Alexander J Stewart at The Conversation: “Why do people cooperate? This isn’t a question anyone seriously asks. The answer is obvious: we cooperate because doing so is usually synergistic. It creates more benefit for less cost and makes our lives easier and better.
Maybe it’s better to ask why don’t people always cooperate. But the answer here seems obvious too. We don’t do so if we think we can get away with it. If we can save ourselves the effort of working with someone else but still gain the benefits of others’ cooperation. And, perhaps, we withhold cooperation as punishment for others’ past refusal to collaborate with us.
Since there are good reasons to cooperate – and good reasons not to do so – we are left with a question without an obvious answer: under what conditions will people cooperate?
Despite its seeming simplicity, this question is very complicated, from both a theoretical and an experimental point of view. The answer matters a great deal to anyone trying to create an environment that fosters cooperation, from corporate managers and government bureaucrats to parents of unruly siblings.
New research into game theory I’ve conducted with Joshua Plotkin offers some answers – but raises a lot of questions of its own too.
Traditionally, research into game theory – the study of strategic decision making – focused either on whether a rational player should cooperate in a one-off interaction or on looking for the “winning solutions” that allow an individual who wants to cooperate make the best decisions across repeated interactions.
Our more recent inquiries aim to understand the subtle dynamics of behavioral change when there are an infinite number of potential strategies (much like life) and the game payoffs are constantly shifting (also much like life).
By investigating this in more detail, we can better learn how to incentivize people to cooperate – whether by setting the allowance we give kids for doing chores, by rewarding teamwork in school and at work or even by how we tax to pay for public benefits such as healthcare and education.
What emerges from our studies is a complex and fascinating picture: the amount of cooperation we see in large groups is in constant flux, and incentives that mean well can inadvertently lead to less rather than more cooperative behavior….(More)”
Collective Intelligence or Group Think?
Paper analyzing “Engaging Participation Patterns in World without Oil” by Nassim JafariNaimi and Eric M. Meyers: “This article presents an analysis of participation patterns in an Alternate Reality Game, World Without Oil. This game aims to bring people together in an online environment to reflect on how an oil crisis might affect their lives and communities as a way to both counter such a crisis and to build collective intelligence about responding to it. We present a series of participation profiles based on a quantitative analysis of 1554 contributions to the game narrative made by 322 players. We further qualitatively analyze a sample of these contributions. We outline the dominant themes, the majority of which engage the global oil crisis for its effects on commute options and present micro-sustainability solutions in response. We further draw on the quantitative and qualitative analysis of this space to discuss how the design of the game, specifically its framing of the problem, feedback mechanism, and absence of subject-matter expertise, counter its aim of generating collective intelligence, making it conducive to groupthink….(More)”
Netpolitik: What the Emergence of Networks Means for Diplomacy and Statecraft
Charlie Firestone and Leshuo Dong at the Aspen Journal of Ideas: “…The network is emerging as a dominant form of organization for our age of complexity. This is supported by technological and economic trends. Furthermore, enemies are networks, players are networks, even governments are becoming networks. It makes sense to understand network principles and apply them for use in the world of diplomacy. Accordingly, governments, organizations and individuals should heed these recommendations:
- Understand and apply two-way communications and network principles to all forms of diplomacy with the aim of earning the sympathy, empathy and where applicable, the loyalty of future generations. This is a mindset shift for governments, diplomats and citizens around the world.
- This means engaging the world’s populations to communicate with each other. That will entail physical connections to the global common medium, an ability to have what you send be received by others in the form you send it, end to end, and literacy in the communications methods of the day. The world’s population should have a meaningful right to connect.
- Of course, if there is to be a global communications network, it needs to be safe, so governments remain in the role of protector of the environment needed for users to trust in their networks. States have a role to protect against cyberwar, cybercrimes, and loss of a person’s identity, i.e., security and privacy online. But these protections cannot be a screen for illegitimate governmental controls over or unwarranted surveillance of its citizens. Nor can governments be expected to shoulder that burden alone. Everyone will need to practice a basic level of Net hygiene and literacy as an element of their digital citizenship.
As networks proliferate, principles of netpolitik will emerge. Governments, businesses, non-governmental organizations, and every citizen would be well advised to be thinking in these terms in the years ahead….(More).”
