12.1 The “Benevolent Dictator” Is Dead
253
empowerment and coordination rather than control and manipulation, and capable
of promoting mass innovation.
12.2 The Concept of Digital Democracy
The question is, how can we upgrade democracy with digital means—in a way
that is competitive with the Chinese system? Such an upgrade would have to be
built on (1) digitally unleashing creativity, (2) combinatorial innovation, and (3)
better decision-making. The first and second might be promoted by participatory
approaches, such as Open Innovation,
24 enabling people—as we will see—to do
things by themselves that they could not do in the past. The second and third bring
us to the subject of “collective intelligence”.
25
“Collective intelligence” is also often called “swarm intelligence”,
26 which is an
impressive phenomenon known from the animal world, as I mentioned before. Wellknown examples are flocks of birds, fish swarms, bee hives or ant colonies. “The
fable of the bees,” published in 1714,
27 suggests that the economy should work like a
beehive.
28 Even though the queen bee does not give commands and even though the
activities of the hive are self-organized in a distributed way, bees maintain a highly
differentiated animal society, including different kinds of “jobs”. Ant colonies
29 are
impressive as well. Even though a single ant has a brain with 250.000 neurons only,
30
the number of neurons in an ant colony could be as big as the number of neurons in
a human brain. Nevertheless, ants run an entire society in a distributed way, using
an interesting communication system.
31 Can we learn something from the way these
social animals are organized?
When it comes to bees, it is known that they send out “scouts” to scan the
surrounding for food sources. They fly into different directions, explore the environment, and return. Then, they communicate their findings by means of a “bee
dance”.
32 The average direction indicates the direction of the food source they found,
while the excitedness of the dance indicates the amount of food. The bystanders will
evaluate the dances of many bees and then decide for the food source to exploit. The
“scouts” don’t have an interest to exaggerate, because the food returned will benefit
the entire bee hive. If they would lie, it would harm all bees. Therefore, bees have
24 Chesbrough [8].
25 Page [9].
26 Bonabeau et al. [10]
27 See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fable_of_the_Bees.
28 See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beehive.
29 See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant_colony.
30 See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_by_number_of_neurons.
31 Dussutour et al. [11].
32 See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waggle_dance.
253
empowerment and coordination rather than control and manipulation, and capable
of promoting mass innovation.
12.2 The Concept of Digital Democracy
The question is, how can we upgrade democracy with digital means—in a way
that is competitive with the Chinese system? Such an upgrade would have to be
built on (1) digitally unleashing creativity, (2) combinatorial innovation, and (3)
better decision-making. The first and second might be promoted by participatory
approaches, such as Open Innovation,
24 enabling people—as we will see—to do
things by themselves that they could not do in the past. The second and third bring
us to the subject of “collective intelligence”.
25
“Collective intelligence” is also often called “swarm intelligence”,
26 which is an
impressive phenomenon known from the animal world, as I mentioned before. Wellknown examples are flocks of birds, fish swarms, bee hives or ant colonies. “The
fable of the bees,” published in 1714,
27 suggests that the economy should work like a
beehive.
28 Even though the queen bee does not give commands and even though the
activities of the hive are self-organized in a distributed way, bees maintain a highly
differentiated animal society, including different kinds of “jobs”. Ant colonies
29 are
impressive as well. Even though a single ant has a brain with 250.000 neurons only,
30
the number of neurons in an ant colony could be as big as the number of neurons in
a human brain. Nevertheless, ants run an entire society in a distributed way, using
an interesting communication system.
31 Can we learn something from the way these
social animals are organized?
When it comes to bees, it is known that they send out “scouts” to scan the
surrounding for food sources. They fly into different directions, explore the environment, and return. Then, they communicate their findings by means of a “bee
dance”.
32 The average direction indicates the direction of the food source they found,
while the excitedness of the dance indicates the amount of food. The bystanders will
evaluate the dances of many bees and then decide for the food source to exploit. The
“scouts” don’t have an interest to exaggerate, because the food returned will benefit
the entire bee hive. If they would lie, it would harm all bees. Therefore, bees have
24 Chesbrough [8].
25 Page [9].
26 Bonabeau et al. [10]
27 See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fable_of_the_Bees.
28 See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beehive.
29 See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant_colony.
30 See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_by_number_of_neurons.
31 Dussutour et al. [11].
32 See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waggle_dance.