Saturday, October 27, 2007

Web 2.0: Toward Happiness and Empowerment through Interactive Technology

Soraj Hongladarom

Department of Philosophy and Center for Ethics of Science and Technology

Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University


Introduction: What is Web 2.0?


Web 2.0 is a new development in the World Wide Web. According to the Wikipedia, the term ‘web 2.0’ refers to “a perceived second generation of web-based communities and hosted services — such as social-networking sites, wikis and folksonomies — which aim to facilitate collaboration and sharing between users.” Its use first became widespread in 2004, after the first O’Reilly Media Web 2.0 conference. Actually, ‘web 2.0’ does not refer to any advancement in technological details, but it shows more how the internet and the technologies of the World Wide Web is used so as to reflect social interaction and the ability for users to share information which was not actually feasible with the way the Web was used before. According to Tim O’Reilly, “Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2).

Many websites that we are familiar with today employ the web 2.0 concepts. A clear example is www.youtube.com, which could well be regarded as the very embodiment of the idea. Youtube does not contain any information on its own. The millions of video clips on its website do not originate from the people who designed the site and put URL on the internet, but from the millions of users worldwide who share the clip with one another. We might look at youtube.com as a huge free market where people come in from all corners to share their information. In the previous incarnation of the Web, what we might conveniently call ‘web 1.0,’ the idea is that information is created and disseminated to the users by the content providers and the webmasters, and the users are in most cases little more than passive consumers who can only choose which chunk of information they would like to get and which one not, but they do not have the power to share their own information with the outside world without themselves becoming webmasters. Web 1.0 creates a wall between the webmasters and the users. Webmasters create, maintain and disseminate information, and the public consume it. With the web 2.0 concept, on the other hand, the line between webmasters and the users has become significantly blurred. The function of the webmasters in youtube.com function, not as ones to choose which video clips should be shown on the first page, which ones on the second and other inner pages, and so on, but the role of the webmasters has almost become invisible, making sure that things run smoothly and that the overall look of the website is pleasing and functional, etc. In short, the role of the webmasters changed from that of ‘masters’ to being more like ‘servants’ who stay out of the limelight and are always there and ready to help.

In this brief paper, I would like to discuss how the web 2.0 concept could be conducive to happiness. As happiness is notoriously a difficult concept to pin down exactly, what I am focusing is rather empowerment of the local communities. As a technology that supports social networking and sharing of all kinds of information, web 2.0 will be instrumental in promoting happiness that is a result of such social empowerment. However, before that vision can be reality, many obstacles need to be overcome. These obstacles will be identified in the course of this paper and I will provide some attempt at showing how they can be eliminated.


Open Source, Open Society and Web 2.0

The web 2.0 concept aligns itself perfectly with that of open source. In software terms, ‘open source’ means that the source code of a particular program is publicly accessible and is intentionally released to the public so that anyone who has the expertise can have a look in order to study it and make improvements. The only requirement for open source is that once one revises and improves on a code, one is bound to publish one’s own revisions and announce this to the public. This is to ensure that any revisions and improvements will be fed back to the system so the benefits still belong to the public. The open source idea is diametrically opposed to the normal practice of most software businesses, which jealously guard their source codes as trade secrets. This ‘proprietary system’ or ‘closed source’ implies that the source code, the very heart of software, belongs to the company as private property. Nobody except for authorized personnel within the company who owns it has the right to open up a piece of software and to do anything with it. Once a user has bought a piece of proprietary software, he or she in effect has agreed to be bound by its terms of use, which in most cases involve the agreement not to tinker with the source code, if they do have the ability to crack open the software get to the inside.

Another well known website illustrates this viewpoint very well. Wikipedia.org is a very widely used online encyclopedia in the world today, and its startling feature has always been that anybody has the right to share their knowledge and expertise with the world by uploading their own contribution to it, thus adding what they know to the global community, adding a share of knowledge for the benefit of everyone. The basic idea of the open society is that every individual is equal, and that idea is also reflected in the wikipedia conception. Knowledge is shared among everybody in the world, and definitely it is not the prerogative of some privileged few.

