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Ferananda Ibarra

Network organisation for the 21st century : turbulence - 4 views

  • On the Virtues of Being Popular In any network, some nodes are more connected than others, making them ‘hubs’. This is a recurring pattern in the evolution of successful networks, ranging from the world wide web to many natural ecosystems. A ‘hub’ is not just a node with a few more connections than a usual node; a hub has connections to many other nodes – many quite distant – and also connects many disparate nodes (nodes of very different types). If you were to count all the connections each node has, you would get a mathematical distribution called a ‘power-law’ distribution with relatively few hyper-connected nodes – hubs – and a ‘long tail’ of less connected nodes.
  • Unlike networks that have a normal or random distribution of connections, networks that have a power-law distribution of connections are ‘scale-free,’ which means that no matter how many more nodes are added to the network, the dynamics and structure remain the same. This seems to be a sweet spot in the evolution of networks for stability and efficiency. The network can get bigger without drastic changes to its function.
  • The Surprising Strength of the Long Tail There is a looming contradiction: how can we have hubs and still have a strong network of dense connections that is not dependent on them? Don’t hubs lead to the emergence of permanent, entrenched leaders, centralisation and other well-documented problems? There is something of a tension here: the point is not simply that we should develop hubs, but that we have to simultaneously ensure that the hubs are never allowed to become static, and that they’re at least partially redundant. Sounds complicated, but healthy and resilient networks aren’t characterised simply by the presence of hubs, but also by the ability of hubs to change over time, and the replacement of previous hubs by apparently quite similar hubs.
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  • The long tail does not drop off into nothingness (which would be the ‘exponential’ rather than ‘power-law’ distribution), where there are a few hubs and every other node has almost no connections. Instead, the long tail is extensive, consisting of small groups of dense connections, going ever onwards. In fact, the vast majority of the connections in the network are not in the hub, but in the long tail. One clear example is that of book-selling in the 21st century: the majority of Amazon.com’s book sales are not in the best-seller list, but in those millions of titles in the long tail that only a few people order. Every successful movement must be built on dense local connections. It is these dense local connections that support the dynamic creation of hubs.
  • In a perfect world, every node would be a hub – we would all easily connect with any other person and be able to communicate. However, creating connections takes time and energy, so nodes that are more long-standing or just have more spare time will naturally become hubs
  • The Construction of Collective Intelligence Hubs tend to evolve naturally in well-functioning networks – but we can accelerate the process of network development
  • Collective intelligence requires a commons of collective representations and memory accessible to the network, and so digital representations on the internet are idea
    • Ferananda Ibarra
       
      That is exactly what they can do! Currencies as currents, as symbols of value enabling and making flows visible. Allowing us to see the tracks of the pheromones, the activities, the streams, the right signals, the hubs. We will be able to measure, trace value much more precisely. We will then be able to compose flows into landscapes (scapes) of that which is interesting for a node, for a hub, for a group or machine. Scapes will allow us to display information in unimaginable ways. Our collective intelligence right there, in the blink of an eye. We will be able to see wholes instead of parts, make patterns more visible.
  • You can imagine this on an individual level: a person using their mobile phone to remember the phone numbers of their friends. With easy access and reliability, the phone almost seems part of your intelligence. Just extend this so that the part of your mind that is extended into the environment is accessible and even modifiable by other people, and collective intelligence begins.
  • This use of the environment to store collective intelligence allows for the easier creation of hubs.
  • Collective intelligence allows highly organised successful actions to be performed by individuals who, with limited memory and knowledge, would otherwise be unable to become hubs.
  • Unfortunately people can’t become hubs without largely re-inventing the wheel. It might be irritating for existing hubs, but it’s true. Being a hub requires more than just introductions, it requires information, skills, knowledge, and a memory of the past. However, we can accelerate this process by decentring as much of the connections and knowledge as possible away from individual humans and onto the environment, whether this environment be books, websites, songs, maps, videos, and a myriad of yet un-thought-of representational forms. A useful example is the pheromone trace of the ant, reinforced as more ants use a particular trail. The mere act of ‘leaving a trail’ shows how individuals with limited memory can use the shaping of the environment as an external memory.
  • A key focus for improving our collective intelligence would be a few central websites compiling analyses of social movements and events, alongside practical pieces from key hubs and organisers on how particular events were pulled off. A collective ratings approach would allow people to quickly find needles in the electronic haystack, via Digg-It-style ‘I like this article’ tags, or collaborative bookmarking, allowing different users to see each other’s bookmarked webpages. Of course some of these types of things exist, with tagging systems well developed on sites of magazines, newspapers and blogs. However, no current website performs the function of an analysis and learning hub
  • If we are to act swiftly and sustain momentum we will need to create collective intelligence – the ability to create accurate records of events, distribute them widely, analyse success and failure, and to pass on skills and knowledge.
my serendipities

