The Internet of Us
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Social Media and the Internet have catalyzed an unprecedented potential for exposure to human diversity in terms of demographics, language, culture, knowledge, opinions, talents and the like. Access to people’s diversity gives us the possibility of exploiting skills and competences that we do not have, that we may not even know they exist, some the so-called unknown unknowns , but which, however, could be exactly what we need when looking for help in the solution to the our current problem. However, this potential has not come with new, much needed, instruments and skills to harness the complications which rise when trying to exploit the diversity of people. This paper presents our vision of the “ Internet of Us ( IoU ),” a new type of online diversity-aware social interactions capable of promoting richer and deeper social relations. We discuss the multiple facets of diversity in social settings as well as the multidisciplinary work that is required to reap the benefits of the IoU , toward a IoU -enabled diversity-aware hybrid human–AI society.
Institutions: Open University of Cyprus, University of Trento, Universidad Católica Nuestra Señora de la Asunción, Aalborg University, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, National University of Mongolia, London School of Economics and Political Science, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Idiap Research Institute, University of Tübingen, U-Hopper (Italy), Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Artificial Intelligence Research Institute, Institute for Scientific and Technological Research, Jilin University
Language: English
Subfield: Safety Research
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7125971702