{{short description|Group intelligence that emerges from collective efforts}} {{Use dmy dates|date=June 2024}} thumb|upright=1.35|{{center|Types of collective intelligence}} {{Group intelligence}} {{Recommender systems}}
'''Collective intelligence''' ('''CI''') or '''group intelligence''' ('''GI''') is the emergent ability of groups, whether composed of humans alone, animals, or networks of humans and artificial agents, to solve problems, make decisions, or generate knowledge more effectively than individuals alone, through either cooperation<ref>{{cite journal|title=Collective cooperative intelligence|journal=Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A|year=2025|first=W.|last=Barfuss |volume=122 |issue=25 |article-number=e2319948121 |doi=10.1073/pnas.2319948121 |pmid=40523168 |pmc=12207418 |bibcode=2025PNAS..12219948B }}</ref> or by aggregation<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DbggAwAAQBAJ|title=Aggregation Functions|first1=Michel|last1=Grabisch|first2=Jean-Luc|last2=Marichal|first3=Radko|last3=Mesiar|first4=Endre|last4=Pap|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2009 |isbn=978-1-139-64322-1 }}</ref> of diverse information, perspectives, and behaviors. The term swarm intelligence (SI) is sometimes used interchangeably with collective intelligence but is simply one instance of it.
Collective intelligence encompasses not only complex adaptive systems, which self-organize and adapt in dynamic environments, but also creative and cognitive processes observed in social groups, which are often referred to as the wisdom of crowds. In this context, collective judgments, sometimes from non-experts, often exceed the accuracy of expert predictions, as illustrated by Francis Galton's famous experiment on estimating the weight of an ox.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.npr.org/2015/08/20/432978431/wighty-issue-cow-guessing-game-helps-to-explain-the-stock-market|first=David|last=Kestenbaum|title=Weighty Issue: Cow Guessing Game Helps To Explain The Stock Market|publisher=NPR|year=2015|access-date=2025-12-14}}</ref><ref name="Surowiecki2005">{{cite book|url=https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/175380/the-wisdom-of-crowds-by-james-surowiecki/ |last=Surowiecki |first=James |title=The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations|year=2005 |publisher=Vintage (Penguin Random House) |isbn=978-0-385-72170-7}}</ref> Contemporary theorists have posited that intelligence can be interpreted as an emergent collective process that manifests across various biological and social scales, including neural, organismal, and group levels.<ref name="Falandays2023"/>
The term appears in sociobiology, political science and in the context of mass peer review and crowdsourcing applications. It may involve consensus decision-making, social capital and formalisms such as voting systems, social media and other means of quantifying mass activity.<ref name="Suran2020">{{cite journal |last1=Suran |first1=Shweta |last2=Pattanaik |first2=Vishwajeet |last3=Draheim |first3=Dirk |title=Frameworks for Collective Intelligence: A Systematic Literature Review |journal=ACM Computing Surveys |date=5 February 2020 |volume=53 |issue=1 |pages=14:1–14:36 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339081673}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|url= https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339081673|last1=Suran |first1=Shweta |last2=Pattanaik |first2=Vishwajeet |last3=Draheim |first3=Dirk |title=Frameworks for Collective Intelligence: A Systematic Literature Review |journal=ACM Computing Surveys |date=5 February 2020 |volume=53 |issue=1 |pages=14:1–14:36 |doi=10.1145/3368986|s2cid=211040820|access-date=2025-11-15 }}</ref> Collective intelligence should not be conflated with metaphysical theories of panpsychism or with claims about group consciousness. These concern the fundamental nature of the mind, and the possibility that consciousness is a ubiquitous or emergent property.<ref>{{cite book |editor-last=Seager |editor-first=William |title=The Routledge Handbook of Panpsychism |publisher=Routledge |year=2019 |isbn=9781138817135 |url=https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-Handbook-of-Panpsychism/Seager/p/book/9781032239378}}</ref> The empirical study of collective intelligence, however, focuses on observable mechanisms by which groups coordinate information, tasks or problem-solving.
The term group intelligence is sometimes used interchangeably with the term collective intelligence. Anita Woolley<ref name="Woolley">{{cite web|url=https://scholars.cmu.edu/418-anita-woolley|title=Anita Woolley, Professor of Organizational Behavior and Theory|publisher=Carnegie Mellon University|access-date=2025-12-12}}</ref> presents collective intelligence as a measure of group intelligence and group creativity.<ref name=":0" /> The idea is that a measure of collective intelligence covers a broad range of features of the group, mainly group composition and group interaction. The features of composition that lead to increased levels of collective intelligence in groups include criteria such as higher numbers of women in the group as well as increased diversity of the group.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286512331|title=Collective Intelligence and Group Performance|first1=Anita|last1=Woolley|first2=Ishani|last2=Aggarwal|first3=Thomas W.|last3=Malone|publisher=Association for Psychological Science|access-date=2025-12-04}}</ref>
Collective intelligence is attributed to bacteria and animals, but also algorithmic governance.<ref name="Nguyen2011">{{cite book|author=Ngoc Thanh Nguyen|title=Transactions on Computational Collective Intelligence III|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RUxv25JFTkkC&pg=PA63|access-date=11 June 2013|date=25 July 2011|publisher=Springer|isbn=978-3-642-19967-7|pages=63, 69}}</ref> It can be understood as an emergent property from the synergies among: #data-information-knowledge #software-hardware #individuals (those with new insights as well as recognized authorities) that continually learn from feedback to produce just-in-time knowledge for better decisions than these three elements acting alone<ref name="Suran2020"/><ref>{{cite web|url=https://millennium-project.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/GFIS-paper.pdf|title=Collective Intelligence Systems for Science and Technological Convergences to Benefit Society, for Handbook of Science and Technology Convergence|year=2017|first=Jerome C.|last=Glenn| publisher=The Millenium Project|access-date=2025-11-25}}</ref>
Or it can be more narrowly understood as an emergent property between people and ways of processing information.<ref>Glenn, Jerome C. Chapter 5, 2008 State of the Future. The Millennium Project, Washington, DC 2008</ref><ref name="GlennState2008">{{cite journal |last1=Glenn |first1=Jerome C. |last2=Gordon |first2=Theodore J. |last3=Florescu |first3=Elizabeth |title=State of the Future 2008 |year=2008 |journal=Technological Forecasting and Social Change|publisher=The Millennium Project |doi=10.1016/S0040-1625(00)00104-9 |s2cid=144959910 }}</ref> This notion of collective intelligence is referred to as "symbiotic intelligence" by Norman Lee Johnson.<ref>Norman Lee Johnson, [http://CollectiveScience.com Collective Science site] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111006221737/http://collectivescience.com/ |date=6 October 2011 }}</ref> The concept is used in sociology, business, computer science and mass communications: it also appears in science fiction.
Pierre Lévy defines collective intelligence as "a form of universally distributed intelligence, constantly enhanced, coordinated in real time, and resulting in the effective mobilization of skills. (...) The basis and goal of collective intelligence is mutual recognition and enrichment of individuals rather than the cult of fetishized or hypostatized communities."<ref>{{Cite book|last=Levy|first=Pierre|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yPNGswEACAAJ|title=Collective Intelligence: Mankind's Emerging World in Cyberspace|date=1999-12-10|publisher=Basic Books|isbn=978-0-7382-0261-7|page=14|oclc=249995946}}</ref>
According to Lévy and Derrick de Kerckhove, it refers to capacity of networked ICTs (Information communication technologies) to enhance the collective pool of social knowledge by simultaneously expanding the extent of human interactions.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://global.oup.com/academic/product/new-media-9780195577853 | last=Flew | first=Terry | year= 2014 |edition=4th | title=New Media | publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-557785-3}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Lévy|first1=Pierre|last2=Farley|first2=Art|last3=Lollini|first3=Massimo|date=2019-12-31|title=Collective Intelligence, the Future of Internet and the IEML: Interview to Pierre Lévy by Art Farley and Massimo Lollini|url=http://journals.oregondigital.org/index.php/hsda/article/view/4620|journal=Humanist Studies & the Digital Age|volume=6|issue=1|pages=5–31|doi=10.5399/uo/hsda.6.1.2|issn=2158-3846|doi-access=free|access-date=29 March 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200101022431/http://journals.oregondigital.org/index.php/hsda/article/view/4620|archive-date=1 January 2020|url-status=live}}</ref>
A broader definition was provided by Geoff Mulgan in a series of lectures and reports from 2006 onwards<ref>{{cite web|url=https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/catalog/4467526|title=Innovation in 360 degrees: promoting social innovation in South Australia / prepared by Geoff Mulgan|publisher=Catalogue National Library of Australia|access-date=2025-11-28}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.geoffmulgan.com/faqs-2|title=Ideas into action|publisher=Geoff Mulgan|access-date=2025-11-27}}</ref> and in the book Big Mind,<ref>{{cite book |first=Geoff |last=Mulgan |title=Big Mind: How Collective Intelligence Can Change Our World |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rDUmDwAAQBAJ |date=2017 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-1-4008-8851-1}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://assets.press.princeton.edu/chapters/i11098.pdf |title=Big Mind, Introduction|first=Geoff |last=Mulgan|publisher=Princeton University Press|access-date=2025-11-28}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://cdn.bookey.app/files/pdf/book/en/big-mind.pdf |title=Big Mind Summary|publisher=Bookey|access-date=2025-11-28}}</ref> which proposed a framework for analysing any thinking system, including both human and machine intelligence, in terms of functional elements (observation, prediction, creativity, judgement etc.), learning loops and forms of organisation. The aim was to provide a way to diagnose, and improve, the collective intelligence of a city, business, NGO or parliament.
Collective intelligence strongly contributes to the shift of knowledge and power from the individual to the collective. According to Eric S. Raymond in 1998 and JC Herz in 2005,<ref>{{cite journal |last=Raymond |first=E. S. |author-link=Eric S. Raymond |title=Homesteading the Noosphere |journal=First Monday |date=5 October 1998 |volume=3 |issue=10 |doi=10.5210/fm.v3i10.621 |doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Herz |first=J. C. |chapter=Harnessing the hive |editor-last=Hartley |editor-first=J. |title=Creative industries |year=2005 |pages=327–41 |publisher=Blackwell Publishing}}</ref> open-source intelligence will eventually generate superior outcomes to knowledge generated by proprietary software developed within corporations.{{sfn|Flew|2008}} Media theorist Henry Jenkins sees collective intelligence as an 'alternative source of media power', related to convergence culture. He draws attention to education and the way people are learning to participate in knowledge cultures outside formal learning settings. Henry Jenkins criticizes schools which promote 'autonomous problem solvers and self-contained learners' while remaining hostile to learning through the means of collective intelligence.<ref>{{cite book |first=Henry |last=Jenkins |chapter=Conclusion |title=Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RlRVNikT06YC&pg=PA259 |date=2006 |publisher=NYU Press |isbn=978-0-8147-4307-2 |page=259}}</ref> Both Pierre Lévy and Henry Jenkins support the claim that collective intelligence is important for democratization, as it is interlinked with knowledge-based culture and sustained by collective idea sharing, and thus contributes to a better understanding of diverse society.<ref>{{cite book |last=Lévy |first=Pierre |chapter=Société du savoir et développement humain |editor-last=Imbert |editor-first=Patrick |title=Le Canada et la société des savoirs |series=Enjeux sociaux et culturels dans une société du savoir |year=2007 |pages=115–175 |language=fr}}</ref>{{sfn|Jenkins|2008}}
Similar to the ''g'' factor (''g'') for general individual intelligence, a new scientific understanding of collective intelligence aims to extract a general collective intelligence factor '''c factor''' for groups indicating a group's ability to perform a wide range of tasks, although the score is not a quotient per se.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last1=Woolley|first1=Anita Williams|last2=Chabris|first2=Christopher F.|last3=Pentland|first3=Alex|last4=Hashmi |first4=Nada |last5=Malone|first5=Thomas W.|s2cid=74579|date=2010-10-29|title=Evidence for a Collective Intelligence Factor in the Performance of Human Groups |journal=Science|volume=330|issue=6004|pages=686–688|doi=10.1126/science.1193147 |pmid=20929725 |bibcode=2010Sci...330..686W |url=https://einsteinmed.edu/uploadedFiles/diversity/collective-intelligence-science.pdf}}</ref>
Collective intelligence is often facilitated by digital communication platforms and collaborative technologies. {{TOC limit|3}}
== History ==
Many theorists have interpreted Aristotle's statement in the ''Politics'' that "a feast to which many contribute is better than a dinner provided out of a single purse" to mean that just as many may bring different dishes to the table, so in a deliberation many may contribute different pieces of information to generate a better decision.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Waldron|first1=Jeremy|title=The Wisdom of the Multitude: Some Reflections on Book 3, Chapter 11 of Aristotle's Politics|journal=Political Theory|date=1995 |volume=23|issue=4 |pages=563–584 |doi=10.1177/0090591795023004001 |s2cid=154578834}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=Josiah |last=Ober |title=Democracy and Knowledge: Innovation and Learning in Classical Athens |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Jge0MlZTKhQC&pg=PA110 |date=2008 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-1-4008-2880-7 |pages=110–4}}</ref> Recent scholarship,<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Cammack|first1=Daniela|title=Aristotle and the Virtue of the Multitude|journal=Political Theory |date=2013|volume=41|issue=2|pages=175–202|doi=10.1177/0090591712470423|s2cid=220724879|url=https://zenodo.org/record/1063691}}</ref> however, suggests that this was probably not what Aristotle meant but is a modern interpretation based on what we now know about team intelligence.<ref>{{cite book |first=Scott E. |last=Page |title=The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hJRu4O8q1xwC |date=2008 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-1-4008-3028-2}}</ref> Melissa Schwartzberg (2016) reinterprets Aristotle's discussion, arguing that Politics III.11 should be read not as a claim that collective judgement is superior in quality, but as a defence of democratic rule grounded in an equal capacity for political judgment among citizens. Her "equal judgment" reading shifts emphasis from epistemic arguments about the wisdom of crowds toward Aristotle's concern with the political value of equal participation, and cautions against using Aristotle as straightforward support for contemporary claims of superior collective accuracy.<ref name="Schwartzberg2016">{{cite journal |last=Schwartzberg |first=Melissa |title=Aristotle and the Judgment of the Many: Equality, not Collective Quality |journal=The Journal of Politics |year=2016 |volume=78 |issue=3 |pages=733–745 |doi=10.1086/685000 |url=https://melissaschwartzberg.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/schwartzberg_jop.pdf |access-date=26 November 2025}}</ref>
Modern collective intelligence theory (although not so named at the time) began in 1785 with the Marquis de Condorcet, whose "jury theorem" states that if each member of a voting group is more likely than not to make a correct decision, the probability that the highest vote of the group is the correct decision increases with the number of members of the group.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Landemore|first1=Hélène|title=Landemore, Democratic Reason: Politics, Collective Intelligence, and the Rule of the Many|date=2012|publisher=Princeton University Press|location=Princeton|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=B-6YNnIIlE8C|isbn=978-0-691-15565-4}}</ref>
The concept is also found in entomologist William Morton Wheeler's observation in 1910 that seemingly independent individuals can cooperate so closely as to become indistinguishable from a single organism.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://archive.org/details/antstheirstructu00whee|last=Wheeler|first=W.M.|year=1910|title=Ants: their structure, development and behavior|publisher=Columbia University Press|access-date=2025-11-28}}</ref> Wheeler saw this collaborative process at work in ants that acted like the cells of a single beast he called a superorganism.
