[Bmi] Discussion on group intelligence

[Kimball Williams]

Groups with better ideas then their individual members:  
 
For an interesting perspective, plan to attend IEEE the Southeastern Michigan Section Conference 
in April to hear Dr. Jane Prey discuss "Women in Computing: Why are There so Few of Us?".  Among her 
research conclusions is the strong evidence that a key factor in successful inovations is group gendere 
diversity.  
If you don't know Jane, she recently retired from Microsoft  where she led the Tablet Technologies 
in Higher Education Initiative.  
 
The SEM Section Conference web site is not yet open for registrations, but may be viewed at:
https://meetings.vtools.ieee.org/meeting_view/list_meeting/8339

Regards:
kw
Kimball Williams
k.williams at ieee.org
NOTE:  Please direct all your e-mail transmissions to me to my IEEE Alias shown 
above.  This will ensure that I receive your message.  
Ph: 248-372-8074
IEEE SEM Section Chair
IEEE EMC-Society Past President


________________________________
From: Vojo <vkecman at vcu.edu>
To: bmi at lists.cse.msu.edu; Marvin Minsky <mminsky at gmail.com> 
Sent: Saturday, December 24, 2011 12:49 AM
Subject: Re: [Bmi] Discussion on group intelligence


Yep, quite correct statement,

but the basic assumption while talking about group's both action and performance is that the group has the same cost (fitness, objective, loss, merit, etc) function. In other words, that it works under same norm. (In science, the norm used is typically to get better results, meaning the result closer to the 'truth', or closer to the true state of the nature as perceived by the group. Important is that each individual works under same norm, which is often the case in 'science').

If, on the other side, subgroups of the group (and there may be 2,3, ..., up to |group| )   have different objective functions, group will rarely be better than many individuals. Example given below is a great one!

On 23-Dec-11 5:02 PM, Irving Engelson wrote: 
Carlos -- I know of cases where groups get worse ideas than many of its individual e.g., the US Congress. :-( 
>Irv
>
>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/%7Ecgg/

	Editor-in-Chief, Complexity Digest
	http://comdig.unam.mx 
>> 
>>
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