[Bmi] Discussion on group intelligence

[Rob Goldstone]

Dear Sandy et al.,

Another compelling example of groups getting better ideas than its individuals acting in isolation is the Polymath Project: http://polymathprojects.org/ .  It was created in 2009 by Timothy Gowers.  Not a mathematical slouch even when on his own (he won the Fields Medal in 1998), he wanted a way to make faster progress on difficult combinatorics problems than he could achieve acting solo.  The first major success of this experiment in massively collaborative mathematics problem solving was a "simple" combinatorial proof of the Hales-Jewett Theorem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hales-Jewett_theorem) in only 6-7 weeks.  It's a nice example because nobody can claim that the problems that the group is collectively solving are trivial, or that any of the individuals would likely have been able to come up with the solutions by themselves.

Of course, one could argue that what Gowers implemented is just a higher-bandwidth and accelerated version of what typically goes on in academic communities, where researchers build on and extend each others' published results.

Best,
Rob

> you might be interested in this follow-on to my Science paper.  We found that 50% of the `collective intelligence' (objective performance) of a group can be predicted by the pattern of interaction alone.  Similar results hold in real-world situations (companies, etc) that we have analyzed.  
> 
> On 12/16/2011 10:32 AM, Carlos Gershenson wrote:
>> 
>>> Do you know many cases where groups get better ideas than its individuals?  For which kinds of problems does that happen?
>> See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_intelligence
>> 
>> In this paper they offer some overview of collective intelligence (attached below):
>> Evidence for a Collective Intelligence Factor in the Performance of Human Groups
>> Anita Williams Woolley, Christopher F. Chabris, Alex Pentland, Nada Hashmi, and Thomas W. Malone
>> Science 29 October 2010: 330 (6004), 686-688.
>> http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1193147
>> Their results show that groups of people work better not depending on the intelligence of individuals, but on how efficiently they interact. There is an interesting 6 min related TED talk at http://www.ted.com/talks/tom_wujec_build_a_tower.html
>> 
>> I believe that Prof. Weng generalized the question: any cognitive system can be divided into components, usually the properties of the system are different than those of its components (e.g. neurons+molecules+energy), but we usually do not refer to properties of a brain as "group intelligence", even when it is indeed product of a collection of neurons, etc. It is just a convention.
>> 
>> Best wishes,
>> Caros
>> 
>> 	Dr. Carlos Gershenson
>> 	Instituto de Investigaciones en Matemáticas Aplicadas y en Sistemas
>> 	Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
>> 	A.P. 20-726, 01000, México, D.F., México
>> 	http://turing.iimas.unam.mx/~cgg/
>> 
>> 	Editor-in-Chief, Complexity Digest
>> 	http://comdig.unam.mx
>> 
>> 
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--------------------------------------
Dr. Robert Goldstone
Chancellor's Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences
Indiana University
Psychology Building
1101 E. 10th St.
Indiana University
Bloomington, IN. 47405-7007
812-855-4853 (work).  812-333-0152 (home).  812-855-4691 (fax)
Email: rgoldsto at indiana.edu 
Percepts and Concepts Laboratory: http://cognitrn.psych.indiana.edu/

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