The open source system is much aligned with open society. According to Karl Popper, an open society is one where there is a system of tolerance, accountability and most of all transparency in information management. A government is open when anybody can monitor its functioning and when it can provide justifications and reasons for its action. This is opposed to governments in closed, totalitarian societies where governments are not accountable to the people, nor are they any transparent in its dealings. In this sense, there are a lot of affinities between open source software system and open society. In the open source concept, there is a system of trust and willingness to share the good with everybody in the community. The authority functions more as one who facilitate things so that the good is brought about in the most efficient manner possible so as to ensure that everybody does have a chance to enjoy the good, rather than hoarding the good to a privileged few as is very often the case in closed societies.

What is crucial here is that open source critically depends on open society. This is a point that seems to be much overlooked by software developers. But in a society where there is no freedom to innovate and no freedom to share information without any restrictions, it is very difficult to image how open source software system can even get started. On the other hand, promoting open access and openly sharing systems such as web 2.0 websites could well lead to more open societies, because, as history has shown many times, maintaining a healthy, democratic society requires that information be fully accessible and fully shared. This is precisely the objective of web 2.0


Web 2.0 and Happiness

So we have now come to the central part of the paper. I would like to show that there is a link between web 2.0 and happiness. Let us note, however, that the term ‘happiness’ here is used here not in the usual psychological or economic sense of ‘subjective well being,’ but in a more ancient and more spiritual sense of cosmic order and harmony. Rationale behind this is rather complex, and at least requires a full paper of its own. However, the idea, basically, is that by equating happiness with subjective well being, the moral dimension and the spiritual side of the matter is left out. One can be ‘happy’ when one is only satisfied with the material consumption. But as all religious traditions point out, this is not adequate at all, and there is obviously more to happiness than mere consumption. What web 2.0 can offer in promoting happiness is that, by allowing people to network together and by allowing them to express themselves to their communities, the technology allows for a level of happiness that has hitherto been rather difficult to achieve. Happiness can be achieved here only it is understood as something that arises when one fulfils one’s goal and one’s sense of ‘belonging’ to something that is greater than oneself, something more akin to Aristotle’s ‘good life’ (eudaimonia) rather than mere consumption of material goods. At any rate it is hard to see how material consumption would have anything to do with social networking, so if happiness is equated with the former, then one would indeed by hard pressed to see how web 2.0 can lead to happiness at all.

To put things in more concrete terms, web 2.0 creates a level of happiness by ensuring that information is shared in an open and transparent manner. As happiness is better understood as a harmonious working relationship between the inside (individual preferences, etc.) and the outside (social and physical order of things), web 2.0 does promote it through becoming a lynchpin of open society. Hence there are strong logical connections between open source software (such as web 2.0), open society and happiness.


Web 2.0 in Thailand

There are a number of websites in Thailand employing the web 2.0 concepts. The most successful one seems to be www.pantip.com. This very popular website functions as a forum where members come in and engage with their fellow members of every imaginable topic, ranging from politics (a very heated section) to art and entertainment, to religion (another heated place), and pet care and so on.

Another interesting website is http://gotoknow.org/, a site that collects a large number of ‘weblogs’ or ‘blogs’ contributed by the members. Both pantip.com and gotoknow.org are ranked among the most popular websites in Thailand. 

What these two websites share in common is that, firstly they are operated mostly by their members. All the content is provided by the members, and the so-called ‘webmasters’ are in fact facilitators who make things running but impose no heavy hands on the directions where the content is heading. However, there may be some restrictions, especially in the case of pantip.com, as when the exchanges (mostly about politics) tend to get out of hand and when the directions of the discussions might risk offending someone or breaking the law. Otherwise the idea is that any content whatsoever is fair game.

These two websites clearly show that Thailand appears to be heading in the right direction as far as the use of web 2.0 concepts is concerned, but now the problem is how many people in Thailand are actually using it. Considering the statistics prepared by the National Electronics and Computer Engineering Center (NECTEC) showing that the total number of internet users in Thailand hover around 12 percent in the year 2004,1 this is not quite satisfactory. It is indeed true that happiness does not necessarily depend on how many people are getting connected, but without any level of appreciable internet access, it is hard to imagine how happiness is going to be achieved, at least when we consider the kind of happiness that has been the subject of our discussion so far in this paper.