In 1912 Émile Durkheim identified society as the sole source of human logical thought. He argued in "The Elementary Forms of Religious Life" that society constitutes a higher intelligence because it transcends the individual over space and time.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://looseleaf-app.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/users/clgzpvp09000ajw0gfdzngh9u/The%20Elementary%20Forms%20of%20the%20Religious%20Life-336fbbfe-b100-4b04-ad1a-1a9b3e2d9e5a.pdf|first=Émile|last=Durkheim|title=The Elementary Forms of Religious Life|year=1912|access-date=2025-11-28}}</ref> Other antecedents are Vladimir Vernadsky and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's concept of "noosphere"<ref>{{cite journal|url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02604027.1997.9972669|title=The noosphere vision of pierre teilhard de chardin and Vladimir I. Vernadsky in the perspective of information and of world-wide communication|journal=World Futures: The Journal of New Paradigm Research |year=1997|first1=K.|last1=Fuchs-Kittowski|first2=P.|last2=Krüger|volume=50 |issue=1–4 |pages=757–784 |doi=10.1080/02604027.1997.9972669 |access-date=2025-11-28|url-access=subscription}}</ref> and H. G. Wells's concept of "world brain".<ref name=WB38>Wells, H.G. (1938). ''World Brain''. London: Methuen & Co., Ltd.; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran & Co., Inc. [https://web.archive.org/web/20110728200457/http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/w/wells/hg/world_brain/complete.html Ebook: World Brain]</ref> left|thumb|H.G. Wells ''World Brain'' (1936–1938) <ref>See also global brain.</ref> Peter Russell, Elisabet Sahtouris, and Barbara Marx Hubbard (originator of the term "conscious evolution")<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=juRnBgAAQBAJ|title=Conscious Evolution: Awakening the Power of Our Social Potential|publisher=New World Library|first=Barbara|last=Marx Hubbard|year=1998 |isbn=978-1-60868-118-1 }}</ref> are inspired by the visions of a noosphere – a transcendent, rapidly evolving collective intelligence – an informational cortex of the planet.
In a 1962 research report, Douglas Engelbart linked collective intelligence to organizational effectiveness, and predicted that pro-actively 'augmenting human intellect' would yield a multiplier effect in group problem solving: "Three people working together in this augmented mode [would] seem to be more than three times as effective in solving a complex problem as is one augmented person working alone".<ref>Engelbart, Douglas (1962) [http://www.dougengelbart.org/pubs/augment-3906.html#3b9 Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110504035147/http://www.dougengelbart.org/pubs/augment-3906.html#3b9 |date=4 May 2011 }} – section on Team Cooperation</ref> In 1994, he coined the term 'collective IQ' as a measure of collective intelligence, to focus attention on the opportunity to significantly raise collective IQ in business and society.<ref>Engelbart, Douglas (1994)[https://archive.org/stream/boostingcollecti00drdo#page/n9/mode/2up Boosting Collective IQ] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160702192002/http://www.archive.org/stream/boostingcollecti00drdo#page/n9/mode/2up |date=2 July 2016 }} (Slide Handouts) – 'Collective IQ' defined on Slide 4; also (1994) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdIWQZtEq04&t=1016 BBN Distinguished Guest Lecture] (Video) – 'Collective IQ' defined @16:56 "CoDIAK"</ref>
In 1996, in his now classic book on emotional intelligence, Daniel Goleman stated that ‘social harmony’ was the single most important factor in what he termed ‘group intelligence,’ rather than the average IQ of the group’s individuals: “it is this ability to harmonize that, all other things being equal, will make one group especially talented, productive, and successful, and another - with members whose talent and skills are equal in other regards - do poorly.”<ref>{{cite book|title=Emotional Intelligence|first=Daniel|last=Goleman|year=1996|page=160|publisher=Bloomsbury}}</ref>
Brown and Lauder (2000, 2001) framed collective intelligence as a form of social capital: a social capacity rooted in institutions, cooperation, and shared problem-solving, rather than as an attribute of individuals alone. They presented it as an counterweight to ‘market individualism.’ Drawing on earlier critiques of IQ-based conceptions of intelligence, Brown and Lauder emphasised that intelligence is an achievement shaped by social conditions, and that structural inequalities can restrict groups’ ability to develop and mobilise collective intelligence, even when cognitive potential is widely distributed. They recommended deliberately embedding it: “The struggle for collective intelligence involves more than changing the way we think about our own capacities and our relationship to society, it also includes weaving the potential of collective intelligence into the very fabric of our society.”<ref name="BrownLauder2000">{{cite book|url=https://academic.oup.com/book/54672|title=Human Capital, Social Capital and Collective Intelligence, in Baron, Stephen; Field, John; Schuller, Tom (eds.). ''Social Capital: Critical Perspectives''|last1=Brown|first1=Philip|last2=Lauder|first2=Hugh|year=2000|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-158324-7}}</ref><ref name="BrownLauder2001">{{cite book |last1=Brown |first1=Philip |last2=Lauder |first2=Hugh |chapter=Collective intelligence |title=Capitalism and Social Progress: The Future of Society in a Global Economy|year=2001|publisher=Palgrave|doi=10.1057/9780333985380_13 |isbn=9780333922910|chapter-url=https://page-one.springer.com/pdf/preview/10.1057/9780333985380_13 |access-date=14 December 2025}}</ref><ref name=":28">{{Cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/education/2001/jun/18/socialsciences.highereducation1|title=Capitalism and Social Progress by Phillip Brown and Hugh Lauder (cont... )|date=2001-06-18|newspaper=The Guardian|access-date=2016-12-12|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161221073908/https://www.theguardian.com/education/2001/jun/18/socialsciences.highereducation1|archive-date=21 December 2016|url-status=live}}</ref>
Work in the early 2000s examined the informational conditions required for collective intelligence to emerge in digitally networked groups. Jean-François Noubel (2004) introduced the concept of holopticism to describe communication architectures in which participants have shared visibility of one another's contributions and of the group's evolving state, arguing that such structures enhance a group's capacity to integrate dispersed knowledge and coordinate collective problem-solving. This line of thinking parallels other theoretical accounts that emphasise common awareness, transparent feedback and shared cognitive artefacts as enabling mechanisms for collective intelligence.<ref name="Noubel2004">{{cite web |last=Noubel |first=Jean-François |title=Collective Intelligence: The Invisible Revolution |year=2004 |url=https://library.uniteddiversity.coop/Decision_Making_and_Democracy/Collective_Intelligence.pdf |access-date=26 November 2025}}</ref>
Pierre Lévy<ref>{{cite web|url=https://countertext.com/pierre-a-levy|title=Interview with Pierre A. Levy, Philosopher of Collective Intelligence/|first=M.A.|last=Peters|publisher=CounterText|year=2022|access-date=2025-12-05}}</ref> was an influential early theorist who reframed collective intelligence as a civilisation-level phenomenon enabled by networked media and shared symbolic tools. In his work he argued that the emerging information environment makes possible new forms of distributed cognition and collective sense-making, and he proposed a methodological program of "positive interpretation" to study how collectively produced meanings and problem-solving capacities can be cultivated and governed in cyberspace.<ref name="LevyBook1997">{{cite book |last=Lévy |first=Pierre |title=Collective Intelligence: Mankind's Emerging World in Cyberspace |year=1997 |publisher=Perseus |isbn=978-0-7382-0261-7 |url=https://archive.org/details/collectiveintell0000levy |access-date=26 November 2025}}</ref> Lévy's account emphasises cultural and semantic infrastructure, i.e. common languages, ontologies and mediation tools, that allow dispersed individuals to coordinate, accumulate knowledge and engage in large-scale cooperative intelligence. His ideas, first widely circulated in his 1990s writings and reiterated in later essays and reviews, have been influential in shaping debates about the digital foundations of collective intelligence and about how institutions and technologies can be designed to support collective reflection and decision-making.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Lévy |first=Pierre |title=Collective Intelligence, A Civilisation: Towards a Method of Positive Interpretation |journal=International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society |year=2006 |volume=18 |issue=3–4 |pages=189–198 |doi=10.1007/s10767-006-9003-z |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/225478794}}</ref><ref name="Levy2010">{{cite journal |last=Lévy |first=Pierre |title=From social computing to reflexive collective intelligence: The IEML research program |journal=Information Sciences |year=2010 |volume=180 |pages=71–94 |doi=10.1016/j.ins.2009.08.001 }}</ref>
thumb|Complex adaptive systems model Howard Bloom (1995) discussed mass behavior – collective behavior – from the level of quarks to the level of bacterial, plant, animal, and human societies. He stressed the biological adaptations that have turned most of this earth's living beings into components of what he calls "a learning machine". Bloom combined the concepts of apoptosis, parallel distributed processing, group selection, and the superorganism to produce a theory of how collective intelligence works.<ref>{{cite book |first=Howard |last=Bloom |title=The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition into the Forces of History |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=x4GKAgAAQBAJ |date=2013 |orig-date=1995 |publisher=Open Road |isbn=978-0-8021-9218-9}}</ref> Later (2000), he showed how the collective intelligences of competing bacterial colonies and human societies can be explained in terms of computer-generated "complex adaptive systems" and the "genetic algorithms", concepts pioneered by John Holland.<ref name="bloom2000"/>
Bloom traced the evolution of collective intelligence to our bacterial ancestors 1 billion years ago and demonstrated how a multi-species intelligence has worked since the beginning of life.<ref name="bloom2000">{{cite book |first=Howard |last=Bloom |title=Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=V_IgAQAAIAAJ |date=2000 |publisher=Wiley |isbn=978-0-471-29584-6}}</ref> Ant societies exhibit more intelligence, in terms of technology, than any other animal except for humans and co-operate in keeping livestock, for example aphids for "milking". Leaf cutters care for fungi and carry leaves to feed the fungi.<ref name="bloom2000" />
Tom Atlee focused primarily on humans and on work to upgrade what Howard Bloom calls "the group IQ". Atlee felt that collective intelligence can be encouraged "to overcome 'groupthink' and individual cognitive bias in order to allow a collective to cooperate on one process – while achieving enhanced intellectual performance." George Pór defined the collective intelligence phenomenon as "the capacity of human communities to evolve towards higher order complexity and harmony, through such innovation mechanisms as differentiation and integration, competition and collaboration."<ref>George Pór, [http://www.community-intelligence.com/blogs/public Blog of Collective Intelligence] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040802231025/http://www.community-intelligence.com/blogs/public |date=2 August 2004 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/278016659|title=Cultivating Collective Intelligence: a Core Leadership Competence in a Complex World|first=George|last=Por|access-date=2025-12-04}}</ref> Atlee and Pór stated that "collective intelligence also involves achieving a single focus of attention and standard of metrics which provide an appropriate threshold of action". Their approach is rooted in scientific community metaphor.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.co-intelligence.org/ConveningTheCIField.doc|title=Collective Intelligence as a Field of Multi-disciplinary Study and Practice|first1=Tom|last1=Atlee|first2=George|last2=Por|publisher=The Co-Intelligence Institute|access-date=2025-12-04}}</ref>
