doug, > > sorry for the long email. > > To my feeling many if not all mental processes ("learning, perceiving (bringing in information), decision-making, etc.") are based on memory and pattern matching. Quick access to particular knowledge / patterns defines our mental and cognitive efficiency. I believe, same should be though in regards to the collective memory, including historical, as a part of collective intelligence / decision making process. Quicker access to stored information and facts defines our factual (as compared to imaginary) foundation for intelligence. > > Talking about current status of our collective intelligence, I was not able to find a good reference page on Civic Intelligence as compared to other forms of Intelligence, Collective, for example. That should mean to me that Collective Memory either doesn't exist, or hard to find / discover. Knowledge cannot be reused (in intelligence, or other processes) if not found or discovered in time. If knowledge is not reused, it has to be "reinvented", on the expense of either time and other resources, or quality of intelligence / decision making (and/or other mental processes). > > What does it mean practically? I would love to participate in CI4CG to my full capacity but I have no access to the history of our project, it's conceptual network, participants and their areas of expertise. From the researcher point of view, I see no systematic and systemic repository of the CI4CG data / knowledge / information including best practices, for example. Based on my observations, should I come to the idea that the agent's activities, including intelligence, are thought to be done in non-systematic and non-systemic way too? > > To reframe the problem: long learning process, lack of a "single entry point" for all inquiries, queries and requests for particular information should indicate absence, or highly inefficient collective memory. Inefficient memory defines inefficient intelligence being a part of it we are not able to exclude. > > I believe, if CI4CG community is interested in efficient intelligence, it should address the following questions: > - theoretical vs. experimentally confirmed "access rates" to particular knowledge, as measured in Topics, or Issues / minute. > - applicability of different data, knowledge and communication structures and protocols to the most characteristic activities CI4CG is trying to deal with, both theoretical and experimentally confirmed. > - classification of applicability of CI4CG methods and techniques to the variety of problems, considered vs resolved, or solved. > > Your thoughts? > > Thank you, > Dimitri > > On 03/08/16 13:12, Doug Schuler wrote: >> Dmitry, >> >> To me, the "integrated set of processes that enable an agent to act in ways that are appropriate to the agent's goals and to the environment" should at least include learning, perceiving (bringing in information), decision-making, etc. >> >> In human (and, especially, civic) intelligence, I'd include non-symbol manipulation approaches such as sense of justice, emotions, creativity, empathy, etc. >> >> To me everything you suggest about looking at memory seems relevant. >> >> I also think about historical memory as talked about in our "Memory and Responsibility" pattern (http://www.publicsphereproject.org/content/memory-and-responsibility ) >> >> Thanks! >> >> >> >> >>> On Aug 1, 2016, at 9:58 PM, Dmitry Sokolov > wrote: >>> >>> Doug, >>> >>> would you related intelligence to decision making? >>> I am not sure whether acting without thinking / reflection / decision making can be thought intelligent. >>> >>> Regarding storage media "in human memories, libraries, online, or in tools, systems, or artifacts.", would you suggest comparative analysis of those techniques (and possibly "collective memory" platforms?) by accuracy / fidelity / access time as a function of time? I am interested in real-time decision making where timely access to particular knowledge is critical. >>> >>> Thank you, >>> Dimitri >>> >>> On 02/08/16 13:49, Doug Schuler wrote: >>>> Todd — and everybody else (hopefully of interest) >>>> >>>> This is a follow-on to the conversation that Todd's note launched. This note is more like the first version of a summary of the findings and assertions so far in relation to my exploration of civic intelligence. As you know I'm trying to develop civic intelligence as a focus for research, activism, education, policy-making, ... , etc. You also of course know that it's not a term that's in common use and I'd like to change that. I would love your comments on any and all aspects of this. >>>> >>>> I've been packing the idea of civic intelligence in many ways for quite awhile. Sometimes it's used as a part of social inquiry, sometimes it's meant to be aspirational, and sometimes it's intended to be used as a goal or guideline — and other uses are possible (ranking schools for example). These varieties of uses could be a source of confusion (in either the critique or the exploration itself). My belief and hope is that the diverse perspectives are in fact coherent, although that might not be apparent without the background