Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 37, No. 547.
Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
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Submit to: humanist@dhhumanist.org
Date: 2024-04-12 12:41:24+00:00
From: Andy E. Williams <awilliams@nobeahfoundation.org>
Subject: Re: [crowd-hcomp] Survey responses invited: integrating crowdsourced and AI-enriched metadata into collections systems
Dear Drs Mia Ridge, Sam Blickhan, and Meghan Ferriter,
My responses didn't fit neatly into the survey so I decided to respond
directly by email. My purpose in taking the time to do so is the hope that it
might be possible to collaborate, potentially with Zooniverse along with it's
grant and institutional supporters (the University of Oxford, Chicago’s Adler
Planetarium, the University of Minnesota) to validate my claims with regards
to your project. My claims are below:
There is an emerging human superorganism. Using software to organize humans
into the collective intelligence of this superorganism creates the potential
to exponentially increase the general problem-solving ability of human groups.
There is a limit to the problem-solving ability of human groups in the absence
of this artificially augmented general or "strong" collective intelligence.
Because these limits are almost completely unknown, they are hidden. These
limits potentially constrain the ability of the collective wisdom project to
sustainably achieve its goals. One important citizen science project might be
to confirm the existence of these limits.
There are hypothesized to be different types of superorganisms that can
potentially arise within human groups. The collective cognition of some of
these will inherently make all activities unsustainable and extractive, while
others will inherently make all activities sustainable and beneficial. Trying
to make activities sustainable and beneficial through any means other than
implementing a strong CI is predicted to be ineffective past the hidden limits
to the complexity of problems that human groups can reliably navigate without
strong CI. In fact, such efforts are predicted to reliably have the opposite
effect. One important citizen science project might be to confirm the
"collective social brain" hypothesis, which defines this collective cognition.
Since no other intervention is predicted to have the potential to
exponentially increase general rather than narrow problem-solving ability, and
therefore have the potential to exponentially increase the ability of groups
to solve any problem in general, strong CI might have greater potential to
impact problem solving in any discipline than any other initiative. This would
make it profoundly important.
However, the same model of collective cognition suggests that this concept
will be profoundly difficult to communicate for a number of reasons,
including:
It comes from an outsider (a member of the out-group) to most of those
involved in academic and academic funding related decision-making. In-group
decision-making dynamics strongly tend to simply eliminate such ideas without
consideration. According to the collective social brain hypothesis, the more
that in-groups try to be diverse and inclusive, the stronger this exclusion of
out-groups becomes.
Due to cost constraints, it's evidence comes from simulations. It lacks
significant real-world empirical evidence (which isn't possible without
sufficient awareness, support, and participation).
Due to the lack of sufficient empirical evidence as required to publish in
high impact journals, the results were published in low impact journals. As a
consequence these ideas lack consensus (which again isn't possible without
sufficient awareness, support, and participation).
Thus we have potentially the most important innovation in the world today with
regards to all our problems, including our most important and existential
challenges, but we have absolutely no way to spread this "collective wisdom".
A solution might be to hold a series of workshop to explore how this strong CI
can potentially impact the interests of a variety of different stakeholders
such as yourselves. I began to define such a series of workshops here:
https://mssci2024.github.io/ , but I haven't yet advertised them because I
haven't found enough collaborators in any given domain to make those workshops
effective.
In summary, I offer consultation to define the specific hidden problems that I
predict your collective wisdom project and related projects can't reliably
solve without strong CI, and I hope in return to collaborate in hosting a
workshop in any area of your interest on these strong CI related limits and
how to overcome them. I also hope to collaborate in facilitating the
profoundly important citizen science projects of validating these limits, and
validating the existence of the collective social brain, which is an awareness
that needs to be spread in order to remove these limits. More information is
attached if desired.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Best,
Andy E. Williams
Executive Director, Nobeah Foundation
Email: awilliams@nobeahfoundation.org
Web: www.nobeahfoundation.org
Caring through innovation
nobeahfoundation.org
----- Original Message -----
From: Mia <mia.ridge@gmail.com>
To: <crowd-hcomp@googlegroups.com>, <humanist@dhhumanist.org>
Date: 4/8/2024 7:22 AM
Subject: [crowd-hcomp] Survey responses invited: integrating crowdsourced and
AI-enriched metadata into collections systems
Dear colleagues,
We hope this message finds you well.
The Principal and Co-Investigators of the Collective Wisdom project - Drs Mia
Ridge (British Library), Sam Blickhan (Zooniverse) and Meghan Ferriter
(formerly Library of Congress, Smithsonian) - are interested in what happens
after a project has gathered data enriched by crowdsourcing, machine
learning/AI, or a combination of methods.
We are conducting a study that explores projects' successes and challenges in
incorporating enriched data into catalogues or other core platforms in
libraries, museums and archives. We're gathering information on the types of
data, tools and processes used by project teams, and the barriers and aids to
ingesting and integrating enriched data.
Your insights and experiences are invaluable to this study, and we would be
grateful if you could spare about 15 minutes of your time to share your
experiences. Please note that your participation in this survey is entirely
voluntary, and you have the freedom to withdraw at any point during the survey
without any consequences. Your responses will provide us with essential
information that can help shape the future of enriched collections data.
The survey is open until April 18th, but we encourage you to complete it
sooner: https://forms.gle/JgArpbL6VNM6W3Vk9
We're particularly keen to hear from projects in Europe, Asia and Africa, and
any non-English language projects. If you can, please share and help us reach
a more diverse range of people.
There's a blog post with further information and a PDF of all the survey
questions:
https://collectivewisdomproject.org.uk/survey-integrating-volunteer-and-ai-
enriched-metadata-into-collections-systems
I'm of course happy to answer questions about our research and the survey.
With thanks,
Mia, Sam and Meghan
Principal and Co-Investigators, Collective Wisdom Project
The Collective Wisdom project produced The Collective Wisdom Handbook:
perspectives on crowdsourcing in cultural heritage (2021), and White Paper on
'Recommendations, Challenges and Opportunities for the Future of Crowdsourcing
in Cultural Heritage' (2023).
--------------------------------------------
http://openobjects.org.uk/
https://hcommons.social/@mia
The Collective Wisdom Handbook: perspectives on crowdsourcing in cultural
heritage
Crowdsourcing our Cultural Heritage
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