Pierre Levy - Collective Intelligence, Mankind's emerging world in cyberspace,
published 1994
In Pierre Levy's most popular book to date, 'Collective Intelligence, Mankind's emerging world in cyberspace', he explains that thanks to the digital network there has been the development of of mass collaboration of all human intellects resulting in the creation of a collective intelligence.
As a well known philosopher thinking around the implications of the internet and digital communications Levy has written extensively about the proliferation of virtual 'cognitive workers' as a result of the developing technological, digital and virtual conditions.
"What is collective intelligence? It is a form of universally distributed intelligence, constantly enhanced, coordinated in real time, and resulting in the effective mobilization of skills… My initial premise is based on the notion of a universally distributed intelligence. No one knows everything, everyone knows something, all knowledge resides in humanity… New communications systems should provide members of a community with the means to coordinate their interactions within the same virtual universe of knowledge. This is not simply a matter of modeling the conventional physical environment, but of of enabling members of delocalized communities to interact within a mobile landscape of signification… Before we can mobilize skills, we have to identify them. And to do so, we have to recognize them in all their diversity… The ideal of collective intelligence implies the technical, economic, legal, and human enhancement of a universally distributed intelligence that will unleash a positive dynamic of recognition and skills mobilization." - Pierre Levy