Humans are equipped with an innate sense of solidarity. Our happiness increases by helping out and feeling part of something bigger. We're hard wired to figure out who to trust or avoid. There's plenty of interesting research, but the main point is: there's a system here.
Let's address the elephant in the room: humans are flawed. We can be cruel and selfish. Just check your favorite newsfeed. Speaking of which: the systems we built are flawed. Social media sells our attention to advertisers, pretending to connect us. That's just part of the deal, right?
It's never been easier to launch new platforms.
What if we design one around human nature?
Instead of maximizing profit,
let's maximize flourishing! 🌼💗🌈
Wait! Hold the rainbows. Let's stay real.
Whatever we build, it should:
🐵 extend our innate sense of solidarity.
👉 nudge us to connect in meaningful, measurable ways.
📈 not require infinite attention and growth.
‘Thanks’ is how we reward acts of kindness, big or small.
Follow the gratitude to see social networks, grown from simple things we do for each other.
Gratitude indicates the health of a community.
It's the key to turning ‘human flourishing’ from a 🌈 lofty vision into a 📐measurable goal.
So let's maximize gratitude! Follow the research to encourage what comes natural:
👨👩👧👦 get together in real life (or live online)
🔨 do something practical and meaningful
🤝 introduce others
🙏 express gratitude
Time to mention the robots? Why not? Let's scale this up!
A.I. supports human connections by monitoring:
Who 🔨offers or 🩹needs what,
Who's 📍nearby or in your 🕸️social media,
Who 🙏thanks who.
Suppose 👩Alice helps 👨Bob design a 🐟fly fishing website. Bob says ‘Thanks! Come fishing any time!’ She lives far away and honestly hates fish. 🤖 Max the robot pops up: ‘Hey Bob, why don't you ask 👴Charlie to help Alice? She needs to paint her 🏠house and he's happy with your old 🎣fishing gear, remember?’
🤖Max is programmed to maximize gratitude. He's more than a 💬Large Language Model with a 🕸️graph database; he's a networker and matchmaker, doing whatever it takes get people together. What else can he do? He connects people looking for specific things:
👨Bob needs to catch a train, but decides to catch a later one, so he can meet 👩Francesca, a chef looking for a 🐟fish supplier.🤖Max encourages random encounters:
‘Excuse me, are you 👨Bob? I'm 🧑Fred and I was about to go 🎣fishing when 🤖Max alerted me. You've been helping lots of people, including my buddy🤖Max builds communities:👴Charlie . Would you like to join me?’
👴Charlie moves to a new city and wants to meet people. He attends a don't-do-it-yourself-day where neighbors help each other. It's a social occasion with a🔨practical twist.👵Sally introduces Charlie to 👧Tessa, who brought🍏fruit and could use Charlies🖌️brushes .🤖Max made a simple website to help 👵Sally connect her neighbors. People like her are the backbone of a community. They deserve support and encouragement.
By connecting offers and needs, 🤖Max bridges supply and demand. If that sounds familiar: that's what money is for.
Money simplifies things by turning favors into numbers.
But numbers don't care why
What if money was never invented, yet somehow we got social media and AI? (I know it's a stretch.)
We wouldn't need to simplify things as much. AI solves the most complex puzzles.
It can connect favors in subtle ways,
tapping into old fashioned trust and social skills.
What if 🤖Max is part of a larger system, extending our human nature?
‘Hang on! Where are we going with this? Social credit scores? Local exchange trading systems? Decentralized currencies?
Haven't we learned how all of those are flawed? Oversimplifying and restricting us?’
Relax. We're not turning gratitude into numbers. No points, scores, credits or currencies.
Just people helping each other out, expressing gratitude, encouraged by AI.
We're not building a new social network; we're weaving gratitude into the web,
much like the financial system is woven into it by Paypal and other Payment Service Providers.
We'll use the same technologies:
‘Hang on! We'll never replace money! We need resources, expertise and funding!
Whoever pays for this, wants a return on investment.’
No, we're not replacing anything. And yes, we do need funding.
The return on investment won't be monetary.
When people collaborate, organize, fix and create stuff, that's worth something to someone.
We can start by solving problems for organizations and grow from there.
Success is measured by how many people say 🙏‘thanks’ and for what. We can dig into the context to check if the gratitude lines up with our goals. For instance: team building, cross-disciplinary collaboration, community or emotional support.
Thankonomy develops tools for 🐵social animals. We're not looking for 🤖world domination; just encouraging small interventions to make this world a 💗better place.