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Big Mind
How Collective Intelligence Can Change Our World
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Geoff Mulgan
Language:
English
Published/Copyright:
2017
About this book
A new field of collective intelligence has emerged in the last few years, prompted by a wave of digital technologies that make it possible for organizations and societies to think at large scale. This “bigger mind”—human and machine capabilities working together—has the potential to solve the great challenges of our time. So why do smart technologies not automatically lead to smart results? Gathering insights from diverse fields, including philosophy, computer science, and biology, Big Mind reveals how collective intelligence can guide corporations, governments, universities, and societies to make the most of human brains and digital technologies.
Geoff Mulgan explores how collective intelligence has to be consciously organized and orchestrated in order to harness its powers. He looks at recent experiments mobilizing millions of people to solve problems, and at groundbreaking technology like Google Maps and Dove satellites. He also considers why organizations full of smart people and machines can make foolish mistakes—from investment banks losing billions to intelligence agencies misjudging geopolitical events—and shows how to avoid them.
Highlighting differences between environments that stimulate intelligence and those that blunt it, Mulgan shows how human and machine intelligence could solve challenges in business, climate change, democracy, and public health. But for that to happen we’ll need radically new professions, institutions, and ways of thinking.
Informed by the latest work on data, web platforms, and artificial intelligence, Big Mind shows how collective intelligence could help us survive and thrive.
Author / Editor information
Geoff Mulgan is chief executive of Nesta, the UK’s National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, and a senior visiting scholar at Harvard University’s Ash Center. He was the founder of the think tank Demos and director of the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit and head of policy under Tony Blair. His books include The Locust and the Bee (Princeton) and Good and Bad Power (Penguin).
Reviews
"An engaging and important read."
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"Mr Mulgan’s basic thought is that organisations, like individual minds, can contain highly intelligent elements and yet still be pretty stupid as a whole . . . . The trick is to balance the different sources of cleverness in such a way as to get the best out of all of them."---Oliver Moody, The Times
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"[Big Mind] raises many awkward questions about why modern institutions, stacked with clever people and overflowing with useful data, are so often prone to collective intelligence failures, from some of the policy decisions that led up to this year’s Grenfell Tower fire in London to the run-in to the financial crisis a decade ago."---James Crabtree, Financial Times
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"[Big Mind] charts the emergence of the new field of collective intelligence, which is harnessing human and digital capabilities for collaborative problem-solving on an unprecedented scale. It’s an argument with profound implications for the way we organise science, universities, businesses and governments."---James Wilsden, The Guardian
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"A perfect introduction to collective intelligence. . . . The book draws on subjects such as social psychology, computer sciences and economics, as well as the author’s experiences as co-founder of the think tank Demos."
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"Brilliant. . . . Drawing on such disciplines as social psychology, computer science, and economics, as well as his experiences as a co-founder of the think tank Demos, Mulgan outlines the elements of CI, which has informed collaborations from the Manhattan project and NASA's moon landings to Google Maps and Wikipedia."
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"The trenchant questions and thoughtful discussion in Big Mind . . . will help us to reimagine our institutions and convince us of the urgency of doing so."---Beth Simone Noveck, Nature
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"A fascinating and important book."---James Crabtree, Financial Times
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"One of The Guardian’s Favourite Reads of 2017 as chosen by scientists"
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Frontmatter
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CONTENTS
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Preface
vii -
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Introduction: Collective Intelligence as a Grand Challenge
1 - Part I. What Is Collective Intelligence?
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1. The Paradox of a Smart World
11 -
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2 . The Nature of Collective Intelligence in Theory and Practice
14 - Part II. Making Sense of Collective Intelligence as Choice
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3. The Functional Elements of Collective Intelligence
35 -
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4. The Infrastructures That Support Collective Intelligence
48 -
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5. The Organizing Principles of Collective Intelligence
60 -
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6. Learning Loops
70 -
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7. Cognitive Economics and Triggered Hierarchies
76 -
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8. The Autonomy of Intelligence
90 -
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9. The Collective in Collective Intelligence
99 -
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10. Self-Suspicion and Fighting the Enemies of Collective Intelligence
119 - Part III. Collective Intelligence in Everyday Life
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11. Mind-Enhancing Meetings and Environments
131 -
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12. Problem Solving: How Cities and Governments Think
145 -
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13. Visible and Invisible Hands: Economies and Firms as Collective Intelligence
161 -
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14. The University as Collective Intelligence
174 -
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15. Democratic Assembly
181 -
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16. How Does a Society Think and Create as a System?
193 -
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17. The Rise of Knowledge Commons: It’s for Everyone
200 - Part IV. Collective Intelligence as Expanded Possibility
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18. Collective Wisdom and Progress in Consciousness
217 -
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AFTERWORD. The Past and Future of Collective Intelligence as a Discipline
229 -
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Summary of the Argument
237 -
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Notes
239 -
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Index
263
Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
September 10, 2018
eBook ISBN:
9781400888511
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook ISBN:
9781400888511
Keywords for this book
Collective intelligence; Thought; Technology; Institution; Learning; Decision-making; Result; Consciousness; Illustration; Psychology; Groupthink; Economics; Theory; Prediction; Heuristic; Quantity; Human intelligence; Customer; Problem solving; Open innovation; Capability; Politician; Collaboration; Trade-off; Critical thinking; Confirmation bias; Statistic; Funding; Machine learning; Economy; Research and development; Governance; Cognition; Processing (programming language); Deliberation; Feeling; Political party; Entrepreneurship; Empathy; Network effect; Knowledge commons; Infrastructure; Shortage; Organization; Disaster; Politics; Social science; Participant; Climate change; Civil society; Advertising; Calculation; Open data; Interaction; Emerging technologies; Reason; Artificial intelligence; Business model; Self-organization; Linear logic; World Wide Web; Competition; Fraud; Finding; Sociology; Cost–benefit analysis; Voting; Collective wisdom; Tax; Project
Audience(s) for this book
For a non-specialist adult audience
