Tag Archives: democrazia

The credibility singularity of institutions

So, I care about democracy, and dream about fixing it. For years, and in many different contexts, I have been weaving narratives of collaboration between citizens and their institutions towards the common good. These narratives have provided ideological scaffolding for creatives, radical changemakers and civil servants to work together, reaping the benefits of diversity and discovering that they can get stuff done.

This, however, is getting harder and harder. Global problems press humanity on (take your pick: climate change, feral finance, loss of biodiversity, mounting inequalities); a globally connected citizenry, fueled by the Steve Jobs-Obama ideology of change as desirable, possible, a moral imperative even, has raised their expectations levels. Institutions, while probably not moving any slower than they did twenty years ago, have failed to keep up with the acceleration. The result is a sort of (negative) credibility singularity: you can feel people getting more impatient by the week. And not without reason: the failure to take serious action on climate change after decades of talk is very hard to justify outside the institutions’ corporate walls. What could any government agency answer to Anjali Appadurai’s passionate call to action in the video above? “Give us ten years!” to which her answer is “You just wasted twenty”. “We must not be too radical”, to which her answer is “Long term thinking is not radical”. What is there to say? She’s right.

The singularity point itself is the place where people decide democratic institutions are not delivering, and route around them to get things done. I am not looking forward to it. In fact, I happen to think democratic government institutions are still humanity’s best asset towards cooking up a coordinated, global response to global threats. But if this is to happen, a lot more radical thinking needs to take roots in Brussels (and Rome, and London, and Washington D.C. etc.). And to do it fast, while credibility can still be restored.

(Thanks: Vinay Gupta and Jay Springett)

Un tranquillo martedì wikicratico

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Martedì 15 febbraio, qui a Milano, parteciperò a due eventi interessanti dal punto di vista della wikicrazia, cioè della riprogettazione partecipata del mondo in cui viviamo.

La giornata (a partire dalle 9.30) è dedicata al convegno sul design dei servizi organizzato dall’Associazione per il Design Industriale e dal Politecnico di Milano (programma e invito qui). Sono anche relatore: gli organizzatori considerano Kublai un servizio ben progettato, e in questo senso io e il mio team ne saremmo i designer. Siamo anche metadesigner, perché un’altra relazione racconterà CriticalCity Upload, incubato proprio dentro a Kublai.

La serata è dedicata a un esperimento molto intrigante. Pietro Speroni, matematico e supergeek, ha inventato un modo per trovare risposte condivise a domande aperte, basato su quelli che lui chiama “algoritmi genetici umani”, e ne farà un collaudo insieme agli intervenuti. L’idea è questa: c’è una domanda. Chiunque può dare una risposta. Tutti votiamo le risposte (“Sì” o “No”). Un software esamina la votazione e ne trova il cosiddetto fronte di Pareto, cioè l’insieme delle risposte non dominate: significa che una risposta che ha avuto il voto di Anna e Beatrice verrà scartata se ce n’è almeno un’altra che è stata votata da Anna, Beatrice e Carlo. Si dice che la seconda risposta “domina” la prima, perché ha tutti i votanti della prima più almeno uno. Fatto questo, si chiede ai partecipanti di riscrivere, usando – se lo vogliono – i pezzi delle risposte selezionate nel primo round. Questo dà luogo a una seconda generazione di risposte, che usano il “materiale genetico” già selezionato, su cui di nuovo tutti votano e il software cerca il fronte di Pareto, e si itera fino a che non evolve una sola risposta dominante. Il software, naturalmente, si chiama Vilfredo.

