[avaviney]

Wow! Learned so much from this one. Thanks.

[Silent|away]

What I posted above was part 2, so here's part 1 of the conversation. The last part of the conversation is me typing out a summary of what happened as opposed to copying and pasting.

Quote:

09:32 PM <Silent> Collective Intelligence to me is the combination of unrelated people together that will then automatically through some unknown method come to the correct answer to a problem 09:32 PM <Rowan> but you do know that they dont mind meld to create one gigantic mind, right? 09:32 PM <Rowan> the group of people is still made up of individuals who have individual strengths and weaknesses 09:33 PM <Silent> Right, but I also want to avoid the problem of specialization, where you have one specialized individual that solves the problem for said group. 09:33 PM <Silent> That was the reason why I wanted an expert control, so that we see if this CI works without this specialization 09:33 PM <Silent> But since I can't control for that, I need a different experiment method. 09:34 PM <Silent> (Or more likely, just abandon this hopeless quest.) <six> If there were multiple steps for solving a problem, 09:36 PM <Six> then if people get some of the steps but not others, then if they get some of the steps, but not others, then they cover the whole thing. <Rowan> But then Silent will consider the individual people that got the steps "elites". <Silent>Right, but if you have a group of elites coming together, then it might as well be called a Collective Ingelligence. So the debate then is over size. How do you determine what is a person solving the steps versus one that provides moral support or is a freeloader. <Rowan> What consistues an elite?

[Silent|away]

After talking on IRC, I was logically convinced into believing that CI exists and is real, and thus no longer will attempt an experiment to prove its existence. I'm copying this here so that I remember why I was convinced, and won't forget it and bring up this topic:

Quote:

freeloading? 09:38 PM <Silent> To me an elite would be someone with specialized skills to solve something. 09:38 PM <Rowan> a doctor may be an elite at medicine, but not necessarily at music 09:38 PM <Silent> If someone is good at codingbreaking, he'd be an elite in that sort of thing. 09:38 PM <Six> looking at it from a similar but different way, if multiple people in the group have knowledge about different areas (math, geography, history), then it's a given that by talking together and sharing their knowledge, they know more together than any one individual in the group 09:39 PM <Rowan> and dont you think that even just providing moral support is helpful to a group? 09:39 PM <Rowan> having a sounding board is often important in complex problems 09:40 PM <Six> yeah, even someone who might be able to break a code might have to try at it for a long time with many failed methods, so it's very easy to be discouraged and give up 09:40 PM <Six> someone simply saying "wow, nice work so far" can help them to keep on trying 09:40 PM <Silent> When you put it that way, now I can see why CI works 09:41 PM <Silent> Is it okay for me to copy and paste this in that CI discussion so I don't forget it and ask you guys again? 09:41 PM <Rowan> if it'll keep us from rehasing all this stuff again, then yes 09:41 PM <Six> sure, I'm just talking out my ass really 09:41 PM <Six> And I want that line put in too.

[Silent|away]

All those "real-world" examples you cite, I don't consider them CI. The problem you frame is "There is X, we need to remove it"...leading me to conclude that any informal organization that was formed were merely there who all agree on the same "policy" to implement (remove X) and are just working together to do that, with no debate whatsoever within those groups. Besides, how can you tell that they all are "unrelated" when we're dealing with self-selection, and why would you claim CI was responsible and not an "elite" running the show and telling all those masses what to do?

A better example of a "real world" problem would be balancing the budget, and a deliberate excerises have been conducted to that.

And showing up at pay-phones doesn't seem like something that really require CI. You just need to tell certain meatpeople the GPS coordinates and order them to get there; an expert could have easily solved the puzzle and then force other people nearby to do the puzzle. This is not a hivemind.

Anyway, this really does bug me, yet I never really have the time or patience to pull this study, and am starting to suspect it's impossible for me to do it effectively. Eh. It's really academic whether to credit the "hivemind" or the "elite running the hivemind".

[MageSteff]

Silent|away wrote:

* Silent|away * sighs. I'm still going to try to do this, if only because the idea of the CI still annoys me so.

(smiling) Two years and you are still looking for a way to limit the number of variables you don't have any control over? (still smiling)
That's an issue most scientists have to deal with. Perhaps the premise you are trying to test is too large to handle the question and you need to run a number of smaller tests with stable control factors before you can take in the bigger picture?

If you want to see previous results of the "hive mind" in action, I suggest you review the archived games that have taken place that required active participation to solve problems. "Haunted Apiary" (HALO game release in 2004) which required participants to show up at specific pay phones across the USA to receive informatio. It required solving a puzzle to get the GPS coordinates of the pay phone, having people who were able to record the message, and then people placing the messages in the (mostly) proper order. Considering the sheer number of people who showed up at the various phone booths at all hours of the day and night in all conditions of weather - I'd say that is proof enough.

Oh, the real life problem? The release of the Halo franchise game (I think it wa sthe second game in the series).

[edited to add]
But you wanted real life issues. Ok...
ERA- women's rights. No the amendment to the US constitution did not happen but something else did. Women went to work as Telephone linemen in the 1970's. I remember all the bad press that got - how male linemen felt that women were too weak to do the work. At the same time you rarely saw a woman working as a doctor in a hospital. Now people hardly notice them.

