Bootstrapping Social Intelligence

A selected group of researchers will collaborate via a series of software intermediaries to reflectively develop knowledge on the emergence of social intelligence.


Summary


Outcomes of the project


Stages and Milestones

Stage 1.

There will be an initial period of discussion between the group of researchers using existing mediation software (e.g. Wiki, Hypernews or a simple web-based mailing list). The primary objective of this stage will be the setting of objectives for the first web-site and specify the outlines of its design. This stage will last 6 months.

During this stage a workshop will be held to brainstorm ideas for the web-sites: its objectives, design and initial content. This workshop will have an important social function - that of enabling the participants to establish social contact. This is particularly important given that the majority of the interaction between them will be electronic.

Stage 2.

The first web-site will be specified in detail and implemented. The system will be tested by the core team by a discussion of the detailed specification. This stage should last about six months.

Stage 3

The participants discuss and interact starting with the subjects agreed upon during the first workshop. However it is anticipated that new subjects and classifications will quickly develop and take over as the focus of interaction. It is important that the participants have their own work in the broad area of social intelligence in order to ground their interactions, otherwise it could become too self-referent and closed.

A major task of the first period of interaction is to determine the design of the second web-site including the way the software structures the interaction, methods of evaluating the result and the initial content of the site.

Stage 4

The design indicate by the outcome of the present web-site is turned into a specification. This may require a certain degree of interpretation. The design is then implemented and tested. It is probably necessary that the programmer join in the interaction in the latter part of the interaction in order to 'firm up' the specification so that it can be implemented.

Stages 5 and 6

This is simply an iteration of stages 3 and 4 with a new web-site.

Stages 7 and 8

This is another iteration of stages 3 and 4 with another web-site.

Stage 9

A final workshop is held consisting of the participants and other interested parties in order to evaluate the project. Topics would include: the outcomes in terms of the resulting structures on the web-sites; the experience of participating and how it informed or influenced their thinking on social intelligence; the consequences of the experiment in terms of the design of participatory mediating software.


Design of the web-sites

The detailed design of the web-sites can not be specified n advantage, since the main point of this proposal is that the design of each web-site is determined by the preceding period of interaction using the previous web-site in a sequential 'bootstrapping' process.

However there are several main paradigms of self-organisation upon which the design of the first web-site might be based.

An associative network

An associative network is where the links between nodes are given some sort of weight or priority, and the strengths of these vary according to the number of times they are traversed (or associated). Classical rules for strength adjustment date from Hebb. An example of this mechanism has been demonstrated by Bollen and Heylighen at the Principia Cybernetica Project.

A shared semantic network

A network of nodes, with labelled links allows the construction of a semantic network. This can be collaboratively constructed in order to build up a shared mental map. The benefits and properties of a simple shared mental map have been investigated by ??. Inference on this network could be implemented by means of defeasible inheritance.

An evolutionary algorithm

An evolutionary algorithm allows for the creation and destruction of nodes and links according to their success. Variation in the nodes could come from versions of the node created by the participants, whilst nodes that are not linked to within a certain time could be downgraded or eliminated. Given these two operations the nodes at the site would undergo an evolutionary process.

Database update

Perhaps the weakest analogy that could be used is that of a database. All contributed nodes can be seen as records on a database. In this paradigm the main processing can be seen as a matter of producing the answers to queries but it is also possible that it could perform some consistency checks and either tag conflicting data or resolve the inconsistencies

A conference

The last structure is that of a simple conference or newsgroup. In this version the site merely provides a passive structure for the dialogue to proceed. It could provide facilities for the easy construction of sub-nodes, replies, links and indexing but would engage in no automatic processing of the information.


Some issues to be determined by the participants

There are also a number of specific issues which will have to be settled.


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Bruce Edmonds
Centre for Policy Modelling