logic. >>>> >>>> I'd like to think that a graphic depiction can be developed that showed the main elements and regions of the overall exploration. Ideally this would help maintain coherence, reduce misinterpretation, and promote additional work in this area. (And, of course, critique could help shape this effort into more productive ways.) >>>> >>>> I'm trying to explore a lot of things simultaneously — including the fact that exploring and practicing civic intelligence seems to be empowering to students, although this isn't addressed in this note. >>>> >>>> The following is an attempt to describe one region of the framework which is largely positivistic and should have the necessary rigor and logic to be palatable to social scientists of various types. I consider that everything is subject to modification. >>>> >>>> (1) We start with a (working) definition of Intelligence. This seems to be keeping with standard views of intelligence while containing elements that lend themselves to characterization and analysis. I wanted to focus on the potential richness of the concept (of intelligence) rather that be limited to a minimal, quantified and somewhat non-useful construct that some social scientists seem to prefer. >>>> >>>> Definition of Intelligence: An integrated set of processes that enable an agent to act in ways that are appropriate to the agent's goals and to the environment in which it exists / acts — particularly areas that present actual or potential challenges or opportunities. >>>> >>>> An "agent" can be one or more people, any group, animal, computer program, hybrids of the above, and others as well as any artifacts, natural or otherwise, or system of artifacts that are useful in pursuit of the goals. >>>> >>>> Collective intelligence is a major type of intelligence that is distinguished from individual intelligence (e.g. that of a single person). >>>> >>>> Intelligence can also be distributed over space and time. And the results of the diverse processes can be stored in many ways—in human memories, libraries, online, or in tools, systems, or artifacts. >>>> >>>> (2) The various components / elements of the definition suggest ways to characterize, analyze, categorize various approaches. >>>> >>>> Composition of the "agent" >>>> Environment in which the intelligence operates (Intelligence is context dependent) >>>> Processes that are used and how they are integrated (i.e. the structure) >>>> Goals, values, and norm >>>> The products of the processes >>>> >>>> The claim that I'm making is that it is probably possible to identify different versions of intelligence by the goals, types of actions, and composition and coordination of the agent. This might not be 100% certain but it could be useful. >>>> >>>> [TO BE CONTINUED] >>>> >>>> Douglas Schuler >>>> douglas at publicsphereproject.org >>>> Twitter: @doug_schuler >>>> >>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >>>> Public Sphere Project >>>> http://www.publicsphereproject.org/ >>>> Mailing list ~ Collective Intelligence for the Common Good >>>> http://scn9.scn.org/mailman/listinfo/ci 4cg-announce >>>> >>>> Creating the World Citizen Parliament >>>> http://interactions.acm.org/archive/view/may-june-2013/creating-the-world-citizen-parliament >>>> >>>> Liberating Voices! A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution (project) >>>> http://www.publicsphereproject.org/patterns/lv >>>> >>>> Liberating Voices! A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution (book) >>>> http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11601 >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> Ci4cg-announce mailing list >>>> Ci4cg-announce at scn9.scn.org >>>> http://scn9.scn.org/mailman/listinfo/ci4cg-announce >>> >> >> Douglas Schuler >> douglas at publicsphereproject.org >> Twitter: @doug_schuler >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >> Public Sphere Project >> http://www.publicsphereproject.org/ >> Mailing list ~ Collective Intelligence for the Common Good >> http://scn9.scn.org/mailman/listinfo/ci 4cg-announce >> >> Creating the World Citizen Parliament >> http://interactions.acm.org/archive/view/may-june-2013/creating-the-world-citizen-parliament >> >> Liberating Voices! A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution (project) >> http://www.publicsphereproject.org/patterns/lv >> >> Liberating Voices! A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution (book) >> http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11601 >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> > Douglas Schuler douglas at publicsphereproject.org Twitter: @doug_schuler ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Public Sphere Project http://www.publicsphereproject.org/ Mailing list ~ Collective Intelligence for the Common Good http://scn9.scn.org/mailman/listinfo/ci4cg-announce Creating the World Citizen Parliament http://interactions.acm.org/archive/view/may-june-2013/creating-the-world-citizen-parliament Liberating Voices! A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution (project) http://www.publicsphereproject.org/patterns/lv Liberating