Atlee and Pór suggested that the field of collective intelligence should primarily be seen as a human enterprise in which mind-sets, a willingness to share and an openness to the value of distributed intelligence for the common good are paramount, though group theory and artificial intelligence have something to offer.<ref name=":20">{{cite web|url=http://community-intelligence.com/files/Atlee%20-%20Por%20-%20CI%20as%20a%20Field%20of%20multidisciplinary%20study%20and%20practice%20.pdf|title=Collective Intelligence as a Field of Multi-disciplinary Study and Practice|last=Atlee|first=Tom|website=Community Intelligence|publisher=CommunityIntelligence. Ltd|access-date=11 December 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161220200827/http://community-intelligence.com/files/Atlee%20-%20Por%20-%20CI%20as%20a%20Field%20of%20multidisciplinary%20study%20and%20practice%20.pdf|archive-date=20 December 2016}}</ref> Individuals who respect collective intelligence are confident of their own abilities and recognize that the whole is indeed greater than the sum of any individual parts.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Leimeister |first=Jan Marco |date= 2010|title=Collective Intelligence |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/220618525 |journal=Business & Information Systems Engineering |volume=2 |issue=4 |pages=245–248 |doi=10.1007/s12599-010-0114-8 |s2cid=7575575 |doi-access=free}}{{Dead link|date=October 2023|bot=InternetArchiveBot|fix-attempted=yes}}</ref> Maximizing collective intelligence relies on the ability of an organization to accept and develop "The Golden Suggestion", which is any potentially useful input from any member.<ref name=":21">{{cite web|last=Atlee|first=T.|year=2008|url=http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/tom_atlee/2008/05/15/reflections_on_the_evolution_of_choice_and_collective_intelligence.htm|title=Reflections on the evolution of choice and collective intelligence|publisher=New Media Explorer|access-date=2025-12-17}}</ref> Groupthink often hampers collective intelligence by limiting input to a select few individuals or filtering potential Golden Suggestions without fully developing them to implementation.<ref name=":20" />
thumb|Stigmergic collaboration: a theoretical framework for mass collaboration
In 2008, Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams, proposed that collective intelligence is mass collaboration, and four conditions are needed to enable it.:<ref name="Tapscott, D. 2008" />
*Openness – Sharing ideas and intellectual property: though these resources provide the edge over competitors more benefits accrue from allowing others to share ideas and gain significant improvement and scrutiny through collaboration.<ref name="Tapscott, D. 2008" /> *Peering – Horizontal organization as with the 'opening up' of the Linux program where users are free to modify and develop it provided that they make it available for others. Peering succeeds because it encourages self-organization – a style of production that works more effectively than hierarchical management for certain tasks.<ref name="Tapscott, D. 2008" /> *Sharing – Companies have started to share some ideas while maintaining some degree of control over others, like potential and critical patent rights. Limiting all intellectual property shuts out opportunities, while sharing some expands markets and brings out products faster.<ref name="Tapscott, D. 2008" /> *Acting globally – The advancement in communication technology has prompted the rise of global companies at low overhead costs. The internet is widespread, therefore a globally integrated company has no geographical boundaries and may access new markets, ideas and technology.<ref name="Tapscott, D. 2008">Tapscott, D., & Williams, A. D. (2008). ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=DVomiOeBg_YC&q=%22collective%20intelligence%22 Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111110041604/http://books.google.com/books?id=DVomiOeBg_YC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=%22collective%20intelligence%22 |date=10 November 2011 }}'', USA: Penguin Group</ref>
The idea of collective intelligence also forms the framework for contemporary democratic theories often referred to as epistemic democracy. Epistemic democratic theories refer to the capacity of the populace, either through deliberation or aggregation of knowledge, to track the truth and relies on mechanisms to synthesize and apply collective intelligence. Political theorist Hélène Landemore has written about this in works such as ‘Democratic Reason: Politics, Collective Intelligence, and the Rule of the Many.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Landemore|first1=Helene|title=Democratic Reason: Politics, Collective Intelligence, and the Rule of the Many|date=2013|publisher=Princeton University Press|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=B-6YNnIIlE8C|isbn=978-0-691-15565-4}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.newdemocracy.com.au/docs/researchpapers/HeleneLandemore_DemocraticReason_SSRN-id1449594.pdf|title=Democratic Reason: Why the Many Are Smarter than the Few and Why It Matters|first=Hélène|last=Landemore|publisher=New Democracy|year=2009|access-date=2025-11-28}}</ref>
Collective intelligence was introduced into the machine learning community in the late 20th century,<ref name="Wolpert arXiv:cs/9905004">{{Cite book|last1=Wolpert|first1=David H.|last2=Tumer|first2=Kagan|last3=Frank|first3=Jeremy|date=1999-05-10|chapter=Using Collective Intelligence to Route Internet Traffic|title=Advances in Information Processing Systems |editor1=M. Kearns |editor2=S. Solla |editor2-link=Sara Solla|editor3=D. Cohn |publisher=MIT Press|volume=11|arxiv=cs/9905004}}</ref> and matured into a broader consideration of how to design "collectives" of self-interested adaptive agents to meet a system-wide goal.<ref>{{cite journal|last2=Tumer|first2=Kagan|last1=Wolpert|first1=David|title=Collective Intelligence, Data Routing and Braess' Paradox |volume=16|pages=359–387|date=2004|journal=Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research|doi=10.1613/jair.995 |doi-access=free|url=https://www.jair.org/index.php/jair/article/view/10303/24593 |arxiv=1106.1821}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first1=Kagan|last1=Tumer |first2=David |last2=Wolpert |title=Collectives and the Design of Complex Systems |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pnnkBwAAQBAJ&pg=PR4 |date=2012 |orig-date=2004 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-1-4419-8909-3 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|url=https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mohamed-Mourad-Lafifi/post/How_can_you_measure_the_effectiveness_of_a_control_system/attachment/59d635db79197b8077993588/AS%3A385905853517825%401469018533222/download/COLLECTIVES+AND+COMPLEX+SYSTEM+DESIGN+I.+Kroo.pdf|title=Collectives and complex system design|first=Ilan|last=Kroo|journal=VKI Lecture Series on Optimization Methods & Tools for Multicriteria/Multidisciplinary Design|year=2004|access-date=2025-11-28}}</ref> This was related to single-agent work on "reward shaping"<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ng |first1=A.Y. |last2=Harada |first2=D. |last3=Russell |first3=S.J. |chapter=Policy Invariance Under Reward Transformations: Theory and Application to Reward Shaping |title=ICML '99 Proceedings of the Sixteenth International Conference on Machine Learning |date=1999 |isbn=1-55860-612-2 |pages=278–287 |publisher=Morgan Kaufmann Publishers |url=http://ftp.cs.berkeley.edu/~russell/papers/icml99-shaping.pdf|access-date=2025-12-01}}</ref> and has been taken forward by numerous researchers in the game theory and engineering communities.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Marden |first1=J.R. |last2=Shamma |first2=J.S. |chapter=Game-Theoretic Learning in Distributed Control |chapter-url=https://www.ece.ucsb.edu/~jrmarden/files/Learning-Chapter.pdf |title=Handbook of Dynamic Game Theory |publisher=Springer |date=2017 |isbn=978-3-319-27335-8 |pages=511–546 |doi=10.1007/978-3-319-27335-8_9-1 |hdl=10754/626970 |access-date=8 January 2019 |archive-date=8 January 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190108200817/https://www.ece.ucsb.edu/~jrmarden/files/Learning-Chapter.pdf }}</ref>
==The Wisdom of Crowds== A major contribution to the theory of collective intelligence was made by James Surowiecki in his book ''The Wisdom of Crowds'' (2005), which explores how the aggregation of information from groups of individuals can lead to better decisions than those made by any single member or expert.<ref name="Surowiecki2005"/> Surowiecki identifies three key conditions for a group to display "crowd wisdom": diversity, independence of thought, and decentralization. Under these conditions, collective judgments can be more accurate, innovative, and resilient than those of experts.<ref name="Surowiecki2005"/>
===Empirical studies of Wisdom of Crowds=== Several empirical studies on the wisdom of the crowd support the notion that groups outperform individuals in estimation, decision-making, and coordination tasks when members contribute independent and diverse perspectives. Recent research reinforces and expands upon Surowiecki's findings: Simoiu et al. (2020) conducted large-scale experiments validating that crowd aggregated answers across many domains outperform individual judgments, highlighting crowd consistency and domain-dependent variation.<ref>Simoiu, C., Singer, Y., & Crovella, M. (2020). ''Studying the "Wisdom of Crowds" at Scale''. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. [https://web.stanford.edu/~csimoiu/doc/wisdom-of-crowds.pdf]</ref> Bennett et al. (2021) demonstrated that training enhances collective decision accuracy if independence amongst contributors is maintained.<ref>{{cite journal | last1=Fiechter | first1=J. L. | last2=Kornell | first2=N. | title=How the wisdom of crowds, and of the crowd within, are affected by expertise | journal=Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications | date=2021 | volume=6 | issue=1 | page=5 | doi=10.1186/s41235-021-00273-6 | doi-access=free | pmid=33544255 | pmc=7865038 }}</ref> Mann and Helbing (2022) extended the wisdom of crowds effect to motor tasks, establishing that aggregated group motor actions outperform most individuals.<ref>{{cite journal | last1=Madirolas | first1=Gabriel | last2=Zaghi-Lara | first2=Regina | last3=Gomez-Marin | first3=Alex | last4=Pérez-Escudero | first4=Alfonso | title=The motor Wisdom of the Crowd | journal=Journal of the Royal Society Interface | date=2022 | volume=19 | issue=195 | article-number=20220480 | doi=10.1098/rsif.2022.0480 | pmid=36195116 | pmc=9532022 }}</ref> Navajas et al. (2020) found collective decision-making superior in survival-related tasks, underscoring the robustness of crowd wisdom beyond simple estimation problems.<ref>{{cite journal | last1=Hamada | first1=D. | last2=Nakayama | first2=M. | last3=Saiki | first3=J. | title=Wisdom of crowds and collective decision-making in a survival situation with complex information integration | journal=Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications | date=2020 | volume=5 | issue=1 | page=48 | doi=10.1186/s41235-020-00248-z | doi-access=free | pmid=33057843 | pmc=7561655 }}</ref>