Conclusion

So to conclude. The major question that will concern policy makers in the country for a foreseeable future is: How could Thailand foster the design principles for web 2.0 technologies that actually promote happiness and human development? This question is important because design is indeed crucial if any policy attempt to broaden the people’s participation in the internet world is to bear fruit. I think a first priority for the design should be that the users should be kept in mind from the beginning. Technologies are meant to answer the people’s wants and needs, and anti-technology rhetoric notwithstanding, we in the twentieth century simply cannot leave without it. And I am firmly convinced that the path toward happiness would not be feasible without some kind of ingenious technological design that is accessible to everybody and that allows for the full flowering of everyone’s potential. Web 2.0 seems to be doing its job in this regard, as we have seen. However, many obstacles still remain, as in Thailand only less than fifteen percept of the population are connected to the Internet. And even if we carefully consider the prime examples of Thai web 2.0

Another thing that deserves no less serious attention is the potential clash between local values and the global web 2.0 websites such as youtube. The recent incident between the Thai government and the website concerning the portrayal of the Thai king illustrated that the clash could get downright serious, resulting in the whole youtube.com website being shut down and inaccessible throughout the country for a consideration period of time. This clash in value needs to be fully addressed and deliberated. What global websites such as youtube need to consider is that they cannot take their own system of values for granted. However, this is a very delicate and complicated matter. We have to be well aware of the possibility that local values might trump over global ones, resulting in parochialism and the syndrome that occurs when one country is always arguing against ‘interference’ by outsides (which in many cases are only justifications of brutality inside the country). On the other hand, we also need to be careful that the so-called global system does not fully dominate everything and every local corners, which could result in the same thing.

1 Thailand ICT Indicators 2005: Thailand in the Information Age (Pathumthani: NECTEC, 2005), p. 27.

Sunday, October 14, 2007

Coding for Ethics - Bangkok Post, Aug 8, 2007

CODING FOR ETHICS

Project aims to turn His Majesty the King's sufficiency and happiness theories into a new technology policy

Story by CRAIG WARREN SMITH


Craig Warren smith, co-host of colloquium
Electioneering will soon dominate headlines in Bangkok. But a quieter and more consequential issue looms beneath the surface: whether Thailand's leaders can translate His Majesty the King's ethical concept of a "sufficiency economy" and that of gross national happiness into tangible innovations in public policy.

If they succeed in doing so, the next elected government may well embrace the new approach.

But sceptics abound. Critics in Hong Kong, writing in The Economist and Asian Wall Street Journal, dismiss the King's concepts as mere fodder in the anti-Thaksin PR wars.

They claim that sufficiency/happiness notions are too fuzzy to be operationalised, too anti-capitalistic to gain traction.

After all, Thailand sits in the geographic middle of a region that is experiencing the most significant growth surge in history.

Deputy PM Paiboon: three recommendations

Surely, they insist, the next government will fall in line with reality. Translation: endless consumption as in the Singapore model, not spiritual growth, will remain the implicit aim of the Thai government.

Maybe not.

Last month, a project emerged that aims to prove those critics wrong. It is a year-long series of small colloquia involving some of Thailand's top academic and government leaders.

Chaired by the head of Chulalongkorn University's governing board, Prof Charas Suwanwela, it is organised by the University of Washington's Human Interface Technology Laboratory and Chulalongkorn's Centre for Ethics in Science and Technology.

Called "Happiness, Public Policy and Technology," it is intent on producing a dramatic shift in technology policy for the next elected Thai government, one that is in tune with the King's concepts.

The session brings together technology centres in Thailand such as the Asian Institute of Technology, the National Science and Technology Development Agency, the government's own technology research arm, Nectec, as well as Chulalongkorn itself.

And surprise: the project already has some powerful market forces on its side. IBM, Nokia and Intel participated in the first session, and Google has signalled that it wants to join in.

If the project succeeds, it could spread rapidly. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU), which helps 191 nations set telecommunications policy, is listening in.

"ICT can enhance ethics and national happiness," says Dr Eun-Ju Kim, Head of the ITU's Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific.


Dr Suchada: momentum can grow quickly

Aligning with Web 2.0

"We believe that the 'sufficiency/happiness' concepts of the King are in tune with the new market forces in technology," says Prof Soraj Hongladarom, one of the project's co-organisers.

The key is to understand the innovation dubbed "Web 2.0," exemplified by applications that have upended technology markets in the West, causing web sites like Google, YouTube, Facebook, MySpace and Flickr to amass tens of millions of users in a matter of months. Initially, these sites had no business model, but their embrace by the public drew investors. The same could happen in Thailand.

