The writer is a systems engineer and author of ‘Wicked Problems: How to Engineer a Better World’
One hundred and fifty years ago, when Silicon Valley was still mostly orchards, no one imagined algorithms brokering agreements. Developers claim that AI mediators, like Google DeepMind’s Habermas Machine, can help groups reach a consensus, yet a 19th-century engineer devised a process that still governs many of the meetings that matter most.
In 1863, as the civil war raged across America, a church meeting in New Bedford, Massachusetts, opened with prayer and collapsed into chaos. Henry Martyn Robert, a 25-year-old Union army officer, had been nominated to preside. Motions and tempers flew. By nightfall, Robert had lost control of the group. He vowed never to chair another meeting until he had learnt how.