There was a recent article in Nature journal regarding how Google detected influenza epidemics using search engine query data. This was an amazing display of the power of technology to decipher emergent knowledge that could prevent the spread of an epidemic. This was actually a very simple idea that can be abstracted to many new interesting unforeseen repercussion behaviors.
Identifying social emergent behavior using collaborative online technology involves capturing implicit user communication that is meant for fixed tasks and outcomes. We have generally focussed on and studied the vocal communication aspect of humans. Man portends several other social communication behavior that are (mimetic, stridulatory, etc) equally sophisticated such as in other social species like bees, ants, dolphins, elephants and pigs!
Some people are always interested to do things. Some want to do things because they like to work (like the workers of bee colony). Some people just follow other people. Some nag while the rest are either satisfied or scared and don't do anything. The communication pattern varies but has its own fixed role in a community.
The point is that there are implicit emergent behavior attached to all these activities as we are always in contact with other people and communicate with each other. Online technology is pushing this further in leaps because we now have the power to communicate with a very large number of people at once!
Interdependence is a higher quality than independence. Fighting social problems as a group using technology (any problem that adheres to the 'Tragedy of the commons' principle and falls in the general public property category of problems - example - scarcity of water and other natural resources, etc) using implicit user behavior modeling and optimization and learning from our 'lesser intelligent' but other social species will result in cool outcomes!
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