EAGER: The Climate CoLab: A System for Very Large-Scale Model-Based Group Problem-Solving

该项目的目标是开发一个结合人类和计算机能力的系统，以帮助解决一个复杂的社会问题：全球气候变化。该项目将开发一个名为“气候合作实验室”的在线社区，世界各地成千上万的人在其中创建，分析并最终选择人类可以做些什么来应对气候变化的详细计划。该系统的核心将是一个不断发展的用户创建的建议集合，这些建议基于对人类可以采取的行动和这些行动的预测影响的计算机模拟。用户还可以讨论不同建议的利弊，并投票支持他们认为最可信和最可取的建议和论点。通过以一种新颖的方式集成三种功能（计算机模拟模型，在线辩论和电子投票），该系统让一个非常大的群体定义和评估替代问题的解决方案，而计算机则进行快速计算，以评估每个替代方案的关键后果。透过吸纳不同界别的相关专家和有新观点的市民，社会人士可考虑各种可行的方案。通过让政策制定者和大量公民参与，促进了最有希望的替代方案的最终政治采纳。智力优点：这项工作的主要智力贡献将是关于如何设计使用计算模型来帮助解决困难的社会和管理问题的大规模在线社区的可推广的经验教训。更广泛的影响：该项目将有助于教育公众了解全球气候变化所涉及的问题。此外，通过建设性地吸引广泛的科学家、政策制定者和关心此事的公民参与，这一系统可能有助于制定比其他任何计划和政策都更好的计划和政策。

The goal of this project is to develop a system that combines the strengths of both human and computer capabilities to help solve a complex societal problem: global climate change. The project will develop an on-line community called the Climate CoLab, in which many thousands of people around the world create, analyze, and ultimately select detailed plans for what humans can do about climate change. At the core of the system will be an evolving collection of user-created proposals based on computer simulations of the actions humans can take and the predicted impacts of those actions. Users will also be able to debate the pros and cons of different proposals and vote for the proposals and arguments they find most credible and desirable. By integrating three capabilities (computer simulation models, on-line debates, and electronic voting) in a novel way, the system lets a very large group of people define and evaluate alternative problem solutions while computers do the rapid calculations needed to assess key consequences of each alternative. By including relevant experts from different disciplines and members of the public who have novel points of view, the community can consider a wide range of plausible alternatives. And by involving policy makers and large numbers of citizens, the eventual political adoption of the most promising alternatives is facilitated. Intellectual merit: The primary intellectual contributions of this work will be generalizable lessons about how to design large-scale, on-line communities that use computational models to help solve difficult societal and managerial problems. Broader impacts: The project will help educate the general public about the issues involved in global climate change. In addition, by constructively engaging a broad range of scientists, policy makers, and concerned citizens, this system may help develop plans and policies that are actually better than any that would have otherwise been developed.