===Democratic decision-making and Wisdom of Crowds=== Carpentras et al. (2025) propose a applying a 'Wisdom of Crowds' type of collective intelligence to large-scale democratic decision-making. They propose coupling peer-production "remixing" (allowing participants to iteratively modify and extend others' proposals) with a distributed voting selection stage to identify high-quality solutions without requiring every participant to review every proposal. Using analytic models, numerical analyses, and three independent agent-based simulations, the authors report that remixing plus distributed voting can scale to very large populations while keeping per-participant time costs low, and that it can outperform purely deliberative or simple crowdsourcing procedures under the paper's modelling assumptions. The authors emphasise that the results are theoretical and simulation-based and note limitations including stylised assumptions about time budgets and utility generation, simplified reviewer behaviour, and the absence of field trials or explicit modelling of strategic/adversarial effects, and therefore call for empirical testing.<ref name="Carpentras2025">{{cite web |last1=Carpentras |first1=Dino |last2=Dailisan |first2=Damian |last3=Carissimo |first3=Cesare |last4=Nebiker |first4=Seraina |last5=Helbing |first5=Dirk |title=The Wisdom of the Democratic Crowd: Allowing Collective Intelligence at Massive Scale |year=2024 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/397018149 |publisher=ETH Zürich |access-date=24 November 2025}}</ref>
===Aggregation and Wisdom of Crowds=== In the study of collective intelligence, aggregation refers to the process of combining multiple individual judgments, signals, or behaviors into a single group-level output, such as a decision, forecast, or solution. Aggregation mechanisms are central to “the wisdom of crowds” phenomena, where the average or otherwise combined estimate of many individuals can be more accurate than that of most individuals or even experts, provided the group has diversity, independence of opinions, and a way to aggregate them (for example, by averaging numerical estimates or voting over alternatives).<ref name="Surowiecki2005"/><ref>{{cite web |title=Wisdom of Crowds |website=Crowd Wisdom Project |date=13 March 2023 |url=https://www.crowdwisdomproject.org/the-wisdom-of-crowds/ |access-date=2025-12-22}}</ref> An example of aggregation is market-based mechanisms, such as prediction markets. These can aggregate dispersed information into prices that approximate consensus probabilistic forecasts of future events, often outperforming many individual forecasters.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Wolfers |first1=Justin |last2=Zitzewitz |first2=Eric |title=Prediction Markets |journal=Journal of Economic Perspectives |volume=18 |issue=2 |pages=107–126 |year=2004 |doi=10.1257/0895330041371321 |url=https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/0895330041371321}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Corgnet |first1=Brice |last2=Deck|first2=Cary|last3=DeSantis |first3=Mark |title=When do security markets aggregate dispersed information? |journal=Management Science |volume=69 |issue=6 |pages=3697–3729 |year=2023 |doi=10.1287/mnsc.2022.4463 |url=https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/10.1287/mnsc.2022.4463|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Models of problem‑solving groups further indicate that aggregation benefits from cognitive and heuristic diversity among members, as diverse groups can collectively explore solution spaces more effectively than homogeneous groups or even high‑ability individuals alone.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Hong |first1=Lu |last2=Page |first2=Scott E. |title=Groups of diverse problem solvers can outperform groups of high-ability problem solvers |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences |volume=101 |issue=46 |pages=16385–16389 |year=2004 |doi=10.1073/pnas.0403723101 |doi-access=free |pmid=15534225 |pmc=528939 |bibcode=2004PNAS..10116385H }}</ref>
===Aggregation beyond Wisdom of Crowds model=== Kameda, Toyokawa and Tindale (2022) review information aggregation mechanisms that extend the classical wisdom of crowds model. The authors distinguish between consensus decision making, where groups aim to reach a common outcome, and combined decision making, where individuals make influenced but independent choices. They identify a range of procedures that can improve collective accuracy beyond simple averaging, including expertise and accuracy weighting, confidence-weighted aggregation, opt-in participation, social-learning rules such as copy-when-uncertain, and cognitive division of labour. The review draws extensively on forecasting tournament evidence, in which large numbers of participants make probabilistic predictions that are scored for accuracy. Results from these tournaments show that diverse teams, calibration training and weighted or extremised aggregation algorithms can achieve higher accuracy than unweighted means. The authors argue that these mechanisms illustrate how collective intelligence can emerge when individual heterogeneity is retained and aggregation rules are designed to reduce correlated errors and information cascades.<ref name="Kameda2022">{{cite journal |last1=Kameda |first1=Tatsuya |last2=Toyokawa |first2=Wataru |last3=Tindale |first3=R. Scott |title=Information aggregation and collective intelligence beyond the wisdom of crowds |journal=Nature Reviews Psychology |year=2022 |volume=1 |issue=6 |pages=345–357 |doi=10.1038/s44159-022-00054-y |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/360187387 |access-date=26 November 2025}}</ref>
===Limitations of the wisdom of crowds=== A notable cautionary study by Lorenz et al. (2011) showed that even mild social influence among group members can undermine the wisdom of crowds effect by reducing diversity of opinions and causing convergence on inaccurate estimates. They identified three main phenomena: the social influence effect reduces diversity without improving accuracy; the range reduction effect shifts the true value toward the periphery of estimate ranges, making the crowd less reliable; and the confidence effect increases individuals' confidence with no corresponding improvement in group accuracy.<ref name="How social influence can undermine">{{cite journal | last1=Lorenz | first1=Jan | last2=Rauhut | first2=Heiko | last3=Schweitzer | first3=Frank | last4=Helbing | first4=Dirk | title=How social influence can undermine the wisdom of crowd effect | journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences | date=2011 | volume=108 | issue=22 | pages=9020–9025 | doi=10.1073/pnas.1008636108 | doi-access=free | pmid=21576485 | pmc=3107299 | bibcode=2011PNAS..108.9020L }}</ref>
Orzechowski et al. (2025) examine limits to the wisdom of crowds by comparing a synthetic population model with ensembles of machine learning models. They show that when individuals (or models) rely on highly correlated information, collective accuracy can decline as group size increases. The authors reproduce this effect using ensembles of decision trees and support vector machines and conclude that dependence and low diversity of inputs can negate the usual benefits of larger groups. This result emphasises the importance of preserving independence and diversity when aggregating many judgments.<ref name="Orzechowski2025">{{cite journal |last1=Orzechowski |first1=Kamil P. |last2=Sienkiewicz |first2=Julian |last3=Fronczak |first3=Agata |last4=Fronczak |first4=Piotr |title=When the crowd gets it wrong – the limits of collective wisdom in machine learning |journal=Scientific Reports |year=2025 |volume=15 |issue=1 |article-number=22139 |doi=10.1038/s41598-025-08273-y |pmid=40596680 |pmc=12216932 |bibcode=2025NatSR..1522139O }}</ref>
== Collective intelligence factor ''c'' == [[File:Scree plot showing percent of explained variance for the first five factors in Woolley et al.'s (2010) two original studies as well as the individual intelligence test for all participants (assessed with Wonderlic Personnel Test).png|thumb|Scree plot showing percent of explained variance for the first factors in Woolley et al.'s two original studies in 2010<ref name=":0"/>]] Initially, researchers attempting to create a metric for collective intelligence called it ‘collective IQ.’ They defined it as ‘a measure of how well people can work together on important challenges – how quickly and intelligently they can anticipate or respond to a situation, leveraging their collective perception, memory, insight, vision, planning, reasoning, foresight, and experience into applicable knowledge.’<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.dougengelbart.org/about/collective-iq.html|title=About Collective IQ - Doug Engelbart Institute|last=Administrator|website=dougengelbart.org|access-date=2016-12-11|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161229024342/http://www.dougengelbart.org/about/collective-iq.html|archive-date=29 December 2016|url-status=live}}</ref> Now, new scientific understanding of collective intelligence defines it as a group's general ability to perform a wide range of tasks.<ref name=":0" />
The definition, operationalization and statistical methods are similar to the psychometric approach of general individual intelligence. Hereby, an individual's performance on a given set of cognitive tasks is used to measure general cognitive ability indicated by the general intelligence factor ''g'' proposed by English psychologist Charles Spearman and extracted via factor analysis.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Spearman|first=Charles, E.|date=1904|title="General intelligence," objectively determined and measured|journal=American Journal of Psychology |volume=15 |issue=2|pages=201–293|doi=10.2307/1412107|jstor=1412107}}</ref> In the same vein as ''g'' serves to display between-individual performance differences on cognitive tasks, collective intelligence research aims to find a parallel intelligence factor for groups {{'}}''c'' factor'<ref name=":0" /> (also called 'collective intelligence factor' (''CI'')<ref name=":4">{{Cite journal|author1=Engel, D. |author2=Woolley, A. W. |author3=Jing, L. X. |author4=Chabris, C. F. |author5= Malone, T. W. |name-list-style=amp |date=2014|title=Reading the Mind in the Eyes or reading between the lines? Theory of Mind predicts collective intelligence equally well online and face-to-face|journal=PLOS ONE |volume=9 |issue=12 |article-number=e115212|doi=10.1371/journal.pone.0115212|pmid=25514387 |pmc=4267836|bibcode=2014PLoSO...9k5212E |doi-access=free }}</ref>) displaying between-group differences on task performance. The collective intelligence score then is used to predict how this same group will perform on any other similar task in the future. Yet tasks, hereby, refer to mental or intellectual tasks performed by small groups<ref name=":0" /> even though the concept is hoped to be transferable to other performances and any groups or crowds reaching from families to companies and even whole cities.<ref name=":7">{{cite journal |last1=Woolley |first1=A. |last2=Malone |first2=T. |title=Defend your research: What makes a team smarter? More women |journal=Harvard Business Review |volume=89 |issue=6 |pages=32–33 |date=June 2011 |pmid=21714385 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/51453001}}</ref> Since individuals' ''g'' factor scores are highly correlated with full-scale IQ scores, which are in turn regarded as good estimates of ''g'',<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal|last=Jensen|first=Arthur, R.|date=1992|title=Understanding g in terms of information processing|journal=Educational Psychology Review |volume=4 |issue=3|pages=271–308|doi=10.1007/bf01417874|s2cid=54739564}}</ref><ref name=":2">{{Cite book|title=The g factor: The science of mental ability.|last=Jensen|first=Arthur, R.|publisher=Praeger|year=1998 |url=https://arthurjensen.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/The-g-factor-the-science-of-mental-ability-Arthur-R.-Jensen.pdf|isbn=978-0-275-96103-9}}</ref> this measurement of collective intelligence can also be seen as an intelligence indicator or quotient respectively for a group (Group-IQ) parallel to an individual's intelligence quotient (IQ) even though the score is not a quotient per se.
