Moderating Online Chat Rooms
By ai-depot | October 24, 2002
Complex Systems 101
There is however another way. There are many people on these message boards and most of them are there to stay on topic, not to flame, and not to troll. Why not let them control the content? This is where complex system theory can help.
Complex systems harness the power of networked intelligence (like the human brain) to create self-regulating systems. They work from the bottom up to create discernable macro-behavior. “They solve problems by drawing on masses of relatively stupid elements, rather than a single, intelligent ‘executive branch.’” (Emergence, 2001). What makes complex systems a perfect choice for website moderation? They are adaptive, they self-organize, and they can essentially act as perfect Mods. All of this comes with only the upfront programming cost, opposed to the weekly paychecks paid to moderators.
An example of a complex system in the real world would be the way cities self organize themselves into neighborhoods. No one tells the bankers to move downtown. They just follow the economic rule of amalgamation; its wise to put your business near others of the same type. In the same way, no one tells the Chinese to move to China Town. They just settle there because as immigrants they are comfortable being around others of the same nationality. Eventually “China Town” develops as millions of people acting on simple rules producing complex results, or as we commonly refer to them: neighborhoods.
Another example of self-organization would be the growth of a human from a single impregnated egg cell. The cell divides and each cell checks two things: 1) What the other cells around it are doing. 2) What the DNA says about what the others are doing. In the beginning, the DNA is basically just saying, “split in half again and make another stem cell.” But eventually the cells reach a critical mass of stem cells. They then begin to read off other parts of the DNA script and begin to make body part specific cells. As a cell is born it checks its surrounding cells and notes what its neighbors are doing. If most of the others are busy building an arm, the cell then checks back the DNA and sees what it has to say about specializing in being an arm cell and if the DNA confirms this is a good place to put an arm. The cell wasn’t born an arm cell. It chose to be one based on what neighboring cells were doing. This is why even clones are different. The cells aren’t told what to do. They make the decision on their own and then look for how to do it. Eventually, as cells multiply and choose a role, the complex system develops and we eventually recognize it as a human.
There are some fundamental principles which complex systems, governing things like cell division and neighborhood formation, are built on. Steven Johnson, a researcher in this field, says there are five such principles: more members create differences, ignorance of individuals is useful, random encounters should be encouraged and individuals must look for patterns in the signs and pay attention to their neighbors.
Referring back to the example of human development we can watch each of these principles at work. In the case of “more is different”: as the human first begins to develop it is only creating basic stem cells. Then, as more and more cells develop, they begin to specialize. The system cannot develop unless a critical mass of stem cells is reached, causing slight differences and specialization to appear because the individual cells read the DNA differently. Each cell being born an undifferentiated cell exemplifies the principle of “ignorance is useful.” For example, these cells are not born being arm cells; they make the choice to become arm cells. That choice comes from “random encounters” with other cells. During those encounters a cell “pays attention to its neighbors” to determine what most of the cells in its area are busy working on. Once the cell knows what the others in its area are building, albeit an arm or leg, it then determines what most of them are doing by “looking for patterns in the signs.” If most others are busy working on an arm and the cell checks back to the DNA to confirm this is a good place to put an arm, it will begin reading how to make an arm from the DNA strand. Drawing on feedback from multiple cells all around it, the cell then decides to begin reading from the same part of the DNA as its local neighbors. This is a complex system and all it took to develop was adherence to the five principles. In the same way a complex system governing any random pool could be formed. Of particular interest is the random pool of text found on online message boards.
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