Group Intelligence, Enhancement, and Extended Minds - 3 views

  • What, then, determines how smart a group of collaborating individuals is? The researchers find three individual-level features that correlate in a statistically significant way to collective intelligence.
  • First, the greater the social sensitivity of group members, the smarter the group. Second, the more turn-taking within the group, the better the group performs. And third, the more women in the group, the higher the group IQ.
  • groups with more women are smarter because women tend to be more socially sensitive than men.
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  • increasing the information-sharing abilities of group members using “electronic collaborative tools” might enhance the intelligence of the group itself (without necessarily increasing the intelligence of individual group members).
  • increasing the raw intelligence of individual group members cannot guarantee a smarter group. A group of cognitively enhanced individuals with extremely high IQs (because of their enhancement) thus might fail to outperform a group of “normals” if those “normals” prove to be more socially sensitive than their enhanced rivals.
  • the central component of the extended mind thesis is called the Parity Principle. It states that “if, as we confront some task, a part of the world functions as a process which, were it to go on in the head, we would have no hesitation in accepting as part of the cognitive process, then that part of the world is (for that time) part of the cognitive process.”
  • Thus, according to the Parity Principle, inanimate objects like a pad of paper, a calculator, a computer, Wikipedia, an iPhone, and so on, can all, under just the right conditions, constitute a literal component of one’s cognitive system – of one’s mind.
  • another mind can indeed become a feature of one’s own cognitive system (on the condition that the Parity Principle is true
  • Our minds are made in such a way that trauma, and negative experience is slowly buried up, or forgotten. Our minds do seem designed with self preservation measures to try and protect our psyche. Now with a memory that is always accurate, and that is always accessible, what will that do to our minds? My concern is what our limitations add to our selves. I am unsure of what the world would be like if I didn't forget things. There are somethings we choose to forget, or ignore, or believe despite the evidence. Our emotions do seem somewhat disconnected from our experiences, especially as time goes on. Stockholm Syndrome is a wonderful example, despite the worst possible conditions a loyalty and an affection grows between a captor and their captive.
  • With the ability to share memories, or worse, to forcibly access others memories, this wonderful world enhancement will help us build, may be utterly devoid of privacy. A world where nothing is sacred, except knowledge, and that you may no longer own your own life. Simply, everyone's life, everyone's knowledge and everyone's experiences, may simply become public domain.
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    Hmmm... I enjoyed this article. My experience of the extended mind is that it is not enclosed in a groups collective intelligence but part of the morphogenic field. Our global brain. We can access any time. There is one piece he mentions about: But there's also the more speculative possibility, not mentioned by Woolley et al, of enhancing the social sensitivity of group members. What would happen if group members took, for instance, a pharmaceutical of some sort that enabled them to be more socially sensitive towards each other? What if some sophisticated technology were available that augmented the individual's ability to better listen to the ideas of others - to let others have time to speak and to be intellectually open to opposing views? I began to test this in group settings with a good amount of success. It is difficult to measure though. I have tested with flower essences. http://www.laviedelarose.com one particular called shasta daisy which supports individuals and groups to achieve an ever deepening sense of community and experience of Oneness. My seminars are mostly about mind (topics like socialmedia, collective intelligence, new economy) yet I try to make them integral and include other body/mind, spirit. We do meditate. In the seminars where I don´t use the flowers there is a different feeling to it. Its very difficult to describe. Its a sense of a field.
Wildcat2030 wildcat

Cohere: A prototype for contested collective intelligence - Stian's PhD wiki - 1 views

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    This paper presents the rationale for treating Contested Collective Intelligence (CCI) as a significant and distinctive dimension of the broader Collective Intelligence design space for organizations. CCI is contrasted with other forms of CI, and building on research in sensemaking, and the modeling of dialogue and debate, we motivate a set of requirements for an ideal CCI platform. We then describe a social, semantic annotation tool called Cohere, which serves as our working prototype of the CCI concept, now being deployed in several communities. p. 2
Wildcat2030 wildcat

