Collective Intelligence: Foundations + Radical Ideas - Day 0 at SFI
La Fonda, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
The entire series can be accessed here.
The Santa Fe Institute
For nearly 40 years, the Santa Fe Institute (SFI) has been a refuge for leading scientists, artists, and futurists across disciplines looking to escape their institutional silos and come together to unlock the mysteries of the complex systems that organize our world. The Institute is curiosity concentrated, and it's not for the faint of heart. At any given moment, you'll find physicists, sociologists, entomologists, or machine learning experts in fierce debate punctuated by laughter, sometimes after hours over a cold beer.
“It has been the great triumph of the sciences to find consistent means of studying phenomena hidden by both space and time, overcoming the limits of cognition and material culture...There are, however, on this planet, phenomena that are hidden in plain sight...complex systems: the convoluted exhibitions of the adaptive world — from cells to societies.”
The Institute expects its participants to hold conflicting ideas in tension, to be deeply grounded in their discipline, and to be willing to transcend it. It reminds me of my work with BrightHouse, whose values include "beauty of eloquence" and intelligence having fun."
Collective Intelligence: Foundations + Radical Ideas
This week, I've flown to Santa Fe to join two hundred others for a first-of-its-kind symposium. "Collective Intelligence: Foundations + Radical Ideas" is an experimental non-conference that brings together young researchers, industry leaders, and interdisciplinary thinkers to learn and discuss the nature of group intelligence – how it emerges in insect swarms, brain cells, and sports teams – and how we can harness this knowledge to improve organizational decision-making. Artists, entrepreneurs, and futurists are here, too; it's that kind of electric energy.
I'm here primarily to learn, but I'm eager to see how my and Abhishek's research on augmented collective intelligence (ACI) can build on the work happening here. We've been thinking about two main themes:
1. How to unlock the potential of human-AI collectives while preserving human purpose, autonomy, and mastery
2. How collective intelligence can improve governance of foundation models (e.g.,: through forecasting markets or representative democracy tools like Pol.is)
Walking with giants
Sitting in a space with people whose knowledge and hunger for learning match (and, more often, beat) mine is exhilarating. Three people I met today made a particular impact on my time here, and I'd like to take a second to highlight their work.
- Petr Sramek is interested, more than anything, in discovering the truth from first principles. He thinks deeply about the unifying patterns that bind physics, biology, chemistry, and more into a coherent whole. His current work as a VC for longevity startups exists to give humanity more time to learn from our best thinkers and spend with our families.
- Kirsten Kainz has the simultaneous ability to evaluate and diagnose system failures AND to consider each individual with dignity, respect, and compassion. She integrates humanity and emotion into analytical decision-making, and I am very excited about her next project, Just Learning Systems. Kirsten is thinking about how to engage the principles of CI to improve policy discussions in education.
- Joshua Becker is a leading thinker on negotiation and deliberations— and a Poets & Quants 40-under-40 MBA professor at UCL. From Joshua, I learned that exciting survey tools like Pol.is aren’t enough to bring CI to decision-making; the hard part is deciding how and when to use the wisdom of the crowd.
Looking forward to...
Formal sessions begin tomorrow, including debates between brilliant thinkers. One of the most special experiences in science is to watch thoughtful people encounter new information and change their minds. I look forward to having my mind changed - and to seeing others have this experience!
