Global Commons in the Global Brain

Cadell Last

Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 2017, vol. 114, issue C, 48-64

Abstract: The next decade (present to ~2020–2025) could be characterized by large-scale labour disruption and further acceleration of income and wealth inequality due to the widespread introduction of general-purpose robotics, machine-learning software/artificial intelligence (AI) and their various interconnections within the emerging infrastructure of the ‘Internet of Things’ (IoT). In this paper I argue that such technological changes and their socioeconomic consequences signal the emergence of a global metasystem (i.e. control organization beyond markets and nation-states) and may require a qualitatively new level of political organization to guide a process of self-organization. Consequently, this paper proposes and attempts to develop a conceptual framework with the potential to aid an international political transition towards a ‘post-capitalist’ ‘post-nation state’ global world. This conceptual framework is grounded within sociotechnological theory of the ‘Global Brain’ (GB), which describes a potential future planetary organizational structure founded on distributed and open-ended intelligence; and the socioeconomic theory of the ‘Commons’, which is a paradigm describing distributed modes of organization founded upon principles of democratic management and open access. In the integration of GB theory and Commons theory this paper ultimately argues that an appropriate international response to the emerging technological revolution should include the creation of networks with both automated and collaborative components that function on ‘Global Commons’ (GC) logic (i.e. beyond both state and market logic).

Keywords: Global Brain; Futures; Technology; Evolution; Internet; Commons; Politics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:tefoso:v:114:y:2017:i:c:p:48-64

DOI: 10.1016/j.techfore.2016.06.013

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