Collective Cognition: Neural Fabrics and Social Software

For decades, the MIT Media Lab has been a centre of innovative and highly influential research on emerging technologies, including responsive and interactive sensing systems, software programming and forms of artificial intelligence, and robotic design and communication systems for new forms of knowledge production and distribution. Therese Tierney writes about several aspects of the Media Labʹs research, including the current work of John Maeda, as well as the work of collaborators such as CEB Reas and Ben Fry, who she argues are developing work in new and sophisticated directions. She positions this work within the larger thematic of collective intelligence by addressing the particularly social forms of practice and the necessary connection to intelligent software and sensing technologies.