Thinking Ahead - Essays on Big Data, Digital Revolution, and Participatory Market Society

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

快速發展的數位革命現在已觸及社會結構治理的基礎。人類正處於從消費者轉變為生產者的邊緣，而古老且根深蒂固的理論 - 特別是社會學和經濟學理論 - 正成為這些快速發展的犧牲品。它們所基於的原始假設正受到質疑。每年我們產生的數據量相當於整個人類歷史上的數據量 - 我們可能創造一個全球水晶球來預測我們的未來並最佳地治理我們的世界嗎？我們需要廣泛的監控來理解和管理我們正在建構的越來越複雜的系統嗎？還是像自我調節系統這樣的自下而上方法才是創造更具創新性、更成功、更具彈性且最終更幸福的社會的更好解決方案？作者在複雜性理論、量化社會學和大數據驅動的風險和知識管理的交界處工作，主張在我們的數位社會中建立新的參與性系統，以增強協調、減少衝突，並最重要的是減少政治、經濟和管理決策中現有方法所導致的“公地悲劇”。

作者
物理學家Dirk Helbing是蘇黎世聯邦理工學院人文、社會和政治科學系的計算社會科學教授，也是該校計算機科學系的聯合創始人，同時也是蘇黎世聯邦理工學院風險中心的聯合創始人。他以科學協調FuturICT計劃而聞名，該計劃旨在利用智能數據來理解技術 - 社會 - 經濟系統。

“Helbing教授在這些關於大數據和複雜性科學如何改變我們對自己和社會的理解的文章中提供了深入而重要的見解，並有可能使我們能夠比目前更好地管理我們的社會。特別值得注意的是那些觸及大數據潛力和危險的文章......這是我們都應該熟悉的材料！” - MIT的Alex Pentland，《Social Physics: How Good Ideas Spread - The Lessons From a New Science》的作者

“Dirk Helbing已經建立起他作為數位革命對我們社會和經濟的戲劇性影響的領先科學思想家的聲譽。《Thinking Ahead》是一本極具刺激性和挑釁性的文章集，值得廣泛的讀者。” - 經濟學家Paul Ormerod，《Butterfly Economics》和《Why Most Things Fail》的作者

“越來越清楚的是，我們的許多機構和社會結構處於糟糕的狀態，急需修復。金融危機、國際衝突、內戰和恐怖主義、對氣候變化的無為、貧困問題、日益擴大的經濟不平等、健康流行病、污染以及對數位隱私和身份的威脅，這些都是我們在21世紀面臨的重大挑戰。這些問題需要新的和大膽的思考，這正是Dirk Helbing在這本文章集中提供的。如果這些想法中的一小部分能夠實現，對全球治理的影響將是重大的。因此，這是一本每個關心未來的人都應該閱讀的書。” - 科學作家Philip Ball，《Critical Mass》的作者

“這本由Dirk Helbing匯集的論文集既及時又有主題性。它提出了我們需要意識到的關於大數據的真正可怕和令人不安的問題，同時也提供了一些希望，即這項技術，它創造了我們以前無法想像的對我們的隱私、安全和民主的危險，可以成為解決這些危險的手段，通過實現社會、經濟和政治參與和協調，這在過去是不可能的。這本書引人入勝，我希望能夠引起及時的行動。” - LSE的Eve Mitleton-Kelly，《