Carnegie Mellon uses social networking to tap collective intelligence of online study g... - 2 views

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    "Taking their cue from social media, educators at Carnegie Mellon University have developed a social networking application called Classroom Salon that engages students in online learning communities that effectively tap the collective intelligence of groups. Thousands of high school and university students used Classroom Salon (CLS), http://www.classroomsalon.org/, this past academic year to share their ideas about texts, news articles and other reading materials or their critiques of each others' writings. With the support of the Next Generation Learning Challenges initiative, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, CLS will be used in an innovative experiment at the University of Baltimore to see if it can help students who are in danger of failing introductory courses or otherwise dropping out of college. "Sites such as Facebook and Twitter have captured the attention of young people in a way that blogs and online discussion forums have not," said Ananda Gunawardena, associate teaching professor in the Computer Science Department, who developed CLS with David S. Kaufer, professor of English. "With Classroom Salon, we've tried to capture the sense of connectedness that makes social media sites so appealing, but within a framework that that allows groups to explore texts deeply. So it's not just social networking for the sake of socializing but enhancing the student experience as readers and writers.""
Amira .

Collective Intelligence: The Need for Synthesis by Kingsley Dennis | Between Both Worlds - 1 views

  • To upgrade our thinking patterns is a beginning step to an upgrade in human consciousness, and is necessary if we are to succeed in adapting to our rapidly and inevitably changing world. In other words, if we don’t enact a change, or learn to adapt to the incoming energies of change and transformation, our presence is likely to be no longer required, or needed. It is a sobering thought. The human species has entered a period of profound, fundamental, and unprecedented change. It needs to acquire new skills in order to co-exist with an environment that is itself undergoing profound change within the larger fabric of living systems - planetary, solar, and galactic. We need to upgrade our capacities in order to have the internal resistance to an upgrade in energies. Not to do so may result, quite literally, in us blowing a species-fuse! Whichever way we look at it, we are in need of preparation. If we are not prepared, that which manifests as truth may very well seem like science-fiction. And it needs to be stressed that our future depends to a large degree upon the ability to renew our perceptions about the world. It is a question of how our inner vision can be brought in balance with (and in support to) the impacts of a changing environment. If there is enough ‘critical mass’ of mind-change then there is a better possibility that shifting energies will be experienced less chaotically. Evolutionary biologist Elizabeth Sahtouris expresses the same sentiment when she writes
Spaceweaver Weaver

Evolution and Creativity: Why Humans Triumphed - WSJ.com - 2 views

  • Tools were made to the same monotonous design for hundreds of thousands of years and the ecological impact of people was minimal. Then suddenly—bang!—culture exploded, starting in Africa. Why then, why there?
  • Even as it explains very old patterns in prehistory, this idea holds out hope that the human race will prosper mightily in the years ahead—because ideas are having sex with each other as never before.
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  • Once human progress started, it was no longer limited by the size of human brains. Intelligence became collective and cumulative.
  • It is precisely the same in cultural evolution. Trade is to culture as sex is to biology. Exchange makes cultural change collective and cumulative. It becomes possible to draw upon inventions made throughout society, not just in your neighborhood. The rate of cultural and economic progress depends on the rate at which ideas are having sex.
  • Dense populations don't produce innovation in other species. They only do so in human beings, because only human beings indulge in regular exchange of different items among unrelated, unmated individuals and even among strangers. So here is the answer to the puzzle of human takeoff. It was caused by the invention of a collective brain itself made possible by the invention of exchange.
  • Once human beings started swapping things and thoughts, they stumbled upon divisions of labor, in which specialization led to mutually beneficial collective knowledge. Specialization is the means by which exchange encourages innovation: In getting better at making your product or delivering your service, you come up with new tools. The story of the human race has been a gradual spread of specialization and exchange ever since: Prosperity consists of getting more and more narrow in what you make and more and more diverse in what you buy. Self-sufficiency—subsistence—is poverty.
  • And things like the search engine, the mobile phone and container shipping just made ideas a whole lot more promiscuous still.
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    Human evolution presents a puzzle. Nothing seems to explain the sudden takeoff of the last 45,000 years-the conversion of just another rare predatory ape into a planet dominator with rapidly progressing technologies. Once "progress" started to produce new tools, different ways of life and burgeoning populations, it accelerated all over the world, culminating in agriculture, cities, literacy and all the rest. Yet all the ingredients of human success-tool making, big brains, culture, fire, even language-seem to have been in place half a million years before and nothing happened. Tools were made to the same monotonous design for hundreds of thousands of years and the ecological impact of people was minimal. Then suddenly-bang!-culture exploded, starting in Africa. Why then, why there?
John Graves

