James Surowiecki, the author of The Wisdom of Crowds, talked about the power of large groups to make intelligent decisions. I’ve not read his book, but after his presentation I’ve added it to wish list on Amazon. Here are the notes:
– under the right circumstances large crowds can be very intelligent
– if we can figure a way to tap into this, we can accomplish great things
– the key is under the right conditions to make groups intelligent
– this effect has been enhanced due to the Internet and advances in technology
– Google is tapping into the collective intelligence of the web; top pages are usually correct on a search; page rank algorithm is an example
– the race track a good example of the wisdom of the crowds: odds on horses predict almost exactly which wins; offers an almost prefect prediction/forecast of an imperfect future
– the same is true with other sports betting
– how/why does this work? when you aggregate judgments, the errors fall away
– characteristics of wise groups are diversity and independence
– diversity: diverse crowds are far more likely to be cognitively diverse than non-diverse crowds
– this expands the range of info you have access to and avoid obstacles commonly run into
– itâ??s a mistake to find the one or two experts â?? they donâ??t have a keen sense of their own blind spots; very poorly calibrated; donâ??t know what they donâ??t know
– better off trying to cast net widely vs. narrowly
– allow these experts’ blind spots to fade away
– diversity avoids group-think
– diversity allows group to think more keenly; donâ??t want the same person always as devil’s advocate; you want role of devil’s advocate to rotate
– diversity gets around peer pressure
– on independence: you want people to be making decision/judgments on their own experience
– we often put too much of a premium on consensus
– end up with watered down decisions
– the paradox is that groups are smartest when each is acting as individual as possible
– independence is hard to come by: humans like to imitate and imitation is very powerful; people are worried about reputations
– the Internet is a double edged sword â?? lack of filters; only need a desire to participate in the discussion; on whole this is a great boon
– the knowledge we want is often not where we think it should be
– we dramatically overestimate our abilities to figure out who the experts are
– the Internet allows us to cast our nets wide enough to find these
– people can get locked into very small worlds on the Internet â?? end up with circular mills (just do what the ant in front of me does when get lost â?? end up going around in a circle, then die)
– the Internet allows us to randomize our connections; keep ties more weak than strong
– large groups are considered to be at least 50 people, though smaller have shown to be effective , even 6-8
