Collective intelligence
Last updated
Last updated
In this section, the meaning of Collective Intelligence and its role in society will be explained. How does the users role change due to collective intelligence in the internet? And where is Collective Intelligence coming from?
Collective Intelligence (CI) is also called Swarm Intelligence or Group Intelligence. It describes the intelligence shared by a big group, to be more specific about a self-organized system. The system goes back to animals. Especially, to those that are acting in a swarm like birds, bees, fish and ants. Species in the world of animals are more productive if they are working together as a unified system, helping each other, so that the individual has less importance than the whole group seen as a unified system. Each individual has its own specific agenda. The activity of all individual activities does not seem to require a supervisor. Additionally, the individual always has the ability to observe the others and improve its own behavior by watching the other. They are imitating the behavior of the others. The system proves the saying "many minds are better than one", as you can see well described in the following video. In the case of humans, the Swarm Intelligence is possible through new technologies. I will further argue in the section about "Collective Intelligence in the Internet" and "The user´s role in Collective Intelligence".
In 1911 William Morton Wheeler observed ants working in a group and saw them as not individuals but as one single unit working as one in a colony which created a "superorganism". A year later in 1912, Émile Durkheim identified society as the sole source of human logical thought. Which we believe to be a true statement because a lot of our knowledge is from other people so we are like the ant colony.
The systems of Collective Intelligence are robust systems because the agents are quite simple in the design and the reliance on individual agents is small. The failure of one individual has little impact on the whole system´s performance. The systems are able to adapt new situations easily. In general, they can be seen as more productive because the force of mind of many individuals can add more different ideas and thoughts. Additionally, in the systems of animals, the whole system acting together can serve as protection against enemies. In this case, little fish are always swimming together because in that way the enemies can be confused and are not getting in the swarm.
On the other hand, swarms are uncontrollable because they are too big. The swarm itself is also unpredictable because the complexity of a swarm leads to unpredictable actions. In general, complex swarm systems might take a bit of time because one individual has to react towards the action of another one. In this sense, there is a process underlying the swarm actions and can be seen like the communication process. In this sense, it means that there is a receiver and a source of the message. The receiver is giving the feedback to the source. There is a possibility for disruption in the process because one individual can misunderstand the message or the connection between them can be disrupted for some reasson.
To conclude, it can be said that Collective Intelligence has its advantages and disadvantages. It has to be seen in the specific cases if the adavantages or the disadvantages are taking up the bigger role.
Collective Intelligence is attained through cognition, coordination and cooperation between individuals.
Collective Intelligence emerges from collaboration, collective efforts and competition of many individuals. Specific actions can be express opinions, make predictions, create memes, asking questions, reach decisions, making jokes and playing games. Together working groups can be more productive, more creative and more amusing than working alone. All those activities can be done together on the internet in platforms where one user can contribute the his/her knowledge to a project and other users can benefit from other users´ knowledge. Examples for networks are platforms like Github but even though platforms like Wikipedia where a user can change the content and contribute his or her own knowledge. An example where people are trying to contribute their content is social media. The posts can be seen by many people and the producer is following a particular purpose, to enrich other people´s knowledge and to show his own self-knowledge.
The whole of the actions of many people is going to be productive even though if one or more people are wrong on their own particular action. The mass is compensating for the individual.
The systems of Collective Intelligence are robust groups because the agents are quite simple in the design and the reliance on individual agents is small. The biggest advantage of CI is that the failure of one individual has little impact on the whole system´s performance. The whole of the actions of many people is going to be productive even though one or more people are wrong on their own particular action. The mass will compensate for the individual. Moreover, the systems are able to adapt to new situations easily. In general, they can be seen as more productive because the force of mind of many individuals can add more different ideas and thoughts. Groups workng together can be more productive, more creative and more amusing than working alone.
On the other hand, swarms are uncontrollable because they may be too big. If the swarm itself is unpredictable, unpredictable actions will occur. What is more, complex swarm systems might take a bit of time to react, as one individual has to react towards the action of another one. In this sense, there is a process underlying the swarm actions, which can be seen like the communication process. In this process, there must be a source and a receiver of the message; and the receiver must give the feedback to the source. There is a possibility for disruption in the process because one individual can misunderstand the message or the connection between them can be disrupted for some reason.
What we can get from that all is that the user has a new position on the Internet due to collective intelligence. The user can contribute to the content of the Internet and gets a new role as a content producer. This produced content will be viewed by others, and these other users may be profiting from the knowledge of the particular user. So, the content producer should try to do the best and to contribute with a content as valuable as possible.
Through the establishment of sharing-networks like Github, Dropbox or Google Drive, it is possible to work on the same projects from different places in the world. It is possible to change the content at the same moment. Through the Internet, there can be two leaders of the swarm. One may be the person leading the website in which share the content, and the other one may have started a particular project. The main consequence of this is that the leadership of a particular project can change and that the leader can be a different person at the finishing point of the project.
Through the knowledge that the individual is getting less and less important, the users of the internet are acting more confirm. There is a particular image that is followed by the most of the users. Even if one user is having another opinion, it will be considered less important because the majority will be considered.
Another interesting point is that other users can have the opportunity to ask questions and be critical. The diversity of people contributing to one particular project can help to mention different positions and view the project from different perspectives. The user's responsibility is to consider different perspectives and to respect them. Otherwise, there is no valuable collaboration possible between people from different cultures.
One consequence of all that is that there is a particular image that is followed by the most of the users. Even if one user is having another opinion, it will be considered less important because the majority will think another thing. The right result is the result of the mass, the individual gets less important. You could argue that movements on social media are a trial to get out of the swarm; taking the example of homebloggers on Instagram, which try to be seen as individuals with different work. However, they are acting similarly in the way that they are presenting their own home; so it ends to be the same movement.
Collective Intelligence can enrich our everyday. The possibility to collaborate and to show other people´s knowledge is brightening the user´s horizon. The problem of collective intelligence is that the user is getting less likely to think for himself because it is much more comfortable to rely on other people´s knowledge and just view it on the internet. The users are also getting more alike because the opinion of the individual is getting less important and can be overfled by the majority.