Voices! A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution (book) http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11601 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From douglas at publicsphereproject.org Thu Aug 11 18:03:43 2016 From: douglas at publicsphereproject.org (Doug Schuler) Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2016 18:03:43 -0700 Subject: [Ci4cg-announce] A framework for working with and towards civic intelligence [1st installment] In-Reply-To: References: <32C5CE6A-EA2B-4B50-A639-055EB0B39B6B@publicsphereproject.org> <, <>> Message-ID: Thanks Todd. I enjoyed the interchange. I'm hoping to hear your thoughts on the points that we didn't discuss sometime. Not necessarily to rebut (or try to do so!), but to learn about the various perspectives from different fields. No rush — but let's not forget to do so... — Doug > On Aug 8, 2016, at 2:09 PM, Todd Davies wrote: > > HI, Doug, thanks for all this. it looks to me like we agree that collective and civic intelligence are useful concepts, that some people are taking the concept of collective intelligence too far, and that it is important to have critical voices in that conversation. There is more to discuss by way of follow-up to your thoughtful messages, but for me that would require a longer form medium. > > Until then, > Todd > > Todd Davies > Symbolic Systems Program > Stanford University > Stanford, CA, 94305-2150 USA > email: davies at stanford.edu > phone: 1-650-723-4091 > office: 460-040C > web: web.stanford.edu/~davies > > > > From: ci4cg-announce-bounces at scn9.scn.org > on behalf of Doug Schuler > > Sent: Saturday, August 6, 2016 4:26 PM > To: Todd Davies > Cc: ci4cg-announce at scn9.scn.org > Subject: Re: [Ci4cg-announce] A framework for working with and towards civic intelligence [1st installment] > > Thanks Todd. I'll throw in a few words here. We may not have to go back and forth with this much more. We may have still have some differences but probably not too many. (?) > > The usual warning on length... > >> On Aug 2, 2016, at 1:06 PM, Todd Davies > wrote: >> >> Thanks, Doug, for all of these thoughts and clarifications. I do like the term "civic intelligence", as well as "collective intelligence", and I agree that these concepts make sense as a way to capture how well collectivities or polities achieve their common goals, or the "common good". >> >> I think the best way to summarize my earlier thoughts is that I am urging caution about the scope of these terms. In other endeavors I have watched people try to claim more territory for a popular concept than that concept can credibly accommodate. So I am trying to apply that lesson as we move forward with attempts to define and apply ideas like civic intelligence. > > I've noticed that too. I'm trying not to overstretch the concept. But many concepts have slightly different meanings in different contexts. > >> I would like to see that developed in a way that acknowledges its limitations. > > I do try to acknowledge its limitations. (On the other hand, having limitations is more-or-less intrinsic to any concept that we use.) > > >> I think with you about where the world should be heading in terms of more democracy, etc., but I am not ready to sign on personally to the way you are using language. Again, I say this not to dissuade you, because I think what you are doing is useful. > >> You are challenging our usual understanding of the concept of intelligence, for example, and I would like to see where that leads. My own linguistic proclivities just lead me in a slightly different direction. > > I'm not the only one who's challenging this. It seems to be fairly common now to open up the concept. Go to Google Scholar and look up collective intelligence or distributed intelligence. I think that people are basically using those terms for two reasons: (1) the term "intelligence" is the most appropriate one for the job (see my working definition) and (2) it describes a very important phenomenon. (After all, what activity of significance is created by one mind working alone?) [And what definition should we use?] > > A simple example: I used to work at Boeing where they design and build airplanes. A couple of people would sketch out an airplane concept — how many miles it would fly, how many seats it would have, what type of fuel economy (e.g.) — and about 10 years later one would fly, generally followed by hundreds more. This involved an integrated set of processes and tens of thousands of people; they learned, they perceived their environment; they marshaled resources and they coordinated their activities. I'd say it was an intelligent agent. A bunch of uncoordinated people couldn't do it. (We do talk about the intelligence of individuals but in reality it's nearly impossible to think of a person's intelligence (not what's measured by IQ tests) as being separate from other people.) > > My assertion is that we are more-or-less forced to think about our collective intelligence because it's required for survival... > >> >> More specifically, you write the following: >> "Definition of Intelligence: An integrated set of processes