Open data could turn Europe’s digital desert into a digital rainforest
Joanna Roberts interviews Dirk Helbing, Professor of Computational Social Science at ETH Zurich at Horizon: “…If we want to be competitive, Europe needs to find its own way. How can we differentiate ourselves and make things better? I believe Europe should not engage in the locked data strategy that we see in all these huge IT giants. Instead, Europe should engage in open data, open innovation, and value-sensitive design, particularly approaches that support informational self-determination. So everyone can use this data, generate new kinds of data, and build applications on top. This is going to create ever more possibilities for everyone else, so in a sense that will turn a digital desert into a digital rainforest full of opportunities for everyone, with a rich information ecosystem.’…
The Internet of Things is the next big emerging information communication technology. It’s based on sensors. In smartphones there are about 15 sensors; for light, for noise, for location, for all sorts of things. You could also buy additional external sensors for humidity, for chemical substances and almost anything that comes to your mind. So basically this allows us to measure the environment and all the features of our physical, biological, economic, social and technological environment.
‘Imagine if there was one company in the world controlling all the sensors and collecting all the information. I think that might potentially be a dystopian surveillance nightmare, because you couldn’t take a single step or speak a single word without it being recorded. Therefore, if we want the Internet of Things to be consistent with a stable democracy then I believe we need to run it as a citizen web, which means to create and manage the planetary nervous system together. The citizens themselves would buy the sensors and activate them or not, would decide themselves what sensor data they would share with whom and for what purpose, so informational self-determination would be at the heart, and everyone would be in control of their own data.’….
A lot of exciting things will become possible. We would have a real-time picture of the world and we could use this data to be more aware of what the implications of our decisions and actions are. We could avoid mistakes and discover opportunities we would otherwise have missed. We will also be able to measure what’s going on in our society and economy and why. In this way, we will eventually identify the hidden forces that determine the success or failure of a company, of our economy or even our society….(More)”
Governance in the Information Era
New book edited by Erik W. Johnston:” Policy informatics is addressing governance challenges and their consequences, which span the seeming inability of governments to solve complex problems and the disaffection of people from their governments. Policy informatics seeks approaches that enable our governance systems to address increasingly complex challenges and to meet the rising expectations of people to be full participants in their communities. This book approaches these challenges by applying a combination of the latest American and European approaches in applying complex systems modeling, crowdsourcing, participatory platforms and citizen science to explore complex governance challenges in domains that include education, environment, and health.(More)
Government for a New Age: Managing Public Services in the 21st Century
A new Thinkers50 book by by and Rabih Abouchakra: “What is the role of government in the modern world? The environment that governments operate in today is hugely complex. Governments face difficult challenges on all sides. Global upheavals and geopolitical shifts, climate change, rapidly evolving technologies and socio-economic demographics, resource constraints, an increasingly diverse constituency and citizens more demanding expectations — these are just some of the forces driving societal changes and transforming the context in which governments operate. Around the world governments are responding to these challenges by shifting the way they think, steer, organize, measure and engage with citizens, and the private and third sector. Until now, though, best practice has remained elusive. Intergovernmental collaboration and sharing of innovative policy making is piecemeal. Government for a New Age brings together the latest thinking on modern government. It sheds light on the current trends in governance practices, operating models, processes and tools that leading governments are embracing. Government for a New Age explores the ways in which governments are changing their value proposition to tackle these pressing concerns and provide some answers to these questions…(More).”
Digital Enlightenment Yearbook 2014
Book edited O’Hara, K. , Nguyen, M-H.C., Haynes, P.: “Tracking the evolution of digital technology is no easy task; changes happen so fast that keeping pace presents quite a challenge. This is, nevertheless, the aim of the Digital Enlightenment Yearbook.
This book is the third in the series which began in 2012 under the auspices of the Digital Enlightenment Forum. This year, the focus is on the relationship of individuals with their networks, and explores “Social networks and social machines, surveillance and empowerment”. In what is now the well-established tradition of the yearbook, different stakeholders in society and various disciplinary communities (technology, law, philosophy, sociology, economics, policymaking) bring their very different opinions and perspectives to bear on this topic.
The book is divided into four parts: the individual as data manager; the individual, society and the market; big data and open data; and new approaches. These are bookended by a Prologue and an Epilogue, which provide illuminating perspectives on the discussions in between. The division of the book is not definitive; it suggests one narrative, but others are clearly possible.
The 2014 Digital Enlightenment Yearbook gathers together the science, social science, law and politics of the digital environment in order to help us reformulate and address the timely and pressing questions which this new environment raises. We are all of us affected by digital technology, and the subjects covered here are consequently of importance to us all. (Contents)”
Open Data Is Finally Making A Dent In Cities
Brooks Rainwater at Co-Exist: “As with a range of leading issues, cities are at the vanguard of this shifting environment. Through increased measurement, analysis, and engagement, open data will further solidify the centrality of cities.