Second example: Gay rights. Not everyone agrees with them, but there are still contries and US States where same sex marriage is legal.

Third example: Smoking. Now banned in many US public buildings after decades of it being legal. Even many smokers now only smoke outside their own homes.

There are three real life examples of groups of people banding together to solve problems- make a difference - in real life.

Want more examples? In the US - the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) = wheelchair access to public buildings - Disables helped by the able bodied who don't need the special ramps or automatic door openers helping to change laws so that people who need them can have the same access to public buildings.

US - Civil Rights (1955-1968)- the ending of racial segregation.
Caucasian Americans assisted even though the degredation did not affect Caucasians. Collective Action. Whites helping to register african americans to vote. Judiciary rulings in Brown vs the Board of Education. The repealing of "Jim Crow" laws.

These aren't math problems or riddles, or be "investigation" but then real life issues don't present as riddles, but the same principle applies. A collective of unrelated people joining together to make things happen.

[Silent|away]

/me sighs.

I'm still going to try to do this, if only because the idea of the CI still annoys me so.

[Silent]

I think I found a flaw in my study.

Who defines what is the 'right answer' to a question?

If you assume the CI defines the right answer, then you assume the CI is correct when that is what we want to prove.

If you assume the elites are right, then you assume the elites are great and are just comparing the CI's answers to the Elites to see if they 'square up'. I'm afraid I can't really do much. Still, I'm going to finally push through and try my puzzle, altough now, I suspect this experiment is rendered meaningless.

[Silent]

Well, thanks for the criticism. I always need to find faults in studies.

Quote:

Well, to disprove the existence of said hive mind, you'll have to revise history, quite frankly. How many games and distributed puzzles have you researched??

But how many hive minds of random populations can deal with problems that exist in the real world, as opposed to just games and puzzles?

If I can falsify it, then it will be fine. If I can find evidence to disprove my hypothesis that the hive mind is not effective, I'll accept it. But I first need to find evidence.

Quote:

So I was wondering - what's your hypothesis here? That there exists a problem that a CI cannot solve? OK, that's fine. But what conclusion do you draw from that? You don't know if a specialist or what have you would be able to solve the problem you pose. Thus you can't make any conclusions about whether the CI is more or less able than an expert.

Um, I do know that an expert can be able to solve the problem. In fact, I can be certain of it.

Let me make this clear: This "real world" problem is not really happening in the real world. It's like math assignments talking about a "real world situation" where you need to use math to solve it, but you're not really out there measuring tape and figuring out how tall the shadow of the tree is so that you can figure out its height, for some terrible purpose.

Quote:

But even if you did know an expert could solve the problem, you only have one data point. A data point, I may add, that you are constructing. I'm sure you'll try to be neutral in that portion of it, but still. At most what you could say that there exists a problem that a particular CI could not solve but a particular expert could - something I doubt anyone here would disagree with.

I won't be biased, I hope. After all, I want to know the truth, just as much as everyone else, and if I'm wrong, I'll abandon whatever it is I believe in. And I suppose that that latter objection may be true, meaning that to really sustain an argument against CI, I need to re-run different experiments, to show limits of CI. And I don't think many people will be convinced either way of if CI is good or not right now, but hopefully this experiment can shed some light to help pave the way to figuring out its effectiveness.

Quote:

Maybe you could take a stab at defining what CI is for you, as a label?

Basically the 'Intelligence' or 'Hivemind' that a group of people have rather than just an indivudal.

[imbri]

I'm gonna jump on the backs of the others here and say that if you want to "prove" anything (even to yourself), you're going to need to make a more sound hypothesis and that, as FLmutant points out, includes defining the term Collective Intelligence as you see it. It sounds to me like you want to focus on the problem solving aspect of intelligence but that leaves out things like the ability to acquire & apply knowledge.

In ARGs, I think we do see collective intelligence at work. I know that we see collaborative intelligence, but I do think that there's some collective intelligence in there as well. And, while you state that you are worried that one person with the right knowledge would come in and solve your puzzle, that is a part of collective intelligence. We all have our own skills, knowledge, and strengths and when we come together as a collective we are able to better harness those things - and that's been another thing that has always impressed me. I still get giddy when I think of the way Steve and DonkeyOatey sought out help solving a cypher and wound up bringing one of the best cryptographers around into the community. Though, I suppose, that's more an example of collaborative intelligence.

That said, I don't want to jump on the collective intelligence bandwagon. I do have my doubts, but I must admit to a certain excitement about it all. The hippie freak is very much attracted to the stuff Tom Atlee's been doing & thinking and I would recommend his Tao of Democracy to anyone with an interest in political change. Though, I suppose, Pierre Levy's Collective Intelligence is probably of more interest to most people here. Or, of course, Surowiecki's Wisdom of the Crowds which is more pop than philosophy (and filled with problem solving sorts of examples)

[Rekidk]

We need to get Jane McG in here; isn't she, like, the queen of Collective Intelligence?

