Planetary Nervous System

The Planetary Nervous System can be imagined as a global sensor network, where 'sensors' include anything able to provide static and dynamic data about socio-economic, environmental or technological systems which measure or sense the state and interactions of the components that make up our world. Such an infrastructure will enable real-time data mining - reality mining - using data from online surveys, web and lab experiments and the semantic web to provide aggregate information. FuturICT will closely collaborate with Sandy Pentland's team at MIT's Media Lab, to connect the sensors in today's smartphones (which comprise accelerometers, microphones, video functions, compasses, GPS, and more). One goal is to create better compasses than the gross national product (GDP), considering social, environmental and health factors. To encourage users to contribute data voluntarily, incentives and micropayment systems must be devised with privacy-respecting capabilities built into the data-mining, giving people control over their own data. This will facilitate collective and self-awareness of the implications of human decisions and actions. Two illustrative examples for smart-phone-based collective sensing applications are the open streetmap project and a collective earthquake sensing and warning concept.