Mathematically, ''c'' and ''g'' are both variables summarizing positive correlations among different tasks supposing that performance on one task is comparable with performance on other similar tasks.<ref name=":5">{{cite book |last1=Kamphaus |first1=R.W. |last2=Winsor |first2=A.P. |last3=Rowe |first3=E.W. |last4=Kim |first4=S. |chapter=A history of intelligence test interpretation |editor1-first=D.P. |editor1-last=Flanagan |editor2-first=E.M. |editor2-last=McDonough |edition=4th |title=Contemporary Intellectual Assessment: Theories, Tests, and Issues |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5pxgDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA56 |date=2018 |publisher=Guilford |isbn=978-1-4625-3597-2 |pages=56–72}}</ref> ''c'' thus is a source of variance among groups and can only be considered as a group's standing on the ''c'' factor compared to other groups in a given relevant population.<ref name=":2" /><ref>{{Cite journal|last1=van der Maas|first1=Han L. J.|last2=Dolan|first2=Conor V.|last3=Grasman|first3=Raoul P. P. P.|last4=Wicherts|first4=Jelte M.|last5=Huizenga|first5=Hilde M.|last6=Raijmakers|first6=Maartje E. J.|date=2006-10-01|title=A dynamical model of general intelligence: the positive manifold of intelligence by mutualism|journal=Psychological Review|volume=113|issue=4|pages=842–861|doi=10.1037/0033-295X.113.4.842|pmid=17014305}}</ref> The concept is in contrast to competing hypotheses including other correlational structures to explain group intelligence,<ref name=":0" /> such as a composition out of several equally important but independent factors as found in individual personality research.<ref>{{Cite journal|author1=McCrae, R. R.|author2=Costa Jr., P. T.|date=1987|title=Validation of the Five-Factor Model of Personality Across Instruments and Observers|url=http://webs.wofford.edu/steinmetzkr/teaching/Psy150/Lecture%20PDFs/FiveFactorModel.pdf|journal=Journal of Personality and Social Psychology|volume=52|issue=1|pages=81–90|doi=10.1037/0022-3514.52.1.81|pmid=3820081|bibcode=1987JPSP...52...81M |s2cid=7893185 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190421014207/https://webs.wofford.edu/steinmetzkr/teaching/Psy150/Lecture%20PDFs/FiveFactorModel.pdf|archive-date=21 April 2019|url-status=live}}</ref>
Besides, this scientific idea also aims to explore the causes affecting collective intelligence, such as group size, collaboration tools or group members' interpersonal skills.<ref name=":3">{{cite web|url=http://cci.mit.edu/research_developing.html|title=MIT Center for Collective Intelligence|website=cci.mit.edu|access-date=2016-04-26|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160330091237/http://cci.mit.edu/research_developing.html|archive-date=30 March 2016}}</ref> The MIT Center for Collective Intelligence, for instance, announced the detection of ''The Genome of Collective Intelligence''<ref name=":3" /> as one of its main goals aiming to develop a "taxonomy of organizational building blocks, or genes, that can be combined and recombined to harness the intelligence of crowds".<ref name=":3" />
=== Causes === Individual intelligence is shown to be genetically and environmentally influenced.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Briley|first1=Daniel A.|last2=Tucker-Drob|first2=Elliot M.|date=2014-09-01|title=Genetic and environmental continuity in personality development: a meta-analysis|journal=Psychological Bulletin|volume=140|issue=5|pages=1303–1331|doi=10.1037/a0037091|pmc=4152379|pmid=24956122}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Deary|first1=Ian J.|last2=Spinath|first2=Frank M.|last3=Bates|first3=Timothy C.|date=2006-01-01|title=Genetics of intelligence|journal=European Journal of Human Genetics|volume=14|issue=6|pages=690–700|doi=10.1038/sj.ejhg.5201588|pmid=16721405|doi-access=free}}</ref> Analogously, collective intelligence research aims to explore reasons why certain groups perform more intelligently than other groups given that ''c'' is just moderately correlated with the intelligence of individual group members.<ref name=":0" /> According to Woolley et al.'s results, neither team cohesion nor motivation or satisfaction is correlated with ''c''. However, they claim that three factors were found as significant correlates: the variance in the number of speaking turns, group members' average social sensitivity and the proportion of females. All three had similar predictive power for ''c'', but only social sensitivity was statistically significant (b=0.33, P=0.05).<ref name=":0" />
The number of speaking turns indicates that "groups where a few people dominated the conversation were less collectively intelligent than those with a more equal distribution of conversational turn-taking".<ref name=":4" /> Providing multiple team members with the chance to speak up therefore makes a group more intelligent.<ref name=":0" />
Group members' social sensitivity was measured via the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test<ref name=":6">{{Cite journal|vauthors=Baron-Cohen S, Wheelwright S, Hill J, Raste Y, Plumb I |date=2001|title=The ''Reading the Mind in the Eyes'' Test revised version: a study with normal adults, and adults with Asperger syndrome or high-functioning autism|journal=Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry |volume=42 |issue=2|pages=241–251|article-number=S0021963001006643 |doi=10.1017/s0021963001006643|pmid=11280420}}</ref> (RME) and correlated .26 with ''c''.<ref name=":0" /> This test asks participants to detect thinking or feeling expressed in other peoples' eyes presented on pictures and is assessed in multiple choice format. The test aims to measure peoples' theory of mind (ToM), also called 'mentalizing'<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Apperly|first=Ian A.|date=2012-05-01|title=What is "theory of mind"? Concepts, cognitive processes and individual differences|journal=The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology|volume=65|issue=5|pages=825–839|doi=10.1080/17470218.2012.676055|pmid=22533318|s2cid=7212563}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Baron-Cohen | first1 = Simon | last2 = Leslie | first2 = Alan M. | last3 = Frith | first3 = Uta | title = Does the autistic child have a "theory of mind"? | journal = Cognition | volume = 21 | issue = 1 | pages = 37–46 | doi = 10.1016/0010-0277(85)90022-8 | pmid = 2934210 | date = October 1985 | s2cid = 14955234}} [https://web.archive.org/web/20170928145836/http://ruccs.rutgers.edu/images/personal-alan-leslie/publications/Baron-Cohen%20Leslie%20%26%20Frith%201985.pdf Pdf.]</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Flavell|first=J. H.|date=1999-01-01|title=Cognitive development: children's knowledge about the mind|journal=Annual Review of Psychology|volume=50|pages=21–45|doi=10.1146/annurev.psych.50.1.21|pmid=10074674}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Premack|first1=David|last2=Woodruff|first2=Guy|date=1978-12-01|title=Does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind?|journal=Behavioral and Brain Sciences|volume=1|issue=4|pages=515–526|doi=10.1017/S0140525X00076512|doi-access=free}}</ref> or 'mind reading',<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Heyes|first1=Cecilia M.|last2=Frith|first2=Chris D.|date=2014-06-20|title=The cultural evolution of mind reading|journal=Science|volume=344|issue=6190|article-number=1243091|doi=10.1126/science.1243091|pmid=24948740|s2cid=3139981}}</ref> which refers to the ability to attribute mental states, such as beliefs, desires or intents, to other people and in how far people understand that others have beliefs, desires, intentions or perspectives different from their own ones.<ref name=":6" /> RME is a ToM test for adults<ref name=":6" /> that shows sufficient test-retest reliability<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Hallerbäck|first1=Maria Unenge|last2=Lugnegård|first2=Tove|last3=Hjärthag|first3=Fredrik|last4=Gillberg|first4=Christopher|date=2009-03-01|title=The Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test: Test–retest reliability of a Swedish version|journal=Cognitive Neuropsychiatry|volume=14|issue=2|pages=127–143|doi=10.1080/13546800902901518|pmid=19370436|s2cid=28946179}}</ref> and constantly differentiates control groups from individuals with functional autism or Asperger Syndrome.<ref name=":6" /> It is one of the most widely accepted and well-validated tests for ToM within adults.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Pinkham|first1=Amy E.|last2=Penn|first2=David L.|last3=Green|first3=Michael F.|last4=Buck|first4=Benjamin|last5=Healey|first5=Kristin|last6=Harvey|first6=Philip D.|date=2014-07-01|title=The Social Cognition Psychometric Evaluation Study: Results of the Expert Survey and RAND Panel|url= http://schizophreniabulletin.oxfordjournals.org/content/40/4/813|journal=Schizophrenia Bulletin|volume=40|issue=4|pages=813–823|doi=10.1093/schbul/sbt081|pmc=4059426|pmid=23728248|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161101212140/http://schizophreniabulletin.oxfordjournals.org/content/40/4/813|archive-date=1 November 2016|url-status=live}}</ref> ToM can be regarded as an associated subset of skills and abilities within the broader concept of emotional intelligence.<ref name=":4" /><ref name="Yip 48–55">{{Cite journal|last1=Yip|first1=Jeremy A.|last2=Côté|first2=Stéphane|date=2013-01-01|title=The Emotionally Intelligent Decision Maker Emotion-Understanding Ability Reduces the Effect of Incidental Anxiety on Risk Taking|journal=Psychological Science|volume=24|issue=1|pages=48–55|doi=10.1177/0956797612450031|pmid=23221020|s2cid=33438475}}</ref>
The proportion of females as a predictor of ''c'' was '''largely mediated by social sensitivity (Sobel z = 1.93, P= 0.03)'''<ref name=":0" /> which is in line with previous research showing that women score higher on social sensitivity tests.<ref name=":6" /> While a mediation, statistically speaking, clarifies the mechanism underlying the relationship between a dependent and an independent variable,<ref>{{cite book |first=D.P. |last=MacKinnon |title=Introduction to Statistical Mediation Analysis |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vHUVYKfrdtYC |year=2008 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-8058-3974-6}}</ref> Woolley agreed in an interview with the ''Harvard Business Review'' that these findings are saying that groups of women are smarter than groups of men.<ref name=":7" /> However, she relativizes this stating that the actual important thing is the high social sensitivity of group members.<ref name=":7" />
Current theory holds that the collective intelligence factor ''c'' is an emergent property resulting from bottom-up as well as top-down processes.<ref name=":11">{{cite journal | last1=Woolley | first1=Anita Williams | last2=Aggarwal | first2=Ishani | last3=Malone | first3=Thomas W. | title=Collective Intelligence and Group Performance | journal=Current Directions in Psychological Science | publisher=SAGE Publications | volume=24 | issue=6 | year=2015 | issn=0963-7214 | doi=10.1177/0963721415599543 | pages=420–424 | s2cid=146673541 | url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286512331}}</ref> The bottom-up processes cover aggregated group-member characteristics. The top-down processes cover group structures and norms that influence a group's way of collaborating and coordinating.<ref name=":11" />
=== Processes === thumb|Predictors for the collective intelligence factor ''c''. Suggested by Woolley, Aggarwal & Malone<ref name=":11"/> (2015)
==== Top-down processes ==== Top-down processes cover group interaction, such as structures, processes, and norms.<ref name=":11"/> An example of such top-down processes is conversational turn-taking.<ref name=":0" /> Research further suggest that collectively intelligent groups communicate more in general as well as more equally; same applies for participation and is shown for face-to-face as well as online groups communicating only via writing.<ref name=":4" /><ref name=":9" />
==== Bottom-up processes ==== Bottom-up processes include group composition,<ref name=":11"/> namely the characteristics of group members which are aggregated to the team level.<ref name=":11" /> An example of such bottom-up processes is the average social sensitivity or the average and maximum intelligence scores of group members.<ref name=":0" /> Furthermore, collective intelligence was found to be related to a group's cognitive diversity<ref name=":12">{{Cite journal|author1=Aggarwal, I. |author2=Woolley, A. W. |author3=Chabris, C. F. |author4= Malone, T. W. |name-list-style=amp |date=2015|title=Cognitive diversity, collective intelligence, and learning in teams.|journal=Paper Presented at the 2015 Collective Intelligence Conference, Santa Clara, CA}}</ref> including thinking styles and perspectives.<ref>{{Cite journal|author1=Kozhevnikov, M. |author2=Evans, C. |author3= Kosslyn, S. M. |name-list-style=amp |date=2014 |title=Cognitive style as environmentally sensitive individual differences in cognition: A modern synthesis and applications in education, business, and management|journal=Psychological Science in the Public Interest |volume=15 |issue=1 |pages=3–33 |doi=10.1177/1529100614525555 |pmid=26171827 |s2cid=20559112 |hdl=10871/15317 |hdl-access=free }}</ref> Groups that are moderately diverse in cognitive style have higher collective intelligence than those who are very similar in cognitive style or very different. Consequently, groups where members are too similar to each other lack the variety of perspectives and skills needed to perform well. On the other hand, groups whose members are too different seem to have difficulties in communicating and coordinating effectively.<ref name=":12" />
==== Serial vs Parallel processes ====
For most of human history, collective intelligence was confined to small tribal groups in which opinions were aggregated through real-time parallel interactions among members.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Moral tribes: emotion, reason, and the gap between us and them |last=Greene |first=Joshua David |isbn=978-0-14-312605-8 |oclc=871336785 |date=2014-12-30 |publisher=Penguin |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/moraltribesemoti0000gree}}</ref> In modern times, mass communication, mass media, and networking technologies have enabled collective intelligence to span massive groups, distributed across continents and time-zones. To accommodate this shift in scale, collective intelligence in large-scale groups been dominated by serialized polling processes such as aggregating up-votes, likes, and ratings over time. While modern systems benefit from larger group size, the serialized process has been found to introduce substantial noise that distorts the collective output of the group. In one significant study of serialized collective intelligence, it was found that the first vote contributed to a serialized voting system can distort the final result by 34%.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Muchnik|first1=Lev|last2=Aral|first2=Sinan|last3=Taylor|first3=Sean J.|date=2013-08-09|title=Social Influence Bias: A Randomized Experiment|journal=Science|volume=341|issue=6146|pages=647–651|doi=10.1126/science.1240466|issn=0036-8075|pmid=23929980|bibcode=2013Sci...341..647M|s2cid=15775672}}</ref>