Other Collective Intelligence Diigo Groups and On-Line Communities - 6 views

Working independently may have advantages, but collaboration allows for greater reach and potentially higher quality. What other groups overlap with this one? For example, the Collective Intellig...

started by John Graves on 17 Feb 13 no follow-up yet
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

The best tools and techniques for finding data on Unix systems | ITworld - 0 views

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    "Sometimes looking for information on a Unix system is like looking for needles in haystacks. Even important messages can be difficult to notice when they're buried in huge piles of text. And so many of us are dealing with "big data" these days -- log files that are multiple gigabytes in size and huge record collections in any form that might be mined for business intelligence."
Wildcat2030 wildcat

Findings - Jaron Lanier Is Rethinking the Open Nature of the Internet - NYTimes.com - 11 views

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    "When does the wisdom of crowds give way to the meanness of mobs? In the 1990s, Jaron Lanier was one of the digital pioneers hailing the wonderful possibilities that would be realized once the Internet allowed musicians, artists, scientists and engineers around the world to instantly share their work. Now, like a lot of us, he is having second thoughts. Mr. Lanier, a musician and avant-garde computer scientist - he popularized the term "virtual reality" - wonders if the Web's structure and ideology are fostering nasty group dynamics and mediocre collaborations. His new book, "You Are Not a Gadget," is a manifesto against "hive thinking" and "digital Maoism," by which he means the glorification of open-source software, free information and collective work at the expense of individual creativity."
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    This paragraph - "To save those endangered species, Mr. Lanier proposes rethinking the Web's ideology, revising its software structure and introducing innovations like a universal system of micropayments. (To debate reforms, go to Tierney Lab at nytimes.com/tierneylab." from this article is exactly how I imagine moving our project forward. But, who knows how to do it?
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    I have some ideas Jack, but it's not finished, let's finish it together
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    Sounds good ...
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    We can flesh it out when I visit :-) over some wine, I think I have to do that soon.
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    Still 30-below! lol
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    it's a balmy -11 now, breaking out the beach shorts tomorrow
Wildcat2030 wildcat

Are You An Internet Optimist or Pessimist? The Great Debate over Technology's Impact on... - 11 views

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    "The impact of technological change on culture, learning, and morality has long been the subject of intense debate, and every technological revolution brings out a fresh crop of both pessimists and pollyannas. Indeed, a familiar cycle has repeat itself throughout history whenever new modes of production (from mechanized agriculture to assembly-line production), means of transportation (water, rail, road, or air), energy production processes (steam, electric, nuclear), medical breakthroughs (vaccination, surgery, cloning), or communications techniques (telegraph, telephone, radio, television) have appeared on the scene. The cycle goes something like this. A new technology appears. Those who fear the sweeping changes brought about by this technology see a sky that is about to fall. These "techno-pessimists" predict the death of the old order (which, ironically, is often a previous generation's hotly-debated technology that others wanted slowed or stopped). Embracing this new technology, they fear, will result in the overthrow of traditions, beliefs, values, institutions, business models, and much else they hold sacred. The pollyannas, by contrast, look out at the unfolding landscape and see mostly rainbows in the air. Theirs is a rose-colored world in which the technological revolution du jour is seen as improving the general lot of mankind and bringing about a better order. If something has to give, then the old ways be damned! For such "techno-optimists," progress means some norms and institutions must adapt-perhaps even disappear-for society to continue its march forward. Our current Information Revolution is no different. It too has its share of techno-pessimists and techno-optimists. Indeed, before most of us had even heard of the Internet, people were already fighting about it-or at least debating what the rise of the Information Age meant for our culture, society, and economy."
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    I'm definitely an optimist...
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    yes, so am I, but somehow lately I feel it is not enough..
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    I think I fall into his category of 'pragmatic optimism-- "...The sensible middle ground position is "pragmatic optimism": We should embrace the amazing technological changes at work in today's Information Age but do so with a healthy dose of humility and appreciation for the disruptive impact pace and impact of that change.'" There's enough cool new stuff out there to warrant concepting a bright future, but that has to be tempered with the knowledge that nothing is perfect, and humans have a tendency to make good things bad all the time. I always refer back to the shining happy images that were concocted back in the 40's and 50's that predicted a wondrous new future with cars, and highways, and air travel, yet failed to foresee congestion, pollution, and urban sprawl. Yin and Yang in everything, right?
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    I don't believe in dichotomies, thus I am both at the same time. I prepare for both digital nirvana and the end of civilization and collapse of techology at the same time. I am here discussing the future of work with all of you, but I have a disaster kit in the basement and a plan with friends and family where to meet at a fertile plot of land with lots of water (I call it Kurtopia). I would recommend all of you do the same. Of course you must also carry on based on the status quo (don't quit work and cash the retirement funds and buy gold coins), as well as react to any variation in between. Crystal balls are a waste of attention. Consider all scenarios, make plans, then throw them away and react to circumstances as they are presented. Understand that plans are merely insurance policies and come with a cost to attention on the present. They are robust but not optimized. Considering the spectrum from optimistic to pessimistic, if we assume a bell curve distribution of probability (with the stops across the bottom being discrete and independent), I would say these days, for me the bell is flattening, it is less and less likely that the status quo will survive. I would go so far as to say perhaps the bell is inverted. This could be interpreted as a polarization - one of the pessimists positions - except that I don't believe that the person experiencing the optimistic paradigm will necessarily be a different person than the one experiencing the negative, thus don't subscribe to the position that technology will result in a new classism.
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    nice collection of articles listed in this article, I've missed some of them so will go remedy that situation now
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    does Kurtopia need someone to mow the lawn?
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    no, but we do need someone to take our throm-dib-u-lator apart though
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

