One of the wonderful things the internet has done is to bring to life the ‘Mechanical Turk’. Together we can all do small things and create something wonderful, like the internet. Google’s search engine works so well because we all contribute to it. Amazon works fantastically because of the book reviews users contribute.
Loren Carpenter did an experiment at Siggraph 91 that demonstrated how quickly and easily we can work together even with out communicating.
Probably the most unique event of SIGGRAPH ‘91 was Loren Carpenter’s Audience Participation piece presented during the Electronic Theater. Each person in the audience was given a wand with a red side and a green side. The colored retro-reflective material was scanned in by video cameras at the back of the auditorium, frame-grabbed and processed, and used to drive a video display that was projected on the big screen, all in real time. In its standby mode the system created a map of the auditorium, with enough resolution to show each seat, indicating whether the person in that seat was holding up the red or green (or neither) side of their wand. It was described as “being a pixel in a huge raster scan display”. Various games were played with this setup, from simple voting and “stadium flash card” type displays, to a round of massively parallel Pong. The Pong game was stunning because of how quickly the 5000 “autonomous agents” in the audience learned to cooperate and regulate their aggregate behavior. The way it worked was that each side of the auditorium controlled one of the Pong paddles, red moved the paddles up and green moved it down. In order to move the paddle to the correct position, just the right number of people had to signal with the appropriate color. Too many or too few and the paddle would overshoot or undershoot its mark. The final exercise was massively parallel control of a flight simulator. We crashed. [Phreak.org - archives ]
Before too much time goes by we will all have a smart computer with an internet connection in our shirt pocket everywhere we go. How much quicker will you be able to commute when the public’s telephones all communicate the quickest route home with out any interaction from the users?
The commute is already a perfect example of a human hive mind at work. On route 128 about Boston millions of cars travel an old cow path that is now a 2, 3 or 4 lane highway depending on your location. It curves and winds and there are on and off ramps every few feet it seems. Yet an amazingly large amount of drivers manage to get on, bounce between lanes, go forward, get off all while playing with the radio, phone, texting, reading and avoiding all the unskilled drivers. ( Because everyone besides ourselves is an unskilled driver. ) No central command directs each car. We manage it autonomously, with little contact between the drivers and very little thinking.
Capitalism is an excellent example of the human hive mind. When we need more of a thing, the price goes up and more people begin creating more things. No plan or central authority is needed. When the economy slows in one place and picks up in another, the right number of people move to level both locations at sustainable levels.
This is all going to begin to happen faster and much more effectively thanks not only to the internet but the fact the net will soon be portable in everyone’s pocket.
More information:
The Technodiva Speaks
The Year in Ideas; Smart Mobs
Rheingold: Smart Mobs
Real Time Traffic Routing from the Comfort of your Car
Books:
‘Out of Control’ Kevin Kelly
See also:
Human generated artificial intelligence
4 responses so far ↓
1 phil.gs // May 1, 2008 at 2:32 pm
I think that your premise and conclusion are sound, but some of your examples do not hold up.
Specifically, driving requires a lot of thinking. That’s why you’re very tired after a long time in the driver’s seat. It’s just not conscious thought—”I’m drifting to the left. Now slow down a little.” Bipedal locomotion also requires a lot of brainpower but it happens on a different level than deciding what to have for dinner.
Also, your statement about people relocating in response to economic slowdowns suggests that we should open our borders to Mexico. Then each country’s economy will reach parity at a sustainable level. I’m very liberal about immigration, but I think that open immigration would be disastrous for both countries.
I dispute that some of your examples are evidence of the human hive mind, as you call it, but I agree generally with your overall point that mass communications will improve social efficiency and problem-solving.
2 ljmacphee // May 1, 2008 at 10:42 pm
hmmm.
But the point of the hive mind is that you act together but with out communicating much of your intent to accomplish something bigger. Also that you act with out an overseeing director. I believe those examples show things being done for the greater good while we all act individually.
Drivers do not have someone routing them, nor do they do much communicating with other drivers.
People move to balance out the unemployment level. That benefits the greater population, all with out being told where to move and where to work as they did under communism.
Communism failed not for political or moral reasons but because acting independently we can smooth out the economy quicker and more effectively than a centralized overseer. It is just too complex a system.
3 phil.gs // May 2, 2008 at 5:49 pm
I agree that the hive mind is acting together without much direct or overt communication, and I’ll grant that your example about driving is valid. I just don’t think that people move to balance unemployment levels. Otherwise, unemployment in Detroit wouldn’t be approximately 50%. It’s not a very good example of the hive mind, in my opinion. But I do think that your overall point is a good one and we’re just arguing about some of the minor details.
4 ljmacphee // May 2, 2008 at 9:27 pm
In the early 1980s I was living in the Dallas area. There was a popular bumper sticker ‘Will the last person to leave Michigan please turn out the light?’. There were a 1,000 people a day moving into Tarrant county, most of whom were from Michigan.
According to the BLS unemployment is about 10% in Detroit now. Last time I went through there about half of the houses had been abandoned as people left for more stable economies. I expect more will continue to leave until things reach a stable level.
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