Collective IntelligenceMi Gao & Sandra Rivera______

Collective intelligence: concept and implications

Here comes everybodyHere comes everybody

The cult of the amateur

“Intelligence” and “Collective”

Intelligence Collective

the “capability of a system to adapt its behavior to

meet its goals in a range of environments”

(Fogel,1995, p. 22)

“the ability to solve hard problems” (Minsky, 1985)

defined as “of, relating to, characteristic of, or made

by a number of people acting as a group”

(American Heritage Dictionary)

What is collective

intelligence?intelligence?

MIT Center for Collective Intelligence

� Current Working Definition:

Groups of individuals doing Groups of individuals doing

things collectively that seem

intelligent.

� How about beehives and ant colonies are examples of groups of insects doing things like finding food sources that seem intelligent?

Question

� Could we even view a single human brain as a collection of individual neurons or parts of the brain that collectively act intelligently ?

MIT Center for Collective Intelligence

� Further Definition:

Collective Intelligence relies upon the individual Collective Intelligence relies upon the individual

knowledge, creativity, and identity of its constituent

parts, and emerges from a synergy between them. In

its highest forms, participating in collective

intelligence can actually help people self-actualize

while solving collective problems.

“

Wikipedia

Collective intelligence has been defined as a

shared or group intelligence that emerges “shared or group intelligence that emerges from the collaboration and competition of many individuals. Collective intelligence appears in a wide variety of forms of consensus decision making in bacteria, animals, humans, and computer networks”.

“

Levy’s definition

It is a form of universally distributed

intelligence, constantly enhanced, “intelligence, constantly enhanced,

coordinated in real time, and resulting in

the effective mobilization of skills.

(1997, p. 13)

Levy’s Definition

� indispensable characteristic

The basis and goal of collective intelligence is

the mutual reorganization and

enrichment of individuals rather than the

cult of fetishized or hypostatized communities

(1997, p. 13).

Identifiers of Collective intelligence

a group of actors

a set of resources available to those actors

a set of actions that the actors take

the collective results of the actions

a way of evaluating the result

Question

Some people, when they hear the term “collective

intelligence” assume that it implies individuals giving up

their individuality to be somehow subsumed in a group.their individuality to be somehow subsumed in a group.

What do you think about this opinion?

Which factors inhibit collective intelligence

Groupthink and

Informational Cascades

?

Social Dilemmas

Coordination Failures

Groupthink and Informational Cascades

� Whole turns to be less than the sum of the parts because

only some parts are actually contributing while

everyone else imitates or conforms.

Remedy: mechanisms that foster diversity and independence might improve collective intelligence.

Social Dilemmas

� Whole turns to be less than the sum of the parts because

some parts contribute and the others slack off.

Remedy: Incentives must be carefully structured to Remedy: Incentives must be carefully structured to reward individual participation as well as collective intelligence.

Coordination Failures

� Whole turns to be less than the sum of the parts

because the parts’ contributions interfere with or cancel

each other.

� Remedy: evolving structures and practices that coordinate individual contribution

(Al-Hakim & Memmola, 2008 )

ParticipationParticipation

Question

Why do people take part in the activity

What motivates them to participate

?

?

?

What motivates them to participate

What incentives are at work

?

?

Human Motivation

Money

Love

(Malone, Laubacher, and Dellarocas, 2009)

Love

•1) intrinsic enjoyment of an activity

•2) socializing with others

•3) contributing to a cause

Glory

Here comes everybody:

the power of organizing without organizations

Clay Shirky• consultant on Internet technologies• consultant on Internet technologies

• Professor in New York University

Here comes everybody

Group action just got easier” just got easier”

Here comes everybody

3. Collective action action

2. Cooperation

1. Sharing

Stages in formation of groups: sharing

Stages in formation of groups: cooperation

Stages in formation of groups: collective action

Stages in formation of groups: collective action

“

Stages in formation of groups: collective action

Revolution doesn’t happen when society adopts new technologies, “society adopts new technologies, it happens when society adopt

new behaviors”

(Shirky, 2008, p. 160)

The cult of the amateur: how blogs, MySpace, YouTube and the

rest of today's user generated media are killing our culture and economy

Andrew Keen• Internet entrepreneur

• executive at several Silicon Valley • executive at several Silicon Valley based technology start-ups

““

The cult of the amateur

noble amateur”:

the heart of Web 2.0’s cultural revolution and threatens to ““

the heart of Web 2.0’s cultural revolution and threatens to

turn our intellectual traditions and institutions upside down.

