Why we created Common Good AI
And why it is so important
The Common Good AI story started at a meeting at MIT Media Lab, orchestrated by John Clippinger in March 2023. We had a shared vision of AI that looked beyond the current fascination with large language models. We gathered a group that included John Cordier, CEO of Epistemix, and Kim Polese (a co-founder of CrowdSmart).
What persisted after that meeting was the belief that we needed a powerful initiative focused on AI as something far more significant than pre-trained transformer models. Specifically, we need to create a focus on AI that aids in finding common ground for the common good. An AI that included a return to first principles, understanding that the roots of intelligence are biological and human. For decades, extracting intelligence from historical data and statistical learning from data has dominated. In practice, AI has been primarily used to optimize individual interests.
The time has come to turn attention to AI as fundamental to the development of natural science, tapping into new models on the horizon that included work out of neuroscience and computational biology—the Free Energy Principle and Active Inference. At the same time, work emerged that showed that deep learning works because it borrows from nature’s cooperative phenomena, as reflected in the physics of magnetism.
Influenced by the broader perspective of first principles rooted in natural science, AI must focus on the natural world's common good, including humanity and the sustainability of life on our planet. Common Good AI offers hope in the face of the environmental crisis, as this new approach can significantly reduce the energy consumption of AI systems. We must look to nature to learn more about intelligence and embrace this hopeful future rather than simply pour billions into a technology that threatens life on this planet.
From an application standpoint, we at CrowdSmart have been focused on a new generation of AI technology that is more in line with the adaptive learning style of the neuroscience models of the Free Energy Principle. This AI is designed to guide human collective intelligence, aiding groups in problem-solving and decision-making. While the main focus of the business is aiding companies in innovation, investment decisions, and business transformation, we found the technology had high impact value in solving social problems, engaging communities, and supporting deliberative democracy. For that reason, we saw the need to form a non-profit organization that could use the technology to address issues related to social impact, healthcare, education, the development of stronger cities, and deliberative democracy.
In the short term, Common Good AI is engaging in deliberative democracy and social impact projects. Please sign up for the newsletter to stay in touch with an unfolding set of impact opportunities. In the longer term, we are committed to making developments in this new wave of AI technology open and available for the common good.
Scientific developments will occur in collaboration with major academic institutions. We already have nascent projects forming with MIT, Harvard, Stanford, the University of Michigan, Northeastern University, and UC Berkeley.
We invite those who share this mission to join us in creating an organization that will improve the lives of future generations.
As for my role, I am a founder and advisor. I do not play any governance or operational role in Common Good AI. I remain the CEO and Chief Scientist of CrowdSmart. We provide our technology to organizations like Common Good AI at a reduced cost. We are creating an Open API for the technology, and it will soon be made available more broadly for non-commercial use. Common Good AI and CrowdSmart are completely separate organizations.
