The rapidly progressing digital revolution is now touching the
foundations of the governance of societal structures. Humans are on
the verge of evolving from consumers to prosumers, and old,
entrenched theories - in particular sociological and economic ones
- are falling prey to these rapid developments. The original
assumptions on which they are based are being questioned. Each year
we produce as much data as in the entire human history - can we
possibly create a global crystal ball to predict our future and to
optimally govern our world? Do we need wide-scale surveillance to
understand and manage the increasingly complex systems we are
constructing, or would bottom-up approaches such as self-regulating
systems be a better solution to creating a more innovative, more
successful, more resilient, and ultimately happier society? Working
at the interface of complexity theory, quantitative sociology and
Big Data-driven risk and knowledge management, the author advocates
the establishment of new participatory systems in our digital
society to enhance coordination, reduce conflict and, above all,
reduce the "tragedies of the commons," resulting from the methods
now used in political, economic and management decision-making. The
author Physicist Dirk Helbing is Professor of Computational Social
Science at the Department of Humanities, Social and Political
Sciences and an affiliate of the Computer Science Department at ETH
Zurich, as well as co-founder of ETH's Risk Center. He is
internationally known for the scientific coordination of the
FuturICT Initiative which focuses on using smart data to understand
techno-socio-economic systems. "Prof. Helbing has produced an
insightful and important set of essays on the ways in which big
data and complexity science are changing our understanding of
ourselves and our society, and potentially allowing us to manage
our societies much better than we are currently able to do. Of
special note are the essays that touch on the promises of big data
along with the dangers...this is material that we should all become
familiar with!" Alex Pentland, MIT, author of Social Physics: How
Good Ideas Spread - The Lessons From a New Science "Dirk Helbing
has established his reputation as one of the leading scientific
thinkers on the dramatic impacts of the digital revolution on our
society and economy. Thinking Ahead is a most stimulating and
provocative set of essays which deserves a wide audience." Paul
Ormerod, economist, and author of Butterfly Economics and Why Most
Things Fail. "It is becoming increasingly clear that many of our
institutions and social structures are in a bad way and urgently
need fixing. Financial crises, international conflicts, civil wars
and terrorism, inaction on climate change, problems of poverty,
widening economic inequality, health epidemics, pollution and
threats to digital privacy and identity are just some of the major
challenges that we confront in the twenty-first century. These
issues demand new and bold thinking, and that is what Dirk Helbing
offers in this collection of essays. If even a fraction of these
ideas pay off, the consequences for global governance could be
significant. So this is a must-read book for anyone concerned about
the future." Philip Ball, science writer and author of Critical
Mass "This collection of papers, brought together by Dirk Helbing,
is both timely and topical. It raises concerns about Big Data,
which are truly frightening and disconcerting, that we do need to
be aware of; while at the same time offering some hope that the
technology, which has created the previously unthought-of dangers
to our privacy, safety and democracy can be the means to address
these dangers by enabling social, economic and political
participation and coordination, not possible in the past. It makes
for compelling reading and I hope for timely action."Eve
Mitleton-Kelly, LSE, author of Corporate Governance and Complexity
Theory and editor of Co-evolution of Intelligent Socio-technical
Systems
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