Gli esperimenti di Pietro e del suo gruppo finora hanno mostrato che l’algoritmo genetico umano converge. In un certo senso converge troppo in fretta: Vilfredo arriva a un’unica risposta dominante in dieci generazioni o meno, mentre gli algoritmi genetici in senso stretto convergono in diecimila generazioni. E ti credo: l’evoluzione deve provare tutte le mutazioni alla cieca, e lasciare che i vicoli ciechi genetici portino all’estinzione, mentre la discussione tra umani scarta a priori un gran numero di alternative. Se la domanda è “cosa facciamo stasera?”, per esempio, le risposte tipo “dichiariamo guerra al Guatemala” o “andiamo tutti a fare il bagno nel piombo fuso all’Italisider” non hanno bisogno di essere discusse e poi scartate, ma proprio non compaiono mai. Questo dovrebbe insegnarci che i modelli di emergenza nel mondo fisico (i cui agenti sono stupidi, come i neuroni o le formiche) sono molto diversi da quelli del mondo sociale (i cui agenti sono persone, e quindi intelligenti). Alle 20.00 a Musicopoli, Via Boifava 29/A (evento Facebook qui). Potete dire tutto, ma non che non viviamo in tempi interessanti.Pietro and his group have been experimenting, and so far the human genetic algorhythm always converges. In a way it converges too fast: Vilfredo gets to an unique dominant answer in ten generations or less, whereas non-human genetic algorhythms need more like ten thousands generations to converge. Makes sense: evolution has to blindly try every conceivable mutant and let genetic cul-de-sacs go extinct, whereas human discussion can discard a priori a lot of unpromising alternatives. If the question is “what shall we do tonight?”, answers like “let’s declare war to Guatemala or “let’s all go bathe in molten lead” don’t need to be discussed and discarded: they just never come up. This should teach us that emergence in the natural world (where agents are dumb, like neurons or ants) is very different from emergence in the social world (where agents are smart, like people or companies). At 8 p.m. at Via Boifava 29/A (Facebook event). You can say anything, but not that we don’t live in interesting times.

A quiet Wikicratic Tuesday

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On Tuesday, February 15th, here in Milan, I will take part in two events I find interesting from the point of view of wikicracy, that is collaborative redesign of the world we live in.

The day (starting at 9.30) is to be dedicated to a conference on service design organized by the Association of Industrial Designers and Milan Polytechnic (info). I am even a speaker: Kublai is, in this context, treated as a well-designed service, and my team and I as its designers. We are even metadesigners, because another of the services showcased is to be CriticalCity Upload, that was incubated from within Kublai.

The evening is dedicated to an intriguing experiment. Pietro Speroni, mathematician and supergeek, has invented a way to find shared answers to open questions, based on what he calls “human genetic algorhythms”, and is going to test it with the help of whoever shows up. The idea is this: we start with a question. Anyone can offer an answer. Then everyone votes each answer (only “yes” and “no” votes allowed). A software looks at the votes and extracts its Pareto front, i.e. the set of non-dominated answers: it means that an answer voted by Alice and Bob will be discarded if there is at least one other answer voted by Alice, Bob and Chuck. Mathematically, this second answers dominates the first one, because it has all of its voters plus at least one. Then, everyone is asked to write new answers, feeling free to use bits and pieces from the ones in the first-round Pareto front. This gives rise to a second generation of answers, which use the “genetic material” already selected by the first iteration; then a new vote is called, the software computes the Pareto front and on it goes until a unique dominant answer evolves. The software, naturally, is called Vilfredo.

Pietro and his group have been experimenting, and so far the human genetic algorhythm always converges. In a way it converges too fast: Vilfredo gets to an unique dominant answer in ten generations or less, whereas non-human genetic algorhythms need more like ten thousands generations to converge. Makes sense: evolution has to blindly try every conceivable mutant and let genetic cul-de-sacs go extinct, whereas human discussion can discard a priori a lot of unpromising alternatives. If the question is “what shall we do tonight?”, answers like “let’s declare war to Guatemala or “let’s all go bathe in molten lead” don’t need to be discussed and discarded: they just never come up. This should teach us that emergence in the natural world (where agents are dumb, like neurons or ants) is very different from emergence in the social world (where agents are smart, like people or companies). At 8 p.m. at Via Boifava 29/A (Facebook event). You can say anything, but not that we don’t live in interesting times.