To address the problems of serialized aggregation of input among large-scale groups, recent advancements collective intelligence have worked to replace serialized votes, polls, and markets, with parallel systems such as "human swarms" modeled after synchronous swarms in nature.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20161215-why-bees-could-be-the-secret-to-superhuman-intelligence|title=Why bees could be the secret to superhuman intelligence|last=Oxenham|first=Simon|date=15 December 2016 |access-date=2017-05-23|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170525175211/http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20161215-why-bees-could-be-the-secret-to-superhuman-intelligence|archive-date=25 May 2017|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Rosenberg |first1=L. |last2=Baltaxe|first2=D.|last3=Pescetelli|first3=N.|title=2016 Swarm/Human Blended Intelligence Workshop (SHBI) |chapter=Crowds vs swarms, a comparison of intelligence |date=2016-10-01|pages=1–4|doi=10.1109/SHBI.2016.7780278|isbn=978-1-5090-3502-1|s2cid=12725324}}</ref> Based on natural process of Swarm Intelligence, these artificial swarms of networked humans enable participants to work together in parallel to answer questions and make predictions as an emergent collective intelligence.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Metcalf|first1=Lynn|last2=Askay|first2=David A.|last3=Rosenberg|first3=Louis B.|date=2019|title=Keeping Humans in the Loop: Pooling Knowledge through Artificial Swarm Intelligence to Improve Business Decision Making|journal=California Management Review|volume=61|issue=4|pages=84–109 |doi=10.1177/0008125619862256|s2cid=202323483 |issn=0008-1256 |url=https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1105&context=it_fac}}</ref><ref>{{cite arXiv |last1=Salminen |first1=Juho |title=Collective Intelligence in Humans: A Literature Review |date=2012 |class=cs.CY |eprint=1204.3401}}</ref> In one high-profile example, a human swarm challenge by CBS Interactive to predict the Kentucky Derby. The swarm correctly predicted the first four horses, in order, defying 542–1 odds and turning a $20 bet into $10,800.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.newsweek.com/artificial-intelligence-turns-20-11000-kentucky-derby-bet-457783|title=Artificial intelligence turns $20 into $11,000 in Kentucky Derby bet|date=2016-05-10|work=Newsweek|access-date=2017-05-23|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160604063846/http://www.newsweek.com/artificial-intelligence-turns-20-11000-kentucky-derby-bet-457783|archive-date=4 June 2016|url-status=live}}</ref>
The value of parallel collective intelligence was demonstrated in medical applications by researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine and Unanimous AI in a set of published studies wherein groups of human doctors were connected by real-time swarming algorithms and tasked with diagnosing chest x-rays for the presence of pneumonia.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://spectrum.ieee.org/ai-human-hive-mind-diagnoses-pneumonia|title=AI-Human "Hive Mind" Diagnoses Pneumonia|last=Scudellari|first=Megan|date=2018-09-13|website=IEEE Spectrum: Technology, Engineering, and Science News|access-date=2019-07-20|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190720160349/https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-human-os/biomedical/diagnostics/ai-human-hive-mind-diagnoses-pneumonia|archive-date=20 July 2019|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.stanforddaily.com/2018/09/27/artificial-swarm-intelligence-diagnoses-pneumonia-better-than-individual-computer-or-doctor/|title=Artificial swarm intelligence diagnoses pneumonia better than individual computer or doctor|last=Liu|first=Fan|date=2018-09-27|website=The Stanford Daily|access-date=2019-07-20|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190720160348/https://www.stanforddaily.com/2018/09/27/artificial-swarm-intelligence-diagnoses-pneumonia-better-than-individual-computer-or-doctor/|archive-date=20 July 2019|url-status=live}}</ref> When working together as "human swarms", the groups of experienced radiologists demonstrated a 33% reduction in diagnostic errors as compared to traditional methods.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.radiologytoday.net/archive/rt0119p12.shtml|title=A Swarm of Insight – Radiology Today Magazine|website=radiologytoday.net|access-date=2019-07-20|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190720160350/https://www.radiologytoday.net/archive/rt0119p12.shtml|archive-date=20 July 2019|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last1=Rosenberg|first1=Louis|last2=Lungren|first2=Matthew|last3=Halabi|first3=Safwan|last4=Willcox|first4=Gregg|last5=Baltaxe |first5=David |last6=Lyons|first6=Mimi|title=2018 IEEE 9th Annual Information Technology, Electronics and Mobile Communication Conference (IEMCON) |chapter=Artificial Swarm Intelligence employed to Amplify Diagnostic Accuracy in Radiology |date=November 2018|location=Vancouver, BC |publisher=IEEE |pages=1186–1191 |doi=10.1109/IEMCON.2018.8614883|isbn=978-1-5386-7266-2|s2cid=58675679}}</ref>
=== Evidence === alt=Standardized Regression Coefficients for the collective intelligence factor ''c'' and group member intelligence regressed on the two criterion tasks as found in Woolley et al.'s (2010) two original studies.|thumb|Standardized Regression Coefficients for the collective intelligence factor ''c'' as found in Woolley et al.'s<ref name=":0"/> (2010) two original studies. ''c'' and average (maximum) member intelligence scores are regressed on the criterion tasks. Woolley, Chabris, Pentland, Hashmi, & Malone (2010),<ref name=":0" /> the originators of this scientific understanding of collective intelligence, found a single statistical factor for collective intelligence in their research across 192 groups with people randomly recruited from the public. In Woolley et al.'s two initial studies, groups worked together on different tasks from the McGrath Task Circumplex,<ref>{{cite book |first=J.E. |last=McGrath |title=Groups: Interaction and Performance |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4pzZAAAAMAAJ |year=1984 |publisher=Prentice-Hall |isbn=978-0-13-365700-5}}</ref> a well-established taxonomy of group tasks. Tasks were chosen from all four quadrants of the circumplex and included visual puzzles, brainstorming, making collective moral judgments, and negotiating over limited resources. The results in these tasks were taken to conduct a factor analysis. Both studies showed support for a general collective intelligence factor ''c'' underlying differences in group performance with an initial eigenvalue accounting for 43% (44% in study 2) of the variance, whereas the next factor accounted for only 18% (20%). That fits the range normally found in research regarding a general individual intelligence factor ''g'' typically accounting for 40% to 50% percent of between-individual performance differences on cognitive tests.<ref name=":5" />
Afterwards, a more complex task was solved by each group to determine whether ''c'' factor scores predict performance on tasks beyond the original test. Criterion tasks were playing checkers (draughts) against a standardized computer in the first and a complex architectural design task in the second study. In a regression analysis using both individual intelligence of group members and ''c'' to predict performance on the criterion tasks, ''c'' had a significant effect, but average and maximum individual intelligence had not. While average (r=0.15, P=0.04) and maximum intelligence (r=0.19, P=0.008) of individual group members were moderately correlated with ''c'', ''c'' was still a much better predictor of the criterion tasks. According to Woolley et al., this supports the existence of a collective intelligence factor ''c,'' because it demonstrates an effect over and beyond group members' individual intelligence and thus that ''c'' is more than just the aggregation of the individual IQs or the influence of the group member with the highest IQ.<ref name=":0" />
Engel et al.<ref name=":4" /> (2014) replicated Woolley et al.'s findings applying an accelerated battery of tasks with a first factor in the factor analysis explaining 49% of the between-group variance in performance with the following factors explaining less than half of this amount. Moreover, they found a similar result for groups working together online communicating only via text and confirmed the role of female proportion and social sensitivity in causing collective intelligence in both cases. Similarly to Woolley et al.,<ref name=":0" /> they also measured social sensitivity with the RME which is actually meant to measure people's ability to detect mental states in other peoples' eyes. The online collaborating participants, however, did neither know nor see each other at all. The authors conclude that scores on the RME must be related to a broader set of abilities of social reasoning than only drawing inferences from other people's eye expressions.<ref name=":13">{{Cite book|last1=Engel|first1=David|last2=Woolley|first2=Anita Williams|last3=Aggarwal|first3=Ishani|last4=Chabris|first4=Christopher F.|last5=Takahashi|first5=Masamichi|last6=Nemoto|first6=Keiichi|last7=Kaiser|first7=Carolin|last8=Kim|first8=Young Ji|last9=Malone|first9=Thomas W.|title=Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems |chapter=Collective Intelligence in Computer-Mediated Collaboration Emerges in Different Contexts and Cultures |date=2015-01-01|series=CHI '15|location=New York, NY, US|publisher=ACM|pages=3769–3778|doi=10.1145/2702123.2702259 |doi-access=free |isbn=978-1-4503-3145-6|s2cid=14303201}}</ref>
A collective intelligence factor ''c'' in the sense of Woolley et al.<ref name=":0" /> was further found in groups of MBA students working together over the course of a semester,<ref name=":8">{{Cite journal|author1=Aggarwal, I. |author2= Woolley, A.W. |name-list-style=amp |date=2014|title=The effects of cognitive diversity on collective intelligence and team learning.|journal=Symposium Presented at the 50th Meeting of the Society of Experimental Social Psychology, Columbus, OH}}</ref> in online gaming groups<ref name=":9">{{Cite journal|author1=Kim, Y. J. |author2=Engel, D. |author3=Woolley, A. W. |author4=Lin, J. |author5=McArthur, N. |author6= Malone, T. W. |name-list-style=amp |date=2015|title=Work together, play smart: Collective intelligence in League of Legends teams|journal=Paper Presented at the 2015 Collective Intelligence Conference, Santa Clara, CA}}</ref> as well as in groups from different cultures<ref name=":10">{{Cite book|author1=Engel, D. |author2=Woolley, A. W. |author3=Aggarwal, I. |author4=Chabris, C. F. |author5=Takahashi, M. |author6=Nemoto, K. |author7=Malone, T. W. |title=Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems |chapter=Collective Intelligence in Computer-Mediated Collaboration Emerges in Different Contexts and Cultures |date=2015|chapter-url=https://dl.acm.org/ft_gateway.cfm?id=2702259&type=pdf|pages=3769–3778 |doi=10.1145/2702123.2702259 |isbn=978-1-4503-3145-6 |s2cid=14303201 |doi-access=free }}</ref> and groups in different contexts in terms of short-term versus long-term groups.<ref name=":10" /> None of these investigations considered team members' individual intelligence scores as control variables.<ref name=":9" /><ref name=":8" /><ref name=":10" />
=== Predictive validity === Next to predicting a group's performance on more complex criterion tasks as shown in the original experiments,<ref name=":0" /> the collective intelligence factor ''c'' was also found to predict group performance in diverse tasks in MBA classes lasting over several months.<ref name=":8" /> Thereby, highly collectively intelligent groups earned significantly higher scores on their group assignments although their members did not do any better on other individually performed assignments. Moreover, highly collective intelligent teams improved performance over time suggesting that more collectively intelligent teams learn better.<ref name=":8" /> This is another potential parallel to individual intelligence where more intelligent people are found to acquire new material quicker.<ref name=":2" /><ref>{{Cite journal|author1=Schmidt, F.L. |author2= Hunter, J.E. |name-list-style=amp |date=1998|title=The validity and utility of selection methods in personnel psychology: Practical and theoretical implications of 85 years of research findings|journal=Psychological Bulletin |volume=124 |issue= 2 |pages=262–274|doi=10.1037/0033-2909.124.2.262|citeseerx= 10.1.1.172.1733 |s2cid= 16429503 }}</ref>
Individual intelligence can be used to predict plenty of life outcomes from school attainment<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Nathan, B.|date=1997|title=Intelligence, Schooling, and Society|journal=American Psychologist |volume=52 |issue=10 |pages=1046–1050|doi=10.1037/0003-066x.52.10.1046}}</ref> and career success<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Strenze|first=Tarmo|date=2007-09-01|title=Intelligence and socioeconomic success: A meta-analytic review of longitudinal research|journal=Intelligence|volume=35|issue=5|pages=401–426|doi=10.1016/j.intell.2006.09.004}}</ref> to health outcomes<ref name=":14">{{Cite journal |author1=Deary, I.J. |author2=Weiss, A. |author3=Batty, D.G. |name-list-style=amp |date=2010 |title=Intelligence and Personality as Predictors of Illness and Death. How Researchers in Differential Psychology and Chronic Disease Epidemiology Are Collaborating to Understand and Address Health Inequalities |journal=Psychological Science in the Public Interest |volume=11 |issue=2 |pages=53–79 |doi=10.1177/1529100610387081 |pmid=26168413 |hdl=20.500.11820/134d66d9-98db-447a-a8b2-5b019b96a7bb |s2cid=13106622 |url=https://www.pure.ed.ac.uk/ws/files/8895401/intelligence_and_personality_as_predictors.pdf |access-date=9 December 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180719215714/https://www.pure.ed.ac.uk/ws/files/8895401/intelligence_and_personality_as_predictors.pdf |archive-date=19 July 2018 |url-status=live }}</ref> and even mortality.<ref name=":14" /> Whether collective intelligence is able to predict other outcomes besides group performance on mental tasks has still to be investigated.
