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Pierre Lévy at the CODE Symposium
Pierre Lévy's (CDN / F) goal is to create the abstraction, and definition, of the language of cyberspace that enables collective intelligence therein, regardless of geographical distance.

"The project of the research network I direct is to construct such software and to test it using real data. The Game of Collective Intelligence (GCI) will include functions to help with the gathering and formatting of data, visual modeling, and interactive simulation. Using the information provided, the GCI will send the interested communities, as in a mirror, an explorable and reflective image of their collective intelligence. This image will give them some indication of the problems to be resolved (since the form of any collective intelligence has an intimate relation to its landscape of problems), and it will help the community to perfect their models of intellectual cooperation and to balance their cultural ecosystems. Of the many factors that figure in its composition, the model proposed here below, as will become apparent, assigns an important place to reflexivity, in other words, the information and ideas (organized in a coherent way) which impact the cognitive functioning of the community in question. The construction and the free Internet access to the GCI aims to contribute to a better "self-knowledge" of the communities that wish to commit themselves to the adventure of cognitive self-transformation. Furthermore, the software—which as its name indicates is the platform for a "game of collective intelligence"—should encourage the apprenticeship of a strategic thinking adapted to a society of highly complex knowledge in the grips of globalization and rapid change.

The use of this software would follow these steps:

1) gathering the data concerning the economy of the knowledge of a community (plotting one’s "position");
2) supplying the computer model with data so as to obtain a mapping of the structure and the position of the collective intelligence of this community (transfer its position onto the "map");
3) using this structure and singular position, the GCI will be able to simulate the different scenarios of the community’s evolution of ideas toward an increase in collective intelligence (the "compass" points "north"). These simulations are meant to give pertinent indications as to the course to be followed in order to progress—in each different situation—toward an increase in collective intelligence.

(Pierre Lévy, excerpt from the catalog text)


25.8.2003
Ingrid Fischer-Schreiber

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