Collective Intelligence: The Contribution of Cybernetics and Systems Science

Abstract

This conceptual reflection examines the contribution of cybernetics and systems science—combined here under the term CyberSystemics—to the understanding and development of collective intelligence in social systems. Focusing primarily on organizations, it approaches collective intelligence through the lens of Organizational Cybernetics and conceives intelligent organizations in terms of their capacities to adapt, shape their environments, reconfigure themselves, and contribute to the viability of the larger systems in which they are embedded. The Viable System Model (VSM) is introduced as a generic organizational architecture for collective intelligence, specifying regulatory functions concerned with operations, coordination, management, intelligence, and organizational identity. Particular attention is given to the recursive organization of viable systems and their capacity to cope with complexity. The article concludes that CyberSystemics and the VSM provide both a conceptual framework and an operational architecture for fostering organizational intelligence, viability, sustainability, and development.