=== Potential connections to individual intelligence === Gladwell<ref>{{Cite book|title=Outliers. The Story of Success|last=Gladwell, M.|publisher=Little, Brown and Company|year=2008|isbn=978-0-316-01792-3|location=New York, NY|url=https://archive.org/details/outliersstoryofs00glad}}</ref> (2008) showed that the relationship between individual IQ and success works only to a certain point and that additional IQ points over an estimate of IQ 120 do not translate into real life advantages. If a similar border exists for Group-IQ or if advantages are linear and infinite, has still to be explored. Similarly, demand for further research on possible connections of individual and collective intelligence exists within plenty of other potentially transferable logics of individual intelligence, such as, for instance, the development over time<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Hedden|first1=Trey|last2=Gabrieli|first2=John D. E.|date=2004-02-01|title=Insights into the ageing mind: a view from cognitive neuroscience|journal=Nature Reviews. Neuroscience|volume=5|issue=2|pages=87–96|doi=10.1038/nrn1323|pmid=14735112|s2cid=9398942}}</ref> or the question of improving intelligence.<ref name=":15">{{Cite journal|last1=Shipstead|first1=Zach|last2=Redick|first2=Thomas S|last3=Engle|first3=Randall W.|date=2010-10-01|title=Does working memory training generalize?|journal=Psychologica Belgica|volume=50|issue=3–4|doi=10.5334/pb-50-3-4-245|page=245|doi-access=free}}</ref><ref name=":16">{{Cite journal|author1=Buschkuehl, M. |author2=Jaeggi, S.M.|date=2010|title=Improving intelligence a literature review|journal=Swiss Medical Weekly |volume=140 |issue=19 |pages=266–72|doi=10.4414/smw.2010.12852 |pmid=20349365|s2cid=5921557 |doi-access=free }}</ref> Whereas it is controversial whether human intelligence can be enhanced via training,<ref name=":15" /><ref name=":16" /> a group's collective intelligence potentially offers simpler opportunities for improvement by exchanging team members or implementing structures and technologies.<ref name=":7" /> Moreover, social sensitivity was found to be, at least temporarily, improvable by reading literary fiction<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Kidd|first1=David Comer|last2=Castano|first2=Emanuele|date=2013-10-18|title=Reading Literary Fiction Improves Theory of Mind|journal=Science|volume=342|issue=6156|pages=377–380|doi=10.1126/science.1239918|pmid=24091705|bibcode=2013Sci...342..377K|s2cid=5929573|hdl=11572/289277|hdl-access=free}}</ref> as well as watching drama movies.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Black|first1=Jessica|last2=Barnes|first2=Jennifer L.|title=Fiction and social cognition: The effect of viewing award-winning television dramas on theory of mind|journal=Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts|volume=9|issue=4|pages=423–429|doi=10.1037/aca0000031|year=2015}}</ref> In how far such training ultimately improves collective intelligence through social sensitivity remains an open question.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Handbook of Collective Intelligence|author1=Malone, T. W. |author2= Bernstein, M.S. |name-list-style=amp |publisher=MIT Press|year=2015|location=Cambridge, MA}}</ref>
There are further more advanced concepts and factor models attempting to explain individual cognitive ability including the categorization of intelligence in fluid and crystallized intelligence<ref>{{Cite book|title=Models of intelligence. In R.L. Linn (Ed.), Intelligence: Measurement, theory, and public policy (pp. 29–73).|last=Horn, J.|publisher=University of Illinois Press.|year=1989|location=Urbana, IL}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=R.B. |last=Cattell |title=Intelligence: Its Structure, Growth and Action |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=flX770mG2HcC |date=1 July 1987 |publisher=Elsevier |isbn=978-0-08-086689-5 |edition=Revised |series=Advances in Psychology |volume=35}}</ref> or the hierarchical model of intelligence differences.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Human cognitive abilities: A survey of factor analytic studies.|last=Carroll, J.B.|publisher=Cambridge University Press.|year=1993|isbn=978-0-521-38712-5|location=Cambridge, England|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jp9dt4_0_cIC}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Johnson|first1=Wendy|last2=Bouchard Jr.|first2=Thomas J.|date=2005-07-01|title=The structure of human intelligence: It is verbal, perceptual, and image rotation (VPR), not fluid and crystallized|journal=Intelligence|volume=33|issue=4|pages=393–416|doi=10.1016/j.intell.2004.12.002}}</ref> Further supplementing explanations and conceptualizations for the factor structure of the '''Genomes''' of collective intelligence besides a general {{'}}''c'' factor', though, are missing yet.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://cci.mit.edu/research_developing.html|title=MIT Center for Collective Intelligence|website=cci.mit.edu|access-date=2016-04-27|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160330091237/http://cci.mit.edu/research_developing.html|archive-date=30 March 2016}}</ref>
=== Controversies and Counter-Evidence for Collective Intelligence === Other scholars explain team performance by aggregating team members' general intelligence to the team level<ref>{{Cite journal|last=LePine|first=Jeffery A.|title=Adaptation of Teams in Response to Unforeseen Change: Effects of Goal Difficulty and Team Composition in Terms of Cognitive Ability and Goal Orientation|journal=Journal of Applied Psychology|volume=90|issue=6|pages=1153–1167|doi=10.1037/0021-9010.90.6.1153|year=2005|pmid=16316271}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Tziner|first1=Aharon|last2=Eden|first2=Dov|title=Effects of crew composition on crew performance: Does the whole equal the sum of its parts?|journal=Journal of Applied Psychology|volume=70|issue=1|pages=85–93|doi=10.1037/0021-9010.70.1.85|year=1985}}</ref> instead of building an own overall collective intelligence measure. Devine and Philips<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Devine|first1=Dennis J.|last2=Philips|first2=Jennifer L.|date=2001-10-01|title=Do Smarter Teams Do Better A Meta-Analysis of Cognitive Ability and Team Performance|journal=Small Group Research|volume=32|issue=5|pages=507–532|doi=10.1177/104649640103200501|s2cid=145635205}}</ref> (2001) showed in a meta-analysis that mean cognitive ability predicts team performance in laboratory settings (0.37) as well as field settings (0.14) – note that this is only a small effect. Suggesting a strong dependence on the relevant tasks, other scholars showed that tasks requiring a high degree of communication and cooperation are found to be most influenced by the team member with the lowest cognitive ability.<ref>{{Cite journal|author1=O'Brien, G. |author2=Owens, A.|date=1969|title=Effects of organizational structure on correlations between member abilities and group productivity|journal=Journal of Applied Psychology |volume=53 |issue=6|pages=525–530|doi=10.1037/h0028659}}</ref> Tasks in which selecting the best team member is the most successful strategy, are shown to be most influenced by the member with the highest cognitive ability.<ref name="Yip 48–55"/>
Since Woolley et al.'s<ref name=":0" /> results do not show any influence of group satisfaction, group cohesiveness, or motivation, they, at least implicitly, challenge these concepts regarding the importance for group performance in general and thus contrast meta-analytically proven evidence concerning the positive effects of group cohesion,<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Evans|first1=Charles R.|last2=Dion|first2=Kenneth L.|date=1991-05-01|title=Group Cohesion and Performance A Meta-Analysis|journal=Small Group Research|volume=22|issue=2|pages=175–186|doi=10.1177/1046496491222002|s2cid=145344583}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Gully|first1=Stanley M.|last2=Devine|first2=Dennis J.|last3=Whitney|first3=David J.|date=2012-12-01|title=A Meta-Analysis of Cohesion and Performance Effects of Level of Analysis and Task Interdependence|journal=Small Group Research|volume=43|issue=6|pages=702–725|doi=10.1177/1046496412468069|s2cid=220319732}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Beal|first1=Daniel J.|last2=Cohen|first2=Robin R.|last3=Burke|first3=Michael J.|last4=McLendon|first4=Christy L.|title=Cohesion and Performance in Groups: A Meta-Analytic Clarification of Construct Relations.|journal=Journal of Applied Psychology|volume=88|issue=6|pages=989–1004|doi=10.1037/0021-9010.88.6.989|pmid=14640811|date=December 2003|s2cid=1342307 }}</ref> motivation<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=O'leary-kelly|first1=Anne M.|last2=Martocchio|first2=Joseph J.|last3=Frink|first3=Dwight D.|date=1994-10-01|title=A Review of the Influence of Group Goals on Group Performance|url=http://amj.aom.org/content/37/5/1285|journal=Academy of Management Journal|volume=37|issue=5|pages=1285–1301|doi=10.2307/256673|jstor=256673}}{{Dead link|date=December 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Kleingeld|first1=Ad|last2=Mierlo|first2=Heleen van|last3=Arends|first3=Lidia|title=The effect of goal setting on group performance: A meta-analysis|journal=Journal of Applied Psychology|volume=96|issue=6|pages=1289–1304|doi=10.1037/a0024315|pmid=21744940|year=2011|s2cid=22191705 }}</ref> and satisfaction<ref>{{Cite journal|author1=Duffy, M. K. |author2=Shaw, J. D. |author3= Stark, E. M. |name-list-style=amp |date=2000|title=Performance and satisfaction in conflicted interdependent groups: When and how does selfesteem make a difference?|journal=Academy of Management Journal |volume=43 |issue=4 |pages=772–782|jstor=1556367 }}</ref> on group performance.
Credé and Howardson (2017) claimed that the evidence for collective intelligence in the body of work by Woolley et al.<ref name=":0" /> was weak and may contain errors or misunderstandings of the data.<ref name=":30">{{Cite journal |last1=Credé |first1=Marcus |last2=Howardson |first2=Garett |title=The Structure of Group Task Performance—A Second Look at "Collective Intelligence": Comment on Woolley et al. (2010) |url=https://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2017-45139-001.pdf |access-date=2024-02-20 |journal=The Journal of Applied Psychology |date=2017 |volume=102 |issue=10 |pages=1483–1492 |doi=10.1037/apl0000176 |pmid=29016184 }}</ref> For example, Woolley et al.<ref name=":0" /> stated in their findings that the maximum individual score on the Wonderlic Personnel Test (WPT;{{citation needed|date=December 2025}} an individual intelligence test used in their research) was 39, but also that the maximum averaged team score on the same test was also a 39. This indicates that their sample seemingly had a team composed entirely of people who, individually, got exactly the same score on the WPT, and also all happened to all have achieved the highest scores on the WPT found in Woolley et al.<ref name=":0" /> Credé and Howardson claimed this was unlikely to occur.<ref name=":30" /> Other anomalies found in the data indicate that results may be driven in part by low-effort responding.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":30" /> For instance, Woolley et al.'s<ref name=":0" /> data indicates that at least one team scored a 0 on a task in which they were given 10 minutes to come up with as many uses for a brick as possible. Similarly, Woolley et al.'s<ref name=":0" /> data show that at least one team had an average score of 8 out of 50 on the WPT. Credé and Howardson claimed that the probability of this occurring with study participants who are putting forth effort is nearly zero.<ref name=":30" /> This may explain why Woolley et al.<ref name=":0" /> found that the group's individual intelligence scores were not predictive of performance. In addition, low effort on tasks in human subjects research may inflate evidence for a supposed collective intelligence factor based on similarity of performance across tasks, because a team's low effort on one research task may generalize to low effort across many tasks.<ref name=":30" /><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Credé |first=Marcus |date=August 2010 |title=Random Responding as a Threat to the Validity of Effect Size Estimates in Correlational Research |url=http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0013164410366686 |journal=Educational and Psychological Measurement|volume=70 |issue=4 |pages=596–612 |doi=10.1177/0013164410366686 |s2cid=145075745 |issn=0013-1644|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Huang |first1=J. L. |last2=Liu |first2=M. |last3=Bowling |first3=N. A. |date=2015 |title=Insufficient effort responding: Examining an insidious confound in survey data. |url=https://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2014-55441-001.html |journal=Journal of Applied Psychology |volume=100 |issue=3 |pages=828–845 |doi=10.1037/a0038510 |pmid=25495093 |via=APA PsychNet}}</ref> It is notable that such a phenomenon is present merely because of the low stakes setting of laboratory research for research participants and not because it reflects how teams operate in organizations.<ref name=":30" />
Woolley, Kim and Malone (2018) responded to the methodological critiques of the collective intelligence factor (c) raised by Credé and Howardson, reporting re-analyses and extensions of their earlier work to clarify measurement procedures and robustness. Using larger and re-examined datasets, additional task controls and alternative scoring approaches, they showed that group-level predictors originally associated with c, such as social sensitivity, conversational turn-taking and proportion of women in the group, continue to account for variance in group performance across diverse tasks after addressing the specific concerns raised by critics. The authors emphasised that c is not a simple analogue of individual intelligence but a multi-faceted, task-dependent construct that requires careful operationalisation. They recommend standardized batteries, transparency in task scoring, and further replication with varied group compositions and real-world tasks.<ref name="Woolley2018">{{cite web |last1=Woolley |first1=Anita W. |last2=Kim |first2=Yeonjeong |last3=Malone |first3=Thomas W. |title=Measuring collective intelligence in groups: a reply to Credé and Howardson |year=2018 |url=https://gusandco.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/SSRN-id3187373.pdf |publisher=MIT Sloan School Research Paper Series |access-date=9 December 2025}}</ref>
In May 2022 the authors of "Quantifying collective intelligence in human groups" (Riedl et al., 2021) published a formal correction noting that an error in a software package had led to incorrectly reported average variance extracted (AVE) values in their confirmatory factor analyses; the correction replaces an earlier AVE of 44% with a corrected AVE of 19.6% for the reported one-factor models.<ref name="Riedl2021">{{cite journal |last1=Riedl |first1=Christoph |last2=Kim |first2=Young Ji |last3=Gupta |first3=Pranav |last4=Malone |first4=Thomas W. |last5=Woolley |first5=Anita W. |title=Quantifying collective intelligence in human groups |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences |year=2021 |volume=118 |issue=21 |article-number=e2005737118 |doi=10.1073/pnas.2005737118 |doi-access=free |pmid=34001598 |pmc=8166150 |bibcode=2021PNAS..11805737R }}</ref><ref name="RiedlCorr2022">{{cite journal |title=Correction for Riedl et al., Quantifying collective intelligence in human groups |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences |year=2022 |volume=119 |issue=19 |article-number=e2204380119 |doi=10.1073/pnas.2204380119 |doi-access=free |pmid=35503915 |pmc=9171794 |bibcode=2022PNAS..11904380. }}</ref>
The average variance extracted (AVE) is a standard measure used in confirmatory factor analysis that quantifies how much of the variance in the observed indicators is explained by the latent factor. A commonly cited rule of thumb (Fornell and Larcker, 1981) considers AVE ≥ 0.50 indicative of acceptable convergent validity. Values substantially below this threshold suggest that the factor explains little of the indicator variance, and therefore raise concerns about convergent validity.<ref name="Fornell1981">{{cite journal |last1=Fornell |first1=Claes |last2=Larcker |first2=David F. |title=Evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error |journal=Journal of Marketing Research |year=1981 |volume=18 |issue=1 |pages=39–50 |doi=10.2307/3151312 |jstor=3151312 }}</ref>
The corrected AVE therefore raises legitimate questions about the convergent validity of the specific confirmatory factor models reported. At the same time, Riedl et al. note in their correction that these changes do not alter the paper's major conclusions, and the article presents multiple lines of evidence for a general collective intelligence factor (including reported factor loadings, other model fit indices for alternative models, and a meta-analytic dataset drawn from 22 studies). The issue is part of an ongoing methodological debate about whether group performance is best characterised by a single general CI factor or by multiple, task-dependent dimensions.
