Collective Intelligence: Mankind's Emerging World in Cyberspace

by Pierre Levy
Translator: Robert Bononno
ISBM 0-306-45635-4
$27.95 cloth, 302pp

Reviewed by Kevin Murray

Two streams have fed thinking about cyberspace. In the US, writers like Nicholas Negroponte provide accounts of the efficient and democratic worlds made possible by online services. Across the Atlantic, French philosophers such as Paul Virilio and Bruno Latour place these developments in a narrative that encompasses the development of Western thought. Pierre Levy's book Collective Intelligence is a rare attempt to synthesize these utopian and analytic perspectives. The result is exhilarating, though like hot air ballooning, the journey is less secure than it looks.

Like his American counterparts, Levy places the reader at the crossroads: either we cross the river into a collective future, or cling to our atomistic lives serving static hierarchies. He shares with Kevin Kelly a belief in the need to 'let go' individualism in order to embrace the self-organizing energies of the hive mind. Levy maps the path to this through four worlds: earth, territory, commodity and knowledge spaces present the evolution of civilization towards a utopian society. In this society, knowledge is immanent, and therefore accessible to all members at all times. Cyberspace is its soil. There is something a little fanciful about these four worlds. Their arrangement resembles the Miller brothers' CD-ROMs "Myst" and "Riven", with their evocative worlds of ancient technologies brought together by a common advanced virtual knowledge. Though Levy makes passing reference to Hegel, his four worlds lack a dialectical development. While Levy's thought is exciting and his language poetic, his argument lacks the adventure of Hegel's. There are no struggles, trials or climactic transformations.

Rather than theoretical complexity, _Collective Intelligence_ stands out for the generosity of its ideas. The challenge of making knowledge immanent to itself offers significant design opportunities. Levy's book is threaded with references to a French system he calls the 'knowledge tree', which maps the skills resident in a community. This is a useful pretext for artists attempting to design virtual spaces for mirroring collectivities.