Like China and many other governments, Thailand has taken a defensive stance against Web 2.0 by outlawing YouTube and limiting children's access to massive multiplayer online gaming. But these problems could be transcended through public/private partnerships and new alliances in Thailand that cause Thailand to move into the forefront of Web 2.0, turning it to Thailand's advantage. By turning Thailand into a hub for Web 2.0 technologies, the country could exert its comparative advantage in the technology market place and empower its citizens.

In fact, a number of corporations around the world have been nurturing technologies that aim to foster the well-being of users. Many, such as Nokia, have released the source code of their technologies so that local developers can join in. But their innovations remain mostly hidden in research labs, far from Asia. The reason: Till now these corporations have lacked a nation to serve as their beta test site.

One such researcher drawn to Thailand is Intel's John Sherry, who manages a health care research group in Portland, Oregon. "We are developing biofeedback technologies that draw insight from Buddhist meditation," he said. "These technologies can help patients monitor their behaviour and reduce stress. Thailand could offer a great environment to help companies such as Intel adapt these technologies to realities of emerging markets."

Indian researchers echo this view. "The King's ethical concepts can be incorporated into the design of technologies for education, games, devices, whatever," said Arvind Lodoya, a Bangalore-based researcher at the Shrishti School of Design whose work is supported by Nokia. "As an open society, Thailand fits nicely with open source. Designers here could develop applications that release the pent up creativity of Thai citizens," he said. "Unlike India, Thailand has the scale that could bring government officials into interaction with the private sector to point to a new paradigm of technology deployment."


Prof Charas chaired the session

Three suggestions

Just how would this process begin in Thailand? Deputy Prime Minister Paiboon Wattanasiritham, a speaker at the recent colloquium, offered three concrete recommendations.

1) Ask citizens "what makes them happy?" An advocate of a strong local role in governance, Paiboon said that technology could be used to assess citizens to find out what in fact could satisfy citizens. "Rather than tell users what to do, the government could use web sites and digital devices to find out what communities want and to monitor their progress in achieving it.

Reinforcing Paiboon's suggestion, some participants argued that applications could be designed to foster the "wisdom of crowds," so that by deliberating with each other users could come to embrace the ethical principles that would make their happiness sustainable over time.

2) Identify who knows what: A second concept advanced by Paiboon is a concept he called "wisdom mapping," in which community members could identify each others' skill levels, much as users of Amazon.com and eBay use technologies for peer review. In a similar way, applications of technology could be designed to evaluate and honour the skills of neighbours in hundreds of communities. "A village, district or tambon could develop a bank of identified skills that could be called upon in times of need," he said.

3) Teach mindfulness: A third notion he suggested was "spiritual technologies," in which technology applications could combine with instruction to teach mind training or mindfulness in citizens, helping them cope with the stresses of modern life. Noting web sites such as spiritualcomputing.com, Paiboon suggested that the colloquia bring to Thailand the best thinking about how technology could release citizens from stress.

A search for the new

If Thailand's next government is to embrace such ideas it will need measures that allow policy-makers to distinguish between technologies that foster virtuous behaviour and those that cause harm. The colloquia explored the notion that recent innovations in neuroscience catalysed by the Dalai Lama could be the source of those measures.

Using the latest brain imaging technologies such as fMRI, the University of Wisconsin Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience has been measuring the "happy brains" of adept meditators, creating the visual basis for measurable comparisons with normal citizens who lack mind training. A plan of the project's organisers is to bring neuroscience researchers to Thailand in an effort to help public policy makers and designers use such measures to chart progress towards the happy state.

So far the Thai colloquia is just a discussion. "This sort of informal conversation is the best way for significant collaborative projects to emerge in Thailand. As the ideas catch on, momentum can grow quickly," said Dr Suchada Kiranandana, president of Chulalongkorn University.

The next colloquium in the series, slated for November 30, will focus on education technologies that foster happiness. Next in line for consideration, early next year, are colloquia that consider computer games and a final session in the Spring will address the cause favoured by the Royal Family: rural development.

Will it work? Keep your fingers crossed.

Formerly a professor at Harvard University Kennedy School of Government, Craig Warren Smith, PhD, is now senior advisor to the University of Washington Human Interface Technology Laboratory. Outside of academia, he has advised multinationals (Microsoft, Intel, IBM, Nokia, Oracle), philanthropic institutions, ministers of emerging markets, including Thailand, intergovernmental institutions and leading universities.

