Martin Rowe

Are many heads better than one?
October 17, 2006

We’ve all heard the phrase “two heads are better than one,” but what about more than two heads? Faculty at the MIT Sloan School of Management seem to think so. They’re so convinced that they’ve started the Center for Collective Intelligence (MIT-CCI) to study how people use computers and communications to work together. The MIT-CCI was officially launched at a press conference on the MIT campus in Cambridge, MA on October 13, which I attneded.

Headed by Professor of Management James Malone, the center aims to research “How can people and computers be connected so that—collectively—they act more intelligently than any individuals, groups, or computers have ever done before?” The MIT-CCI brings together people from the institute’s computer science, management, and brain and cognitive science departments plus the MIT Media Lab and others. In his opening remarks, Malone cited Google and Wikipedia as examples of collective intelligence. He also cited that he ways we currently use computers and

“Groups of people do things together that sometimes seem intelligent,” said Malone. “Even an ant or bee colony is an example of collective intelligence.”

This sort of collaboration is possible in part because of the efforts of electronic, optical, and software engineers. Yet, do we use the tools that which we create as much as people in other fields? We do, but is collective intelligence a good thing or bad thing? The problem with the communications we have now is, on one hand, good because we have access to brainpower in faraway places. That lets us solve problems faster.

The downside of this communications is that we have access to brainpower in faraway places and that brainpower may work for less money. Thus, we may solve technical problems and create economic problems, namely the loss of engineering jobs to those overseas brains.

Posted by Martin Rowe on October 17, 2006 | Comments (3)