Human beings are not the largest, fastest, or strongest species on the planet. Our superpower is collaboration— at a scale and level of sophistication that make us unique among all living things. How did we evolve this special ability? Why does it so often seem to fail (groupthink, social media, etc.)? What is science telling us about how to design smarter teams and organizations, and what could this mean for democracy’s future?

Readings to prepare:

• Michael Tomasello (Max Planck Institute), “Becoming Human – A Theory of Ontogeny” (video)
• Emile Servan-Schreiber (UM6P School of Collective Intelligence), “Collective Intelligence – How Diversity Makes Us Smarter” (video)

If you are interested in participating in Critical Conversations 2023–24: Redesigning Democracy, sign up here with our registration form at the bottom of the page.

Some details: Whether in France or America, debate is central to healthy democracy. Critical  Conversations encourages both disagreement and agreement through thinking, talking,  reading, and actively participating in community. Since the series’ inception in 2020, we have tackled race in America, the climate crisis, migration, and technology. Across seasons, participants have challenged themselves, their peers, and the world in which we live. 

Please write to programs@americanlibraryinparis.org with any questions or thoughts.

About Critical Conversations: Whether in France or America, debate is central to healthy democracy. Critical Conversations encourages both disagreement and agreement through thinking, talking, reading, and actively participating in community. Since the series’ inception in 2020, we have tackled race in America, the climate crisis, and migration. Across seasons, participants have challenged themselves, their peers, and the world in which we live.

About the Critical Conversations 2023-24 leaders:

Prof. Lex Paulson is Executive Director of the UM6P School of Collective Intelligence (Morocco) and lectures in advocacy at Sciences Po-Paris. Trained in classics and community organizing, he served as mobilization strategist for the campaigns of Barack Obama in 2008 and Emmanuel Macron in 2017. He served as legislative counsel in the 111th U.S. Congress (2009-2011), organized on six U.S. presidential campaigns, and has worked to advance democratic innovation at the European Commission and in India, Tunisia, Egypt, Uganda, Senegal, Czech Republic and Ukraine. He is author of Cicero and the People’s Will: Philosophy and Power at the End of the Roman Republic, from Cambridge University Press, and is co-editor of the Routledge Handbook of Collective Intelligence for Democracy and Governance.

Prof. Mark Klein is a Principal Research Scientist at the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence, serves as a professor and Senior Scientific Advisor at the UM6P School of Collective Intelligence, and Chief Scientist at HiveWise Inc, a startup in the collective intelligence space. His research draws from such fields as artificial intelligence, social computing, economics, operations research, and complexity science to develop and evaluate computer technologies that enable greater ‘collective intelligence’ in large groups faced with complex decisions. He has over 180 publications in these areas, and has served on the editorial boards of many prominent journals and conferences related to AI and social computing.

Attendance at this event constitutes permission for your photograph or video to be taken at the event and used by the American Library in Paris for marketing, promotional, pedagogical, or other purposes.