Tag Archives: collective intelligence
Kony 2012: the crowd to the rescue?
March 28, 2012… aims decided in advance by a central authority, there’s not much for the crowd to get their collective teeth into.
This lack of meaningful engagement is exacerbated by the campaign’s focus on (primarily) US Facebook users, rather than those people more directly involved in the conflict. Uganda currently has 387,000 Facebook users, with the number growing by over 10,000 per month. Though this only represents just over 1% of the population, Uganda’s online community presents an …
Hey! You! Get off my crowd: is crowdsourcing becoming a meaningless buzzword?
February 20, 2012… of assistance). Finally, none of the really exciting, juicy bits of crowdsourcing theory, like collective reasoning, can come into play.
In some ways, this comes back to the issue of the vague terminology that surrounds a lot of crowd-based enterprises, and the multiple models that are described by the word ‘crowdsourcing.’ The Super Bowl ads demonstrate on a grand scale why it is important for the different parts of the crowdsourcing industry to differentiate themselves from what …
Space Peas and Holy Toast: Why Pattern Recognition is Humanity’s Killer App
February 15, 2012… at the frontier of the tech industry. I’ve written in the past about the limits of artificial intelligence and the ongoing war between human and machine translators (spoiler alert: humans are still winning, but only just). This, along with the success of Digitalkoot in correcting machine recognition errors, shows just how far computerized pattern recognition has to go before it can rival the average human brain.
But as well as letting us prove our mastery over the machines by …
From millions of tasks to thousands of jobs: Bringing digital work to the developing world
February 1, 2012… pyramid to access the digital economy, and enabling the rest of the world to benefit from their intelligence.
Challenge participants are asked to come up with ideas for mobile phone applications that link problems that could be tackled by microwork with microworkers located in the developing world. The best ideas are awarded cash prizes of up to $20,000 and supported in various ways with a view towards their eventual realization as, for example, startup companies. The slogan of the …
Confidence tricks: can crowdsourcing keep our feet on the ground?
January 18, 2012… on individual judgment. But the potential of the crowd may take us much further.
Research into collective reasoning focuses on the concept of the wise crowd, a group which mixes experts and amateurs. In a wise crowd, laypeople are free to ask difficult questions and offer unorthodox solutions that experts may not consider. In turn, the experts are required to explain their observations and conclusions, and to be transparent in their reasoning.
United we stand
The power of the wise …
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