In one sense, it is a digitalized version of Rousseau’s noble

savage, representing the triumph of innocence over

experience, of romanticism over the commonsense wisdom

of the Enlightenment”

(Keen, 2008, p. 36)

The cult of the amateur

• has entries “none of them edited

or vetted for accuracy.”Wikipedia

“Our goal is to capture the full range of humanity's various understandings and knowledge of reality, and thereby to paint a maximally broad and detailed portrait of our universe as accurately as living humans understand it. We also

expect our approved articles to be, in the long run, as authoritative, error-free,

and well-written as encyclopedia articles are expected to be”

Wikipedia Citizendium

Year of creation 2001 2006 (pilot)2007 (public)

Creators Jimmy WalesLarry Sanger

Larry Sanger

Platform Media Wiki Media WikiPlatform Media Wiki Media Wiki

URL www.wikipedia.org www.citizendium.org

Languages 260 1 (English)

Articles in English 3,058,844 12,338

Popularity in internet (Alexa)

6 52,387

Registered users 10,727,792 2,100 (2007)

Shirky into social media

Internet has native support for groups and

conversation at the same time

All media gets digitized, Internet becomes

the mode of carriage for all other media

Media where the audience not only

consumes media, but also produces it

(Shirky, 2009)

Which model do you prefer, Wikipedia or Citizendium

How valuable is the content generated in social web

?

?web

Do we need gatekeepers to monitor the production or the quality of contents found in social media

?

?

References•2005. Wikipedia: External peer review/Nature December 2005 [Online]. Wikipedia. Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:External_peer_review/Nature_December_2005 [Accessed 9 October 2009].•2009. Collective intelligence [Online]. Wikipedia. Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_intelligence [Accessed 9 October 2009].•AL-HAKIM, L. & MEMMOLA, M. 2008. Business Web Strategy: Design, Alignment, and Application, Hershey, PA, USA, IGI Global.•BONE, J. 2006. Britannica 'still rules' over web rival [Online]. TimesOnline. Available: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article695582.ece [Accessed 9 October 2009].•CHRISJOHNBECKETT. 2007. Mobile clubbing flashmobs Tate Modern (12 October, 2007) [Online]. Flickr. Available: http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisjohnbeckett/1557634786/ [Accessed 09 October 2009].•GILES, J. 2005. Internet encyclopaedias go head to head. Nature, 438, 900-901.•KEEN, A. 2008. The cult of the amateur : how blogs, MySpace, YouTube and the rest of today's user generated media are killing our

culture and economy London Nicholas Brealey.culture and economy London Nicholas Brealey.•LÉVY, P., - 1997. Intelligence collective. English

•Collective intelligence : mankind's emerging world in cyberspace / Pierre Lévy ; translated from French by Robert Bononno, New York :, Plenum Trade.•MALONE, T. n.d. What is collective intelligence? [Online]. Available: http://www.socialtext.net/mit-cci-hci/index.cgi?what_is_collective_intelligence [Accessed].•MALONE, T., LAUBACHER, R. & DELLAROCAS, C. 2009. Harnessing Crowds: Mapping the Genome of Collective Intelligence [Online]. Cambridge, MA: MIT Center for Collective Intelligence. Available: http://cci.mit.edu/publications/CCIwp2009-01.pdf [Accessed 2 October 2009].•MALONE, T. W. 2006. What is collective intelligence and what will we do about it? [Online]. MIT. Center for Collective Intelligence. Available: http://cci.mit.edu/about/MaloneLaunchRemarks.html [Accessed 2 October 2009].•SHIRKY, C. 2008. Here comes everybody: the power of organizing without organizations, London, Allen Lane.•SHIRKY, C. 2009. Talks Clay Shirky: How social media can make history [Online]. TED Talks. Available: http://www.ted.com/talks/clay_shirky_how_cellphones_twitter_facebook_can_make_history.html [Accessed 09 October 2009].