ICT, AI, and Web Coevolution are Explained and Predicted by Humanity’s Increasingly Multidimensional Connectivity and Coordination

Abstract

The coevolutionary histories of information and communications technology (“ICT”), artificial / automation intelligence (“AI”), and the Web are explained _and predicted_ based on four independent dimensions of human organization. Each iteration in core Web technology integrates a new organizational dimension of societal-scale connectivity and information content. The historical evolution of the Web from “read” connections (Web1) to “read/write” interactions (Web2) to “read/write/own” transactions (Web3) is a widely accepted paradigm amongst all Web3 thought leaders. It also implicitly identifies three of these four dimensions. However, what is not so well understood is how this stepwise evolution in connectivity and content technology leads to a similar multidimensional evolution in computation and coordination, commonly called AI. A metatheory lens of coordination is introduced to visualize, explain, and predict this coevolution of ICT, AI, and the Web. The exponentially increasing numbers of multidimensional connections and conflicts that need to be integrated at each evolutionary stage to achieve rationally coherent coordination are also quantified. As a result, it becomes exceedingly clear why societal-scale human coordination must coevolve via increasingly multidimensional AI-based coordination. Likewise, when viewed through this four-dimensional lens, the final “World Computer” stage of Web4 connectivity, coordination, and human organization becomes unexpectedly obvious: “read/write/CONTROL/own”. To further support this predicted core Web4 feature of decentralized control, the persistently fatal flaws of Web3’s existing decentralized autonomous organizations (“DAOs”) are analyzed and directly traced to this major deficiency in coordination capability. Adding collective prioritization control over DAO resources would logically fix these flaws.