General Collective Intelligence Platforms and the Hive Mind

From a human-centric perspective, all technology solves one of two problems. It either optimizes outcomes for a single individual, or optimizes outcomes for the entire group. According to the technology gravity well hypothesis, the pace of technological advance, and the pace at which technologies are integrating and otherwise interacting with each other, is accelerating. As it does so this advance is predicted to increase the ability of technology to solve one or both of those two optimization problems. But the two solutions to those problems can become mutually exclusive. That is, at some point the ability to achieve one is predicted to become so great that it could eliminate any ability to achieve the other, wherever the more powerful of the two forces of optimization prohibits the less powerful one from occurring. Beyond this point of no return, the dominant force is predicted to either create a one-way path leading to pervasive centralization of decision-making, control, and resources, or a one-way path leading to the decentralization of the same. This has been called a centralized technology gravity well in the first case, and a decentralized technology gravity well in the second case. The accelerating advance and increased integration of technology in both cases is predicted to lead to humans being compelled to self-organize into a hive mind as they reach the bottom of each technology gravity well. The difference is that the hive mind at the bottom of the centralized technology gravity well is predicted to act as a mechanism of control that serves the interests of a single individual or entity, and the hive mind at the bottom of the decentralized technology gravity well is predicted to act as a mechanism of cooperation that serves the interests of the collective well-being.