Podcast Summary
Evolution of Collective Decision-Making with Technology: Technology is upgrading collective intelligence for better democratic processes and decision-making in various sectors, recognizing interconnectedness and stakeholder involvement.
Democracy and collective decision-making are evolving to keep pace with technological advancements. Collective intelligence, a term that encompasses the ways we make and execute decisions as a group, is being upgraded through technology to enhance our democratic processes. This includes not only elections but also decision-making in various sectors like education, corporations, and online platforms. By recognizing that we all have a stake in the collective systems around us, we can work towards improving them and making decisions that benefit everyone. Collective intelligence is not just limited to voting but also includes our daily actions like riding the subway or buying products. The goal is to move beyond individual preferences and acknowledge the interconnectedness of society. The Collective Intelligence Project, led by Divya Siddarth, is dedicated to advancing these capabilities for transformative technology governance.
Hindered decision-making due to externalities and lack of representation: To make effective decisions, we must consider externalities and represent all stakeholders, including nature. Break the link between economic and political power, enable access to technology, change economic systems, and implement regulations and financing laws.
Our ability to make good decisions for ourselves and for the world is hindered by externalities and a lack of representation in our democratic systems. The quality of our decision-making is influenced by our collective sense-making, and it's essential to consider the externalities of our choices to all stakeholders, including nature. However, as we face multiple crises, people feel disconnected from the decision-making process and lack self-determination. This is due in part to institutions that don't effectively surface and act on information and incentives that don't align with the public's preferences. The current system, where economic power translates into political power, exacerbates these issues. To address these challenges, it's crucial to break the link between economic and political power and find ways to enable access to technology, change economic systems, and implement regulations and financing laws. By doing so, we can create a more equitable and effective decision-making process that considers the well-being of all stakeholders.
Tensions between Capitalism and Democracy: Addressing the failure modes of capitalism (externalities, long-term planning, market failures) and democracy (informed population, tribalism, bias) is crucial for their coexistence and societal benefit.
The relationship between capitalism and democracy presents significant tensions. Corporations, driven by economic power, can influence political decisions through regulatory capture and campaign finance. This uneasy relationship between two systems, each requiring different forms of power, has led to the need for separating them through mechanisms like campaign finance reform. However, both capitalism and democracy share underlying principles of self-determination. Capitalism, as a market-based decision-making mechanism, excels at aggregating information and driving production but struggles with externalities, long-term planning, and market failures. On the other hand, democracy, as a collective decision-making process, can be hindered by an uninformed population, tribalism, and confirmation bias. A key takeaway is the importance of addressing the failure modes of both systems. Capitalism needs to account for externalities, plan for the long term, and address market failures. Democracy, meanwhile, needs to ensure an informed population and minimize tribalism and bias. Personally experiencing the limitations of democracy through local elections underscores the need for upgrading both systems. By understanding the strengths and weaknesses of each, we can work towards making informed decisions that benefit society in the short and long term.
Overlooking democratic components during crisis: Effective crisis response requires balancing information gathering, trust-building, and acting on public preferences.
During times of crisis, the democratic component of decision-making can be overlooked, leading to a top-down approach that may not effectively address the needs and wants of the public. This was evident during the COVID-19 response, where policies were made without sufficient input from the community or consideration for their preferences. The lack of trust and information exchange between the public and those in power, as well as misaligned incentives, further complicated the situation. A successful response requires a balance of gathering information, building trust, and acting on the public's preferences. Instances like these underscore the importance of democratic accountability structures and the need for a more inclusive approach to decision-making.
The Power of Social Media and Collective Intelligence in Crisis Times: During crises, social media and collective intelligence play a crucial role in shaping public opinion and disseminating information. While there are challenges, such as misinformation and divisive memes, collaborative efforts like fact-checking on Wikipedia can provide valuable information to millions.
During times of crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the role of social media and collective intelligence in shaping public opinion and disseminating information cannot be underestimated. While institutions may have the power to make policy decisions, the way information is presented and consumed on social media can significantly influence public perception and behavior. The case of COVID-19 ventilator shortages illustrates this point, as social media algorithms amplified divisive and outrageous memes, leading to conflicting views on mask usage and other public health measures. However, there are examples of collective intelligence, such as the Wikipedia page for COVID-19, that demonstrated the potential for a collaborative, fact-checking process to determine truth and provide valuable information to millions of people. While this system is not perfect, it highlights the importance of harnessing the power of collective intelligence to address complex issues in an imperfect but deeply valuable way. To effectively respond to crises, it may be necessary to complement traditional policy-making processes with more open, collaborative approaches to information gathering and dissemination.
Effective solutions for addressing misinformation during crises: Volunteer fact-checkers, trusted sources, community-based contact tracing, and exploring various fact-checking methods are crucial for addressing misinformation during crises.
Addressing misinformation and improving public trust during a crisis like COVID-19 requires a multi-faceted approach. The Taiwanese example of volunteer fact-checkers using social networks to correct misinformation within hours is one effective solution. Another approach could involve working with editors or using sortition to ensure information comes from trusted sources. Additionally, expanding notions of collective financing and participatory budgeting could increase public interest and input in resource allocation decisions. Contact tracing, which was a major failure in the US response, could have been more successful with a community-based approach, using trusted community workers for 1-on-1 conversations. However, Jason Brennan's book "Against Democracy" argues that people are not as informed as we assume, and misinformation is a systemic problem. To combat this, it's crucial to explore various solutions, from Wikipedia-style fact-checking to community-based contact tracing and beyond.