==Collective intelligence and complex adaptive systems== Research increasingly conceptualizes collective intelligence systems as a subset of complex adaptive systems (CAS). These systems display three core properties: adaptation to uncertain and changing environments, autonomous self-organization, and emergence of global behaviors from local interactions.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Schut |first=Martijn C. |title=On model design for simulation of collective intelligence |journal=Information Sciences |volume=180 |issue=1 |pages=132–155 |year=2010 |doi=10.1016/j.ins.2009.08.006 |url=https://www.cs.vu.nl/~schut/pubs/Schut/2010.pdf}}</ref>
Collective intelligence draws on enabling mechanisms such as feedback dynamics, distributed control, redundancy, robustness, and nonlinear interaction patterns: features also central to CAS. In human-machine systems, like social media platforms and collaborative AI environments, collective intelligence emerges from large-scale, many-to-many interactions across social and technological agents. These systems continuously adjust their structure and strategies via adaptive feedback processes, sometimes resulting in "emergent" collective behaviors that cannot be understood by analyzing participants in isolation.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Galesic |first=M.|title=Beyond collective intelligence: Collective adaptation |journal=Journal of the Royal Society Interface |volume=20 |issue=199|article-number=20220736|year=2023|doi=10.1098/rsif.2022.0736|pmid=36946092 |pmc=10031425 }}</ref>
Within scientific and engineering practice, the study of collective intelligence includes both analysis—understanding natural phenomena in biological or social collective systems, and design, creating artificial, computational, or hybrid systems for distributed problem-solving. As research advances, collective intelligence and complex adaptive systems increasingly converge, offering methodologies for modeling, simulating, and engineering resilience, scalability, and emergent intelligence in large-scale socio-technical environments.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Cui|first1=H.|last2=Yasseri|first2=T.|title=AI-enhanced collective intelligence|journal=Patterns|volume=5|issue=11|year=2024|article-number=101074 |doi=10.1016/j.patter.2024.101074 |doi-access=free |pmid=39568478 |pmc=11573907 }}</ref>
Ha and Tang (2022) review how ideas from collective intelligence and complex systems are used in machine learning. They note that ensemble methods, population-based training, evolutionary search, multi-agent reinforcement learning, swarm-inspired optimisation, federated learning and mixture-of-experts models rely on diversity, parallel search and aggregation. The authors present these techniques as examples of collective problem solving in artificial systems and outline areas where complex systems theory may inform future work.<ref name="Ha2022">{{cite journal |last1=Ha |first1=David |last2=Tang |first2=Yujin |title=Collective intelligence for deep learning: A survey of recent developments |journal=Collective Intelligence |year=2022 |volume=1 |issue=1 |article-number=26339137221114874 |doi=10.1177/26339137221114874|doi-access=free }}</ref>
A recent theoretical perspective treats intelligence at all scales as a form of collective behaviour in complex adaptive systems. Falandays et al. (2023) argue that many processes described as individual intelligence can be understood as emergent interactions among components, whether these occur within neural systems, multicellular organisms, animal groups or human social and cultural networks. The authors present examples from biological, cognitive and social systems to support the view that the distinction between individual and collective intelligence often reflects the level of analysis rather than a fundamental difference in kind.<ref name="Falandays2023">{{cite journal |last1=Falandays |first1=J. Benjamin |last2=Kaaronen |first2=Roope O. |last3=Moser |first3=Cody |last4=Rorot |first4=Wiktor |last5=Tan |first5=Joshua |last6=Varma |first6=Vishwanath |last7=Williams |first7=Tevin |last8=Youngblood |first8=Mason |title=All intelligence is collective intelligence |url=https://www.neuralpress.org/_files/ugd/1dd990_f5fc8a4eef6142b48e387daa9c4454e7.pdf|journal=Journal of Multiscale Neuroscience |year=2023 |volume=2 |issue=1 |pages=169–191 |doi=10.56280/1564736810|access-date=2025-12-03}}</ref>
==Collective intelligence, futures studies and strategic foresight== Futures studies and strategic foresight use collective intelligence methods to explore and shape possible futures, often through participatory processes that aggregate insights from diverse stakeholders into shared scenarios, visions, and early‑warning analyses.<ref>{{cite web |title=Shaping future: Insights from futures thinking and strategic foresight for science in the Global South |website=International Science Council |date=2025-05-06 |url=https://council.science/news/shaping-future-insights-futures-thinking-strategic-foresight-global-south/ |access-date=2025-12-05}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Futures & Foresight |website=OECD Observatory of Public Sector Innovation |date=2022-07-12 |url=https://oecd-opsi.org/guide/futures-and-foresight/ |access-date=2025-12-05}}</ref> Some authors describe this as "collective forward intelligence," emphasizing dynamic, networked sense‑making about long‑term change in areas such as public policy, urban development, and sustainability transitions.<ref>{{cite web |last=Ravetz |first=Joe |title=Foresight 3.0 in theory and practice – mobilizing the 'collective forward intelligence'|website=Synergistics Lab, University of Manchester|url=https://sites.manchester.ac.uk/synergistics/wp-content/uploads/sites/198/2025/01/Foresight-3.0-editorial-paper-preprint.pdf |access-date=2025-12-05}}</ref> Practical applications include crowd forecasting for predicting pandemics, economic trends, and election outcomes, as demonstrated by Sweden's FOI in supporting Ukrainian anticipatory governance, and European initiatives like Futures4Europe that explore future-oriented collective intelligence for research and innovation policy.<ref>{{cite web |title=Collective intelligence offers a glimpse of the future |website=FOI |date=2025-02-04 |url=https://www.foi.se/en/foi/news-and-pressroom/news/2025-02-04-collective-intelligence-offers-a-glimpse-of-the-future.html |access-date=2025-12-05}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Futures4Europe Conference 2025: Exploring Future-Oriented Collective Intelligence |website=Western Balkans Info Hub |date=2025-12-02 |url=https://westernbalkans-infohub.eu/events/futures4europe-conference-2025-exploring-future-oriented-collective-intelligence/ |access-date=2025-12-05}}</ref> In global futures research, systems such as the Millennium Project's Global Futures Intelligence System integrate data, expert judgment, and public input to support science–technology foresight and policy-making.<ref>{{cite web |last=Glenn |first=Jerome C. |title=Collective Intelligence Systems for Science and Technology Policy |website=The Millennium Project |year=2017 |url=https://millennium-project.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/GFIS-paper.pdf |access-date=2025-12-05}}</ref>
==Collective intelligence and deliberative democracy== Deliberative democracy is a form of participatory democracy which emphasizes informed and inclusive dialogue among citizens to reach collective decisions on public issues through reasoned debate and consensus-building. It harnesses collective intelligence by aggregating diverse perspectives and knowledge to improve the legitimacy and quality of decisions.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Integrating Paths: Enhancing Deliberative Democracy Through Collective Intelligence Insights|first1=M.|last1=Rask|first2=B.|last2=Shin|journal=Societies|year=2024|volume=14 |issue=12 |page=270 |doi=10.3390/soc14120270 |doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=The Routledge Handbook of Collective Intelligence for Democracy and Governance |year=2023|first1=Stephen|last1=Boucher|first2=Carina|last2=Hallin|first3=Lex|last3=Paulson|publisher=Taylor & Francis|access-date=2025-12-03|url=https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/63621/9781000846737.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y}}</ref>
A key institutional mechanism of deliberative democracy is the citizens' assembly, also called a mini-public. Deliberation in citizens' assemblies is characterized by extensive information exchange, facilitated discussions, and engagement with expert testimony. This process enables participants to reflect on values and societal trade-offs thoughtfully before formulating recommendations.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/63773/1/9783110758269.pdf|title=De Gruyter Handbook of Citizens' Assemblies|publisher=De Gruyter|first=M.|last=Reuchamps|year=2023|access-date=2025-11-23}}</ref>
The participants of a citizens' assembly are randomly selected via sortition to provide a representative cross-section of the population. This selection process typically involves an initial broad random sampling followed by stratification to ensure demographic diversity across categories such as gender, age, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, and possibly opinion on the topic to be discussed.<ref>{{cite web |title=Guide: Organizing a democratic lottery |date=13 May 2025 |url=https://www.peoplepowered.org/resources-content/guide-organizing-a-democratic-lottery |access-date=2025-11-22}}</ref><ref name="Gasiorowska2023">{{cite journal | last1=Gąsiorowska | first1=Adela | title=Sortition and its Principles: Evaluation of the Selection Processes of Citizens' Assemblies | journal=Journal of Deliberative Democracy | date=2023 | volume=19 | doi=10.16997/jdd.1310 | doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{cite conference |last1=Baharav |first1=Carmel |last2=Flanigan |first2=Bailey |title=Proceedings of the 25th ACM Conference on Economics and Computation |chapter=Fair, Manipulation-Robust, and Transparent Sortition |pages=756–775 |year=2024 |doi=10.1145/3670865.3673606 |isbn=979-8-4007-0704-9 |url=https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3670865.3673606|doi-access=free }}</ref> By capturing a microcosm of society in this manner, citizens' assemblies enhance collective intelligence by enabling a diversity of experiences and viewpoints greater than that typically found in elected legislatures.<ref>{{cite journal |first=John |last=Webb |title=Sortition and its Principles: Evaluation of the Selection Processes |journal=Journal of Deliberative Democracy |date=16 January 2023 |volume=19 |issue=1 |doi=10.16997/jdd.1310 |url=https://delibdemjournal.org/article/id/1310/ |access-date=2025-01-15|doi-access=free }}</ref>
Citizens' assemblies are particularly valuable in tackling highly controversial and sensitive issues often avoided or intractable in traditional political settings. For example, the Citizens' Assembly (Ireland) played a pivotal role in informing the public debate and legislative reform on abortion in Ireland (formally referred to as the debate on the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution), demonstrating how such assemblies can generate legitimate, informed, and well-considered policy recommendations on divisive topics.<ref>{{cite web|url= https://electoral-reform.org.uk/the-irish-abortion-referendum-how-a-citizens-assembly-helped-to-break-years-of-political-deadlock/|title=The Irish abortion referendum: How a Citizens' Assembly helped to break years of political deadlock|year=2018|publisher=Electoral Reform Society|access-date=2025-11-24}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://citizensassembly.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/FirstReport_EIGHTAMENDMENT.pdf|title=First Report and Recommendations of the Citizens' Assembly: THE EIGHTH AMENDMENT OF THE CONSTITUTION|year=2017|publisher=The Citizens' Assembly (Ireland)}}</ref>
Research shows that citizens' assemblies significantly contribute to democratic renewal by enhancing political efficacy among participants and the broader public, fostering social trust, countering political polarization, and reinforcing societal cohesion through collective deliberation.<ref name="iwm.at">{{cite web|title=Citizens' Assemblies: Democratic Responses to Authoritarian Challenges|url=https://www.iwm.at/europes-futures/publication/citizens-assemblies-democratic-responses-to-authoritarian-challenges|website=Institute for Human Sciences|date=2024-11-20|access-date=2025-11-22}}</ref> They facilitate inclusive governance by involving people who are otherwise politically disengaged, resulting in more representative decision-making and increased democratic legitimacy.<ref>{{cite web|title=What are the benefits of citizens' assemblies?|url=https://www.buergerrat.de/en/background/what-are-the-benefits-of-citizens-assemblies/|website=BuergerRat Deutschland|access-date=2025-11-22}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Getting Real About Citizens' Assemblies|url=https://europeandemocracyhub.epd.eu/getting-real-about-citizens-assemblies-a-new-theory-of-change-for-citizens-assemblies/|date=2025-02-27|access-date=2025-11-22}}</ref> Assemblies produce well-considered public judgments that help policymakers make difficult decisions, thereby elevating the quality of governance, which is why governments around the world are increasingly using them to cocreate policy.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.oecd.org/en/topics/sub-issues/open-government-and-citizen-participation/innovative-public-participation.html|title=Innovative public participation|publisher=Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)|access-date=2025-11-23}}</ref><ref name="iwm.at"/>
Rafał Olszowski's Collective Intelligence in Open Policymaking (2024) provides a comprehensive framework for understanding the evolution of collective intelligence beyond the individual level, focusing on open policymaking initiatives. The book combines theoretical insights with practical case studies, such as Decide Madrid<ref>{{cite web|url=https://oecd-opsi.org/innovations/decide-madrid/