that enable an agent to act in ways that are appropriate to the agent's goals and to the environment in which it exists / acts — particularly areas that present actual or potential challenges or opportunities. >> >> An 'agent' can be one or more people, any group, animal, computer program, hybrids of the above, and others as well as any artifacts, natural or otherwise, or system of artifacts that are useful in pursuit of the goals." >> Kenneth Arrow and others have shown us some deep difficulties with treating as a single agent a collection of individuals who have their own preferences, e.g. that individual preferences cannot generally be aggregated into a coherent social preference ordering. > > I guess I'm not ready to abandon what I consider to be an absolutely essential enterprise because there are "deep difficulties" with it. On the other hand, I'm not sure what Arrow means by this. Philosophical? methodological? Theoretical? And does he say that we should ignore it? > > To me it doesn't seem like a good reason not to explore this because "individual preferences cannot generally be aggregated into a coherent social preference ordering." In reality individual preferences (which I suspect aren't static or necessarily orderable or discrete anyway) don't align. They seem to be everywhere in conflict. But they're important social phenomena — and very relevant! We get things done in spite of "coherent social preference ordering" — even though I confess I don't know much about CSPO's. > >> On a more gut level, I get nervous when people talk about a "world brain" (referencing your 2001 article about civic intelligence), because I worry that language like that may lead us to forget the multiplicity of our experiences and the distinctions between human (and other) beings. > > I also get super nervous when I hear people "going too far" with the "world brain" idea. I totally regret using it in the title. It's from an H.G. Wells article where he describes something that is a bit like Wikipedia! I did QUOTE the "world brain" string in the title— and I totally distance the idea of civic intelligence from the idea of a "world brain" in the article. > >> Where people's goals (mostly) align, I think you will get broad agreement about the appropriateness of the term "intelligence" as a characteristic of collective processes for achieving these common goals. But there is a vast space of civic issues on which we must make collective choices for which there is no widely agreed upon, best way to do that. In such cases I am more comfortable conceding that, while there are clearly unintelligent ways of making social decisions, the concept of intelligence does not give us a way to distinguish the ones that are the most just and the most productive and the most inspiring and the most likely to lead to species survival, etc., because these latter goals are different from and often incompatible with each other. To keep collective notions of intelligence useful, I think we need to limit the ambitions we have for their application and not count on them to resolve the fundamental conflicts we face as a species. > > You raise very important points here. > > One, however, I see as a red herring — I don't see the fact that there is no "best" way to proceed as being a show-stopper from exploring the concept of civic intelligence. In "real life" (non-trivial problems) the "best" way is rarely if ever knowable. We had to "muddle through" but, hopefully, there are better ways to muddle through than others. (And intelligence—at least the way I view it— has a real-time requirement. If the sabre toothed tiger kills you while you are working on the best escape route, you aren't as intelligent as the IQ test suggests you are. > > I agree with you that maybe looking at the "clearly unintelligent" ways is a good start towards civic intelligence — and the Agnotology work and, even, our anti-patterns seem to be useful here. > > I hope you remember that my vision of "intelligence" is not just a "rational" or "cognitive" or otherwise quantified or gamified approach. The "emotional" and other types of intelligences has helped us think of "intelligence" before it was turned into something that solely measured on a test. The idea of justice, fairness, empathy, emotions, courage, humility, etc. presumably play a role. That's one reason why we don't turn our affairs over to some AI approach. I've heard that it has actually been validated that people who use numbers and logic exclusively to make decisions fit the model for certain types of severe emotional problems. > > I don't see "civic intelligence" as a panacea. I certainly don't make any claims about the future based on the "inevitability" of civic intelligence. (How could anybody think when Donald Trump is actually a major candidate for president of the US) > > I don't count on civic intelligence to "resolve the fundamental conflicts" (or anything for that matter) but I think it could help us move in that direction. > > I do go back to my weaker (but still somewhat strong) claim that civic intelligence is an important social phenomenon that probably can be