In the Chicago, the voice of the mayor counts for a lot. And Mayor Emmanuel has been at the forefront in supporting and encouraging open data in the city, resulting in a strong open government community. The city has more than 600 datasets online, and has seen millions of page views on its data portal. The public benefits have accrued widely with civic initiatives like Chicagolobbyists.org, as well as with a myriad of other open data led endeavors.
Transparency is one of the great promises of open data. Petitioning the government is a fundamental tenet of democracy and many government relations’ professionals perform this task brilliantly. At the same time that transparency is good for the city, it’s good for citizens and democracy. Through the advent of Chicagolobbyists.org, anyone can now see how many lobbyists are in the city, how much they are spending, who they are talking to, and when it is happening.
Throughout the country, we are seeing data driven sites and apps like this that engage citizens, enhance services, and provide a rich understanding of government operations In Austin, a grassroots movement has formed with advocacy organization Open Austin. Through hackathons and other opportunities, citizens are getting involved, services are improving, and businesses are being built.
Data can even find your dog, reducing the number of stray animals being sheltered, with StrayMapper.com. The site has a simple map-based web portal where you can type in whether you are missing a dog or cat, when you lost them, and where. That information is then plugged into the data being collected by the city on stray animals. This project, developed by a Code for America brigade team, helps the city improve its rate of returning pets to owners.
It’s not only animals that get lost or at least can’t find the best way home. I’ve found myself in that situation too. Thanks to Ridescout, incubated in Washington, D.C., at 1776, I have been able to easily find the best way home. Through the use of open data available from both cities and the Department of Transportation, Ridescout created an app that is an intuitive mobility tool. By showing me all of the available options from transit to ridesharing to my own two feet, it frequently helps me get from place to place in the city. It looks like it wasn’t just me that found this app to be handy; Daimler recently acquired Ridescout as the auto giant continues its own expansion into the data driven mobility space.”
Democratizing Inequalities: Dilemmas of the New Public Participation
New book edited by Caroline W. Lee, Michael McQuarrie and Edward T. Walker: “Opportunities to “have your say,” “get involved,” and “join the conversation” are everywhere in public life. From crowdsourcing and town hall meetings to government experiments with social media, participatory politics increasingly seem like a revolutionary antidote to the decline of civic engagement and the thinning of the contemporary public sphere. Many argue that, with new technologies, flexible organizational cultures, and a supportive policymaking context, we now hold the keys to large-scale democratic revitalization.
Democratizing Inequalities shows that the equation may not be so simple. Modern societies face a variety of structural problems that limit potentials for true democratization, as well as vast inequalities in political action and voice that are not easily resolved by participatory solutions. Popular participation may even reinforce elite power in unexpected ways. Resisting an oversimplified account of participation as empowerment, this collection of essays brings together a diverse range of leading scholars to reveal surprising insights into how dilemmas of the new public participation play out in politics and organizations. Through investigations including fights over the authenticity of business-sponsored public participation, the surge of the Tea Party, the role of corporations in electoral campaigns, and participatory budgeting practices in Brazil, Democratizing Inequalities seeks to refresh our understanding of public participation and trace the reshaping of authority in today’s political environment.”
Businesses dig for treasure in open data
Lindsay Clark in ComputerWeekly: “Open data, a movement which promises access to vast swaths of information held by public bodies, has started getting its hands dirty, or rather its feet.
Before a spade goes in the ground, construction and civil engineering projects face a great unknown: what is down there? In the UK, should someone discover anything of archaeological importance, a project can be halted – sometimes for months – while researchers study the site and remove artefacts….
During an open innovation day hosted by the Science and Technologies Facilities Council (STFC), open data services and technology firm Democrata proposed analytics could predict the likelihood of unearthing an archaeological find in any given location. This would help developers understand the likely risks to construction and would assist archaeologists in targeting digs more accurately. The idea was inspired by a presentation from the Archaeological Data Service in the UK at the event in June 2014.
The proposal won support from the STFC which, together with IBM, provided a nine-strong development team and access to the Hartree Centre’s supercomputer – a 131,000 core high-performance facility. For natural language processing of historic documents, the system uses two components of IBM’s Watson – the AI service which famously won the US TV quiz show Jeopardy. The system uses SPSS modelling software, the language R for algorithm development and Hadoop data repositories….
The proof of concept draws together data from the University of York’s archaeological data, the Department of the Environment, English Heritage, Scottish Natural Heritage, Ordnance Survey, Forestry Commission, Office for National Statistics, the Land Registry and others….The system analyses sets of indicators of archaeology, including historic population dispersal trends, specific geology, flora and fauna considerations, as well as proximity to a water source, a trail or road, standing stones and other archaeological sites. Earlier studies created a list of 45 indicators which was whittled down to seven for the proof of concept. The team used logistic regression to assess the relationship between input variables and come up with its prediction….”