Platform and Collective Intelligence

3Sociotechnical Instrumentation of Collective Intelligence

The question of the platform leads us to examine two essential aspects in greater depth: technology (dealt with from a sociotechnical perspective in this chapter) and community (in relation to collective intelligence). The platform, based on a logic of reticular organization, mobilizes these two aspects through the preponderance of technology in its operation and the mediation of the social body by the systems in place, which Guyot summarizes as follows: “the device institutes a specific organization and modes of social relations, even as it uses and creates knowledge and know-how that it converges to produce the tool and its modes of use: choice of the type of training, skills of the project players and of the partners” (Guyot 2000, p. 21). However, the examples of platforms mentioned in Chapter 2 mainly emphasize the technical dimension and the fact that users are subject to this dimension (the example of algorithmic management derives from this logic).

In this chapter, we will first come back to the question of digital literacy before exploring collective intelligence and its possibilities up to the construction of a meta-organization based on this collective intelligence. This path proposes to go beyond the technocentric dimension of platforms to focus on an anthropocentric organization.

3.1. Social instrumentation through digital technology

It is recognized that human activities evolve in contact with information ...