increased or decreased. Having "more" and "better" of it is probably good. But we need to study it and consider it. > > Thanks Todd! And anybody else who is still reading!!!! > > — Doug > > >> >> Todd >> >> Todd Davies >> Symbolic Systems Program >> Stanford University >> Stanford, CA, 94305-2150 USA >> email: davies at stanford.edu >> phone: 1-650-723-4091 >> office: 460-040C >> web: web.stanford.edu/~davies >> >> >> >> From: ci4cg-announce-bounces at scn9.scn.org > on behalf of Doug Schuler > >> Sent: Monday, August 1, 2016 6:49 PM >> To: ci4cg-announce at scn9.scn.org >> Subject: [Ci4cg-announce] A framework for working with and towards civic intelligence [1st installment] >> >> Todd — and everybody else (hopefully of interest) >> >> This is a follow-on to the conversation that Todd's note launched. This note is more like the first version of a summary of the findings and assertions so far in relation to my exploration of civic intelligence. As you know I'm trying to develop civic intelligence as a focus for research, activism, education, policy-making, ... , etc. You also of course know that it's not a term that's in common use and I'd like to change that. I would love your comments on any and all aspects of this. >> >> I've been packing the idea of civic intelligence in many ways for quite awhile. Sometimes it's used as a part of social inquiry, sometimes it's meant to be aspirational, and sometimes it's intended to be used as a goal or guideline — and other uses are possible (ranking schools for example). These varieties of uses could be a source of confusion (in either the critique or the exploration itself). My belief and hope is that the diverse perspectives are in fact coherent, although that might not be apparent without the background logic. >> >> I'd like to think that a graphic depiction can be developed that showed the main elements and regions of the overall exploration. Ideally this would help maintain coherence, reduce misinterpretation, and promote additional work in this area. (And, of course, critique could help shape this effort into more productive ways.) >> >> I'm trying to explore a lot of things simultaneously — including the fact that exploring and practicing civic intelligence seems to be empowering to students, although this isn't addressed in this note. >> >> The following is an attempt to describe one region of the framework which is largely positivistic and should have the necessary rigor and logic to be palatable to social scientists of various types. I consider that everything is subject to modification. >> >> (1) We start with a (working) definition of Intelligence. This seems to be keeping with standard views of intelligence while containing elements that lend themselves to characterization and analysis. I wanted to focus on the potential richness of the concept (of intelligence) rather that be limited to a minimal, quantified and somewhat non-useful construct that some social scientists seem to prefer. >> >> Definition of Intelligence: An integrated set of processes that enable an agent to act in ways that are appropriate to the agent's goals and to the environment in which it exists / acts — particularly areas that present actual or potential challenges or opportunities. >> >> An "agent" can be one or more people, any group, animal, computer program, hybrids of the above, and others as well as any artifacts, natural or otherwise, or system of artifacts that are useful in pursuit of the goals. >> >> Collective intelligence is a major type of intelligence that is distinguished from individual intelligence (e.g. that of a single person). >> >> Intelligence can also be distributed over space and time. And the results of the diverse processes can be stored in many ways—in human memories, libraries, online, or in tools, systems, or artifacts. >> >> (2) The various components / elements of the definition suggest ways to characterize, analyze, categorize various approaches. >> >> Composition of the "agent" >> Environment in which the intelligence operates (Intelligence is context dependent) >> Processes that are used and how they are integrated (i.e. the structure) >> Goals, values, and norm >> The products of the processes >> >> The claim that I'm making is that it is probably possible to identify different versions of intelligence by the goals, types of actions, and composition and coordination of the agent. This might not be 100% certain but it could be useful. >> >> [TO BE CONTINUED] >> >> Douglas Schuler >> douglas at publicsphereproject.org >> Twitter: @doug_schuler >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >> Public Sphere Project >> http://www.publicsphereproject.org/ >> Mailing list ~ Collective Intelligence for the Common Good >> http://scn9.scn.org/mailman/listinfo/ci 4cg-announce >> >> Creating the World Citizen Parliament >> http://interactions.acm.org/archive/view/may-june-2013/creating-the-world-citizen-parliament >> >> Liberating Voices! A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution (project) >> http://www.publicsphereproject.org/patterns/lv >> >> Liberating Voices! A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution (book) >> http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11601 > Douglas Schuler > douglas at publicsphereproject.org > Twitter: @doug_schuler > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Public Sphere Project > http://www.publicsphereproject.org/ > Mailing list ~ Collective Intelligence for the Common Good > http://scn9.scn.org/mailman/listinfo/ci 4cg-announce > > Creating the World Citizen Parliament > http://interactions.acm.org/archive/view/may-june-2013/creating-the-world-citizen-parliament > > Liberating Voices! A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution (project) > http://www.publicsphereproject.org/patterns/lv > > Liberating Voices! A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution (book) > http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11601 Douglas Schuler douglas at publicsphereproject.org Twitter: @doug_schuler ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Public Sphere Project http://www.publicsphereproject.org/ Mailing list ~ Collective Intelligence for the Common Good http://scn9.scn.org/mailman/listinfo/ci4cg-announce Creating the World Citizen Parliament http://interactions.acm.org/archive/view/may-june-2013/creating-the-world-citizen-parliament Liberating Voices! A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution (project) http://www.publicsphereproject.org/patterns/lv Three patterns: Civic Intelligence The Commons The Good Life Liberating Voices! A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution (book) http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11601 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From h.choi at qut.edu.au Sun Aug 28 18:18:30 2016 From: h.choi at qut.edu.au (Jaz Choi) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 01:18:30 +0000 Subject: [Ci4cg-announce] Call for expressions of interest in 2017 PhD scholarship Message-ID: <9DB8394F-E612-409F-ABB2-CA9DF4B02C09@qut.edu.au> The Urban Informatics Research Lab @ QUT Design Lab is calling for expressions of interest from prospective PhD students to apply for candidature and/or scholarship. QUT's annual scholarship round closes on 30 September 2016, for entry at the start of 2017. 
 URBAN INFORMATICS RESEARCH ALB We are an internationally recognised research and development lab. As a key part of the QUT Design Lab, our vision is to go beyond disciplinary boundaries to generate and harness actionable knowledge focusing on urban contexts. As such, our team consists of researchers and practitioners from a wide range of backgrounds across people, places, technologies: humanities and social sciences; design, planning, and architecture; human-computer interaction, information technology and computer science. We are always keen to connect with individuals and organisations who share the passion for transdisciplinary research and development to together create better urban futures. For more information, see www.urbaninformatics.net 
 PHD SCHOLARSHIPS @ QUT QUT offers a limited number of scholarships to research students of exceptional research potential. To be eligible, you need to have a minimum first-class honours (H1) or equivalent and be undertaking a PhD, masters by research, or professional doctorate project that is closely aligned with our current key research areas. For more information about the current scholarship offerings at QUT, see www.qut.edu.au/research/scholarships-grants-and-funding/annual-scholarship-round 
 In the Urban Informatics Lab, we are looking for curious and passionate people with excellent track records in academic research. 
 - Co-creative urban futures - Civic participation & hacking - Social entrepreneurship & urban change - Self care & mutual aid - Community engagement & placemaking - Enabling smart cities & smart citizens - Participatory urban data - Media architecture - Playful cities - [One blank slot: Do you have a radical idea you'd like to propose? Insert here] 
 Please note that more broadly, the QUT Design Lab has five priority research areas: - Social Entrepreneurship - Design, Health, and Wellbeing - Design & Community - Design and Sustainability - Design, Culture, and Environment 
 INTERESTED? NEXT STEPS - Check if you are eligible and other requirements for application: www.qut.edu.au/research/scholarships-grants-and-funding/annual-scholarship-round - Email Dr. Jaz Hee-jeong Choi (h.choi[at]qut.edu.au.au), Director of the Urban --- Informatics Lab with the following: --- Your cv --- A brief outline of your proposed project in the format outlined here - We will then review your submission and contact with you to further discuss the next steps. -- Dr. Jaz Hee-jeong Choi Director, Urban Informatics Research Lab Program Leader, Social Entrepreneurship & Design Incubation, QUT Design Lab Associate, Digital Media Research Centre Postgraduate Studies Coordinator, Interactive & Visual Design Senior Lecturer, School of Design, Creative Industries Faculty Queensland University of Technology -- e: h.choi at qut.edu.au -- w: urbaninformatics.net -- p: +617 3138 7657 -- m: +61 433 167 151 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: