The “New” Science of Collective Intelligence

1 Course Unit

This course is a wide-ranging exploration of the scientific theories, famous experiments and public policy initiatives that have contributed to our contemporary understanding of crowd wisdom (and crowd madness). Our focus throughout will be on the seminal question of whether social influence makes collectives smarter or dumber. The ultimate goal will be to understand what the science of collective intelligence tells us about how to design new approaches to public policy, and how we might anticipate the unintended consequences of our policies. We will explore four grand challenges of collective intelligence: 1. The problem of collective choice (also known as the “wisdom of the crowd”). Examples we will focus on include democratic deliberation, fair voting, immigration, vaccination and stock market investing. 2. The problem of coordination (also known as “cultural markets”). Examples we will focus on include cultural patterns of fashion, popular baby names, technology adoption, publishing fads and music popularity. 3. The problem of cooperation (also known as “collective action”). Examples we will focus on include mobilizing political revolutions, vendetta culture, civic activism, and organ donation. 4. The problem of creativity (also known as “collective problem solving” or the “science of science”). Examples we will focus on include creating climate change working groups, MIT’s Magical Incubator, Pixar studios, building innovative research teams, and Polanyi’s theory of how to pioneer novel scientific fields. Is there a single scientific theory of collective intelligence that can address all of these challenges? This course will endeavor to find out. 1 Course Unit