[FLmutant]

Silent wrote:

I also do think that a group of person, intelligent enough, can solve many problems, but I doubt that's really CI. I want to see if a random population can solve the problem. What I am worried is the possiblity of one intellignet person in that random group that will become the leader of the CI and automatically solving the real life problem, but the problem is hopefully obscure enough that it won't happen.

Sounds like your challenge is going to be to define what you're testing, Silent. In the above, the only positive hypothesis you make is "I want to see if a random population can solve the problem [through CI]." But what is this CI and how will you know if you see it, especially if your aware that the problem could be solved by other processes?

Maybe you could take a stab at defining what CI is for you, as a label? For me, the "collective" part of it implies an existing community, a social construct accomplishing the task (otherwise it would "distributed" or some other adjective instead) so a random group would first have to bonded into a community before you'd see CI self-organize or emerge. That's just me, though, and that's not just ARGing (I could point you to this as another example unrelated to the gaming construct.) I don't think there is a right or wrong answer on what CI is (as it is a term that really only exists in this community, so it is kinda like defining "rabbit hole" -- a functional issue more than a conceptual one) only different implications on if your test lets you actually test that.

[mapmaker]

Silent wrote:

I also do think that a group of person, intelligent enough, can solve many problems, but I doubt that's really CI. I want to see if a random population can solve the problem. What I am worried is the possiblity of one intellignet person in that random group that will become the leader of the CI and automatically solving the real life problem, but the problem is hopefully obscure enough that it won't happen. Another thing is the fact that in order to make this test, I cannot come up with a 'real' "real life problem" that has an answer (if I did, then it wouldn't really be a real life problem, would it ). In fact, techincally, the "real life problem" is a stand-in or an example of a real "real-life problem", in order to serve as an example. This "real life problem" does have an answer. I'm not going to try and have this ARG solve global warming, instead, I'm going to have players deal with a complex problem with an answer, and see if they get it or not.

Hmm, a randomly-selected group of people (let's say a dozen?) trying to comb through facts presented at them, both for and against a scenario? Maybe a real-life scenario, like a crime? And have the group come to a conclusion that's close to truth?

Nah, that'd never work.

EDIT:

So I was wondering - what's your hypothesis here? That there exists a problem that a CI cannot solve? OK, that's fine. But what conclusion do you draw from that? You don't know if a specialist or what have you would be able to solve the problem you pose. Thus you can't make any conclusions about whether the CI is more or less able than an expert.

But even if you did know an expert could solve the problem, you only have one data point. A data point, I may add, that you are constructing. I'm sure you'll try to be neutral in that portion of it, but still. At most what you could say that there exists a problem that a particular CI could not solve but a particular expert could - something I doubt anyone here would disagree with.

Personally, I'm not a big proponent of Collective Intelligence. I think it has its benefits, but that it leaves much to be desired. I dunno if this is really going to sway anyone one way or the other, though.

[catherwood]

Silent wrote:

If they solve it correctly, congrats. If they don't, then they suffer the consquences. In this ARG, failure will not be tolerated.

I don't work well under pressure.

[vpisteve]

Well, then your main hurdle is going to be able to build up an adequate player-base made up of motivated, engaged participants to provide a sample large enough to validate whatever result you get.

Quote:

I am looking to disprove the existence of an effective distributed hive mind that can very quickly solve complex problems correctly. I'm betting that a hive mind won't solve complex problems, but that's why this experiment is being done.

Well, to disprove the existence of said hive mind, you'll have to revise history, quite frankly. How many games and distributed puzzles have you researched??

[Silent]

Oh dear...just before I even send the trailhead and the experiment probraly going to collaspe.

FLmutant: I don't think I want to have a problem that "only" collective intelligence can complete (since if that is so, then the experiment would be in bias of CI, since CI is the only way). Since I am trying to disprove collective intelligence, I would rather prefer to have a very obscure problem that is based in "real life" situations, and see how the players solve it.

I also do think that a group of person, intelligent enough, can solve many problems, but I doubt that's really CI. I want to see if a random population can solve the problem. What I am worried is the possiblity of one intellignet person in that random group that will become the leader of the CI and automatically solving the real life problem, but the problem is hopefully obscure enough that it won't happen.

Another thing is the fact that in order to make this test, I cannot come up with a 'real' "real life problem" that has an answer (if I did, then it wouldn't really be a real life problem, would it ). In fact, techincally, the "real life problem" is a stand-in or an example of a real "real-life problem", in order to serve as an example. This "real life problem" does have an answer. I'm not going to try and have this ARG solve global warming, instead, I'm going to have players deal with a complex problem with an answer, and see if they get it or not.

vpisteve, I am looking to disprove the existence of an effective distributed hive mind that can very quickly solve complex problems correctly. I'm betting that a hive mind won't solve complex problems, but that's why this experiment is being done.

Rogi Ocnorb, it was expected that once the player gets the "real life" problem, that's it. It's up to them to solve it. If they solve it correctly, congrats. If they don't, then they suffer the consquences. In this ARG, failure will not be tolerated.

notgordian, recursive loops are exactly the reason why I wish to disprove this theory.