Human Computation and Convergence

TL;DR

This paper discusses how advancing human computation methods can create highly integrated systems leveraging human and machine strengths, leading to unprecedented predictive accuracy for complex societal and environmental challenges.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of human computation as a means to develop highly integrated, predictive systems capable of addressing complex global issues.

Findings

Human computation enhances information processing capabilities.

Integrated systems can model complex physical and social processes.

Potential to address wicked societal problems and achieve planetary homeostasis.

Abstract

Humans are the most effective integrators and producers of information, directly and through the use of information-processing inventions. As these inventions become increasingly sophisticated, the substantive role of humans in processing information will tend toward capabilities that derive from our most complex cognitive processes, e.g., abstraction, creativity, and applied world knowledge. Through the advancement of human computation - methods that leverage the respective strengths of humans and machines in distributed information-processing systems - formerly discrete processes will combine synergistically into increasingly integrated and complex information processing systems. These new, collective systems will exhibit an unprecedented degree of predictive accuracy in modeling physical and techno-social processes, and may ultimately coalesce into a single unified predictive organism, with the capacity to address societies most wicked problems and achieve planetary homeostasis.