Can we understand digital societies with lessons from history?
Research theme: Globalisation, Adaptation
How does information technology shape society? Efforts to understand this crucial question have either been limited to looking to past industrial changes or suggesting there is no precedent. These approaches however ignore groundbreaking work in the humanities and social sciences on the impact of previous changes in information technology: the evolution of language and the inventions of writing, the alphabet and printing. However, for this research to provide a clear understanding of the social impact of digital technology a broad theoretical framework is needed. This project combines evolutionary theory on how information transmission changes cooperation within social groups with historical research into previous information technology changes. This will suggest ways in which digital technology is impacting on the cooperative underpinnings of modern society. I am involved in two pilot projects aimed at building cooperation in the digital world. First, with the OVAL Lab at Stanford University to develop cooperative skills for an AI digital assistant (Almond). Secondly, with a non-profit international initiative (GLIANet), supported by the Mozilla Foundation on developing trustworthy organisations to provide data privacy and protection for individual users of the Internet. Principal
Investigator: Dr Kit Opie