Article from the Bangkok Post - Aug 8, 2007

A HUB FOR HAPPINESS TECHNOLOGIES

Thailand could harness Web 2.0 concepts to create applications based on sufficiency economy concepts

Story by TONY WALTHAM


Bhutan's Minister of Home Affairs Jigmi Y. Thinley
No other country is putting ethics at the top of its public policy agenda in the way that Thailand is, according to senior advisor to the University of Washington's Human Interface Technology Lab Craig Smith who has been holding meetings here for the past three weeks, including co-hosting the colloquium he refers to above.

Last week a process was outlined in a meeting with the National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSTDA), the National Electronics and Computer Technology Centre (Nectec), Chulalongkorn University and the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) whereby internal teams will hold a series of meetings.

Later, three recommendations outlined by Deputy Prime Minister Paiboon Wattanasiritham would be operationalised - and before the next colloquium, he said.

These ideas are around identifying what makes people happy, mapping who knows what in communities and in applying technology to teaching meditation or mindfulness. A design prototype will be prepared at AIT on November 29, the eve of the next colloquium here, he said.

This should be followed by the signing of a Memoandum of Understanding the following day.

"We have to develop some sophisticated instruments that could measure the ethical impact of technologies and look at the way applications shape behaviour; do they have an ethical impact or an addictative impact?" he said. With such tools, government policy-makers could make informed decisions about technology and whether it is good for its people, he explained.

Thailand would definitely set the agenda for the world, Smith said, adding that he had been invited to Geneva to discuss the latest developments with the secretary-general of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). Next week, he is also meeting with Google to brief its top executives about the concepts.

The term Gross National Happiness (GNH), which aims to define the quality of life in holistic terms - in contrast to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) which is merely an economic indicator - was conceived by Bhutan's King Jigme Singye Wangchuck back in 1972.

But it wasn't until 1998 that Bhutan decided to share this idea with the rest of the world. Before that, the Himalayan kingdom and been "too shy" to talk publicly about the concept, according to Bhutan's Minister of Home Affairs, Jigmi Y. Thinley.

Speaking at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand (FCCT) last month, he explained how the concept of GNH promoted a sustainable, simple way of life and a peaceful society, and how it was now gaining currency and interest in the world at large.

Thinley had been in Bangkok to participate in a two-day International Conference on Happiness and Public Policy, staged July 18-19 by the Public Policy Development Office of the Prime Minister's Office.

At the FCCT, Thinley also announced that the 3rd International Conference on Gross National Happiness would take place in Nong Khai, followed by a session in Bangkok, from November 22-28 this year.

Some of those who had made presentations at the two-day conference on Happiness and Public Policy at the UN later joined the 20 or so academics, representatives from NGOs, the Government and companies such as IBM and Intel at a colloquium - referred to in the story above - that explored how Thailand might become a centre that could "operationalise" GNH.

This was a brainstorming session that, in particular, looked at health care - the first of several planned for the coming year by its organisers.

This series of seminars, conferences and colloquia mark a new phenomenon that recognises the need to apply morality and ethics to societies.

And Thailand is now at the epicentre of activity - presenting an opportunity for the country to position itself as a global leader for innovation in this field.

This comes as His Majesty the King's sufficiency economy concept is providing both the setting and is serving as a moral guiding principle for national development.

During the colloquium, which I attended, Deputy Prime Minister Paiboon Wattanasiritham pointed out that a few years ago most businessmen here would have said that the sufficiency economy concept did not apply to business but related only to farmers and rural areas.

But this had all changed, he noted. Many inroads had been made and business leaders at chambers of commerce and the Federation of Thai Industries now seriously discussed sufficiency economy principles, he said.

Paiboon also reminded those present how Thailand's 10th national economic and social development plan, which was based on the sufficiency economy concept, stated clearly that the final stage of its development goal was to have a society where people lived together in peace, happiness and togetherness, including being in good health.

In discussions about happiness, ethics and morality another fundamental element is spirituality.

In articles on the web at spiritualcomputing.com, Craig Smith details aspects of the convergence of ancient wisdom and modern tools and says that a framework and a research agenda is now emerging through informal meetings.

In applying technology to the concepts of GNH or the sufficiency economy as well as to spiritual computing, the Web 2.0 concept of interactive computing would appear to be the foundation on which solutions or applications might be built, he notes.

Happiness, Public Policy and Technology


This is a picture taken from the colloquium on "Happiness, Public Policy and Technology," July 23rd, 2007 at Chulalongkorn University. The next colloquium will be held at the same place on November 30, 2007. The topic will be "Technology and Education."