Collective-intelligence 2

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Human complex systems. How does Social Science benefit from Complexity Theory and Computational Methods?

human complex systems

We explore complex systems inhabited by human beings. These systems are biological, social, cultural, technological and creative. Our method is to analyze the behavior of the inhabitants of these systems and their interactions. Many interactions are indirect with multiple causes and effects. Also, we construct computer models, synthesize virtual worlds, and run simulation experiments.

Our computational methods use software agents. Systems might be teams, families, nations or companies. Multi-agent virtual worlds serve as experimental laboratories to explore intuitions and "what-if" scenarios. Also, models provide insights or predictions that can be validated and calibrated against real world data. Results help us design better high-performing real-world systems with checks and balances. Research here is exciting, vibrant and innovative. Just the Sum of Us: James Surowiecki On What Crowds. The People Formerly Known as the Audience: "You don't own the eyeballs.

Just the Sum of Us: James Surowiecki On What Crowds

You don't own the press, which is now divided into pro and amateur zones. You don't control production on the new platform, which isn't one-way. There's a new balance of power between you and us. " More... Migration Point for the Press Tribe: "Like reluctant migrants everywhere, the people in the news tribe have to decide what to take with them. Bloggers vs. "Where's the Business Model for News, People? " National Explainer: A Job for Journalists on the Demand Side of News This American Life's great mortgage crisis explainer, The Giant Pool of Money, suggests that "information" and "explanation" ought to be reversed in our order of thought.

The Beast Without a Brain: Why Horse Race Journalism Works for Journalists and Fails Us. Twilight of the Curmudgeon Class: "We’re at the twilight of the curmudgeon class in newsrooms and J-schools. A Most Useful Definition of Citizen Journalism "It's mine, but it should be yours. Don Tapscott: The Dubai Summit On Redesigning Global Cooperation. I just returned from an extraordinary meeting of 900 academics, civil society leaders, business people and other innovative thinkers, held by the World Economic Forum in Dubai. Called the Global Agenda Summit, 80 Councils composed of a dozen members each, discussed how to redesign our systems for global cooperation for the 21st century.

Klaus Schwab, the founder of the Forum, was unable to attend due to a last minute illness, but in an interview shared his thoughts. Humans Have Evolved Specialized Skills of Social Cognition: The. Humans have brains roughly three times larger than those of their nearest primate relatives, the great apes ( 1 , 2 ), and of course have many cognitive skills not possessed by other primates as well, from language to symbolic mathematics to scientific reasoning.

Humans Have Evolved Specialized Skills of Social Cognition: The

The questions from an evolutionary point of view—especially given the enormous energetic expense of a large brain ( 3 )—are how and why humans have evolved such powerful and distinctive cognitive abilities requiring so much neural tissue. One hypothesis is the general intelligence hypothesis. Larger brains enable humans to perform all kinds of cognitive operations more efficiently than other species: greater memory, faster learning, faster perceptual processing, more robust inferences, longer-range planning, and so on. The alternative is the adapted intelligence hypothesis ( 4 ). Ross Mayfield&#039;s Weblog: Power Law of Participation. Social software brings groups together to discover and create value.


The problem is, users only have so much time for social software. The vast majority of users with not have a high level of engagement with a given group, and most tend to be free riders upon community value. But patterns have emerged where low threshold participation amounts to collective intelligence and high engagement provides a different form of collaborative intelligence. To illustrate this, lets explore the Power Law of Participation: Most of Chris Anderson's Long Tail examples have focused on models of consumption, not production, where intelligence is largely artificial. As we engage with the web, we leave behind breadcrumbs of attention. Digg is the archetype for low threshold participation.