Cyberdemocracy  Today  

SENAC  2014  

Prof.  Pierre  Lévy  Twi=er:  @plevy  

Canada  Research  Chair  in  CollecFve  Inteligence  University  of  O=awa  

The  Speed  of  Change  

•  Connected  world  populaFon  –  1994,  Year  0  of  the  Web:  –  1%  connected  –  2014,  20  years  later:  35%  connected    –  +50%  very  soon  

•  Social  empowerment  –  Free  and  massive  distribuFon  of  emission  and  recepFon,  rise  of  social  media  

– Wordpress:  2003,  YouTube:  2005,  Facebook  &  Twi=er:  2006  

•  Material  –  CompuFng:  biggest  part  now  in  the  cloud  –  Interfaces:  dominaFon  of  smartphones  and  tablets  –  IPhone:  2007,  IPad:  2010  

An  Algorithmic  Medium  

•  Informa(on  ubiquity    •  General  interconnec(on  of  people  and  content  •  Automa(on  of  symbol  manipula(on:  algorithms  

=>The  rise  of  the  algorithmic  medium  can  be  compared  to  the  invenFon  of  wriFng  5000  years  ago  

⇒ Toward  new  content,  genres,  insFtuFons  and  techniques  of  communicaFon  

⇒ The  future  global  civilizaFon  is  pracFcally  impossible  to  imagine  

Layers of Political Subjectivity

Real time global interpersonal networked communication. Distribution of communication power. Data-centric politics. Control on algorithms and data. (Algorithmic medium)

National citizenship. Tax, health, education, justice, military, discipline... (typographic medium)

Empire, geo-theological universal perspectives (literate medium) Persian, Greek, Latin, Chinese, Indian, Anglo-sax, etc.

F2F, family, nomadism, war. (oral medium)

« Down to earth », hierarchies (scribal medium)

A  Data-­‐Centric  Society  

•  SFgmergic  CommunicaFon  – CommunicaFon  by  transformaFon  of  a  common  environment  (the  digital  memory)  

•  The  power  of  meta-­‐data    – Meta-­‐data  =  classificaFon  /  organizaFon  of  data  

– DemocraFzaFon  of  categorizaFon  #hashtags  

•  Data-­‐centric  insFtuFons  /  poliFcs  /  conflicts    – Organized  around  meta-­‐data,  data  and  algorithms  

Cyberdemocracy:  distribuFon  of  power  in  the  global  soh  city  

•  Fight  censorship  and  compartmentalizaFon  •  Foster  symmetric  transparency  and  net  neutrality  •  Grow  the  commons  •  Give  back  their  data  to  the  people  that  produce  them  

•  DemocraFze  big  data  analysis  •  Spread  literacy  and  criFcal  thinking  adapted  to  the  algorithmic  medium  

•  Augment  collecFve  intelligence  by  making  it  reflexive    

What  Is  an  Idea?  

[Concept  +  Affect  +  Percept]  +  Social  context  TranslaFon  in  the  algorithmic  medium  of  the  future:  

[Category  +  Value  +  Data]  +  Social  context  

What  is  CogniFon?  

Self-­‐reference,  growth,  reproducFon,  evoluFon,  cross-­‐pollinaFon    of  ecosystems  of  ideas  

Reflexive  CollecFve  Intelligence  

•  Ecosystems  of  ideas  emerging  from  collecFve  intelligence  in  a  new  generaFon  of  social  media  

•  Displayed  around  each  people,  community,  thing,  place,  work  of  the  mind...  

•  InteracFon  through  holograms  in  VR  or  AR,  by  Google  glasses  or  tablet  

•  Embedded  powerful  tools  for  selecFon,  exploraFon,  analysis,  synthesis,  semanFc  distances  measurement  

•  Symbiosis  communiFes  /  ecosystems  of  ideas    •  Symbiosis  individual  /  collecFve  learning