Abstract
Today humans face many challenges as a species, including some that pose grave risks. Technology has been a significant contributor to these risks, but it may also lead to solutions. In the first part of this chapter, we consider how Human Computation (HC), the study of humans as computational elements in a purposeful system, has already been helpful in solving problems. We further consider why HC may be instrumental for mitigating future risks. In the second part of this chapter, we examine the maturity of human computation as both a practice and a discipline. This analysis informs a proposal for technical maturation as well as a formal definition of the field and its distinguishing qualities, all in service of accelerating research and ensuring responsible use of any resultant capabilities. Though the ideas in this chapter may be informed by engagement with the HC community, this manifesto represents a personal perspective.
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Notes
- 1.
In personal correspondence, Michael Witbrock has aptly observed that this is not strictly true; that if we were willing to transcend our planetary context, space colonization might afford a similarly cheat.
- 2.
This notion of a phase transition in humanity derives from the canonical notion of a physical phase transition, in which there is a change from one state to another without a change in composition.
- 3.
Bill Joy and Ray Kurzweil are widely respected as technical luminaries of our times. It is only on the shoulders of these prescient giants that a context for advancing human computation is formulated herein.
- 4.
Linux underlies the Android operating system.
- 5.
I owe special thanks to Mary Catherine Bateson for providing a valued counterpoint to the potential benefits of disciplinary identity, as well as for pointing out the relevance of public education for a new discipline.
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Acknowledgments
The author would like to express his enduring gratitude to each of the 117 contributors to this volume, who are collectively catalyzing the emergence of human computation as a discipline. The author also wishes to gratefully acknowledge useful feedback from Mary Catherine Bateson, Kevin Crowston, Kshanti Greene, Antonio Sanfilippo, and Michael Witbrock.
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Michelucci, P. (2013). Human Computation: A Manifesto. In: Michelucci, P. (eds) Handbook of Human Computation. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-8806-4_79
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