Addressing the complexity gap in elections: Ranked Choice Voting allows for more nuanced expression of preferences and can lead to more representative winners, potentially mitigating the influence of extreme candidates, increasing legitimacy and accurately representing diverse viewpoints.
The American National Election Studies reveal a significant gap between public knowledge and complex issues, with a large portion of voters performing worse than chance. This "complexity gap" raises questions about the ideal of informed citizens shaping opinions and decisions. Simultaneously, people often lack accountability or personal stake in their votes. To address these issues, the Collective Intelligence Project aims to develop new systems and technologies. One such tool is Ranked Choice Voting, which allows for more nuanced expression of preferences and can lead to more representative winners, potentially mitigating the influence of extreme candidates. Ranked Choice Voting offers a more granular approach, enabling voters to rank their preferences beyond a simple binary choice. This can lead to greater legitimacy and more accurately represent the electorate's diverse viewpoints.
Exploring Alternative Democracy Systems: Sortition, mini publics, and liquid democracy are innovative ways to upgrade and enhance democracy, providing more accessibility, efficiency, and representation through random citizen selection, delegated voting, and community engagement.
There are various ways to upgrade and enhance democracy beyond traditional methods. These upgrades include systems like sortition, mini publics, and liquid democracy. Sortition involves randomly selecting citizens to represent a broader group, and has shown effective results in climate assemblies. Liquid democracy, on the other hand, allows individuals to delegate their votes to trusted individuals or organizations, reducing the burden of researching complex issues. These systems offer flexibility and can be applied not only to national elections but also to governance of platforms like social media, where content moderation and ranking systems could be influenced by trusted entities rather than solely by platform owners. Overall, these upgrades aim to make democracy more accessible, efficient, and representative.
Exploring Upgraded Democratic Systems: Liquid democracy, deliberative democracy, and sortition are innovative democratic systems that enhance legitimacy and outcomes through delegation, group discussion, and random selection of stakeholders respectively. Their implementation is ongoing, but holds great promise for 21st century governance.
There are various forms of democratic systems, such as liquid democracy, deliberative democracy, and sortition, that have been explored and used in different parts of the world for various purposes. These systems, which can be seen as upgrades to traditional democracy, are built on human instincts and ingenuity, and aim to address the challenges of 21st century complexity. For instance, liquid democracy allows for delegation of decision-making power, while deliberative democracy emphasizes group discussion and consensus-building. Sortition, on the other hand, involves selecting a random representative sample of stakeholders to make deliberative decisions together. These systems have shown promise in improving the legitimacy and outcomes of decisions, and organizations like the Center for Internet and Society are working on pilots to prove their effectiveness. Despite their potential, these systems are not yet widely adopted, and it is important to continue exploring and implementing them on a larger scale to fully realize their benefits.
Exploring new forms of governance through technology: Technology enables new governance models like deliberative democracy and sortition, but funding and coalition-building are crucial for their implementation and success.
There's a growing interest in experimenting with new forms of governance, such as deliberative democracy and sortition, to make decision-making processes more legitimate and inclusive. These methods, which include pilots in smaller institutions like cooperatives and neighborhood groups, as well as larger entities like corporations and even global organizations, can benefit from technological advances and the enabling of more pilots. However, changing the distribution of power and building coalitions around these ideas are also crucial aspects of this movement. Tools like Narwhal, Polis, Ethello, and Chasm can help facilitate these experiments, but more funding is needed to support and scale these initiatives. Ultimately, the goal is to explore and implement these new governance models in various contexts to improve democracy at all levels.
Investing in democratic experiments for the 21st century: We need to focus on implementing new voting processes, enabling more participation, and improving infrastructure for decision-making through democratic experiments, starting with smaller-scale interventions like deliberative mechanisms and participatory budgeting, and considering global mechanisms and public funding for foundational infrastructure.
To upgrade democracy for the 21st century, we need more investment in and completion of democratic experiments or pilots. These pilots should focus on implementing new voting processes, enabling more participation, and improving infrastructure for decision-making. Over the next 10 years, we could start with smaller-scale interventions, such as more deliberative mechanisms and participatory budgeting. We should also consider global mechanisms of deliberative democracy and public funding for foundational infrastructure. The ultimate goal is to create a more interdependent decision-making process, where individuals feel empowered to participate in local and global issues. This collective approach can bridge the gap between technology-mediated and non-technology-mediated decision-making and help us address the challenges of the 21st century.
Exploring Collective Intelligence and Democracy with Dhivya Siddarth: The Collective Intelligence Project, led by Dhivya Siddarth, advances online collective intelligence and democracy for transformative technology governance. Check out the resources and tools in the show notes to get involved.
Collective intelligence and democracy are increasingly happening online and in the world, and the Collective Intelligence Project, led by Dhivya Siddarth, is at the forefront of advancing these capabilities for transformative technology governance. This organization, along with resources and tools, can be found in the show notes for those interested in getting involved. The Center For Humane Technology, a non-profit organization, produces the podcast, with a team dedicated to making technology more humane. Generous lead supporters include the Omidyar Network, Craig Newmark Philanthropies, and the Evolve Foundation. For those wanting to delve deeper into the themes of humane technology, check out the free course, Foundations of Humane Technology, at humaneetech.com/course. A heartfelt thank you to listeners for giving their undivided attention.