To Make Open Access Work, We Need to Do More Than Liberate Journal Articles | Wired Opi... - 3 views

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    [In the days since the tragedy of Aaron Swartz's suicide, many academics have been posting open-access PDFs of their research. It's an act of solidarity with Swartz's crusade to liberate (in most cases publicly funded) knowledge for all to read. ...]
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    *Collective Intelligence" ~ Open Knowledge
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Ébola: la divulgación de una mentira | saludnutricionbienestar.com - 0 views

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    "Aunque los telediarios y la prensa hablan todos los días de "estragos" y de "catástrofe", la realidad es que la epidemia del virus del Ébola sigue manteniendo una magnitud bastante modesta."
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    # For the 'Collective Intelligence' Feed...
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Here's What a Commons-Based Economy Looks Like - Commons TransitionCommons Transition - 0 views

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    "So what might a commons-based economy actually look like in its broadest dimensions, and how might we achieve it? My colleague Michel Bauwens of the P2P Foundation offers a remarkably thoughtful and detailed explanation in a just-released YouTube talk, produced by FutureSharp. It's not really a video - just Michel's voiceover and a simple schematic chart - but the 20-minute talk does a great job of sketching the big-picture strategies that must be pursued if we are going to invent a new type of post-capitalist economy."
Ferananda Ibarra

Crowdmap - 1 views

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    Monitor election, crisis or other crowd events or phenomena
Wildcat2030 wildcat

Social Sciences and Society - TierneyLab Blog - NYTimes.com - 1 views

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    "Would you be better off paying for online newspapers like this one? Should you feel guilty about downloading free music? Is the Web's "information-wants-to-free" culture hurting writers, musicians and the rest of the "digital peasants," as Jaron Lanier calls us, now providing unpaid content to be exploited by the "lords of the clouds" like Google? In my Findings column, I discuss Mr. Lanier's new book, "You Are Not A Gadget," a manifesto decrying the Web's effect on individual creativity. (You can see excerpts of his criticism at Edge and at Cato Unbound.) Mr. Lanier mentions this newspaper as one of the victims as well as the promoters of the Web's ideology. "The New York Times," he writes, "promotes so-called open digital politics on a daily basis even though that ideal and the movement behind it are destroying the newspaper and all other newspapers. It seems to be a case of journalistic Stockholm syndrome." Mr. Lanier also faults himself: "
fishead ...*∞º˙

Connecting the Dots | Blog | design mind - 1 views

    • Kurt Laitner
       
      wonnnnderfullll
  • How wedding blogs and brides can help us fight terrorism. In the wake of the failed bombing attempt on the Northwest Airlines Detroit flight, "connecting the dots" is all the rage. How can security agencies do a better job of connecting pieces of data together to head off similar terrorist attacks in the future? Even in small- and medium-sized organizations, corralling, analyzing, and disseminating disparate pieces of information is fiendishly difficult. For a loose affiliation of huge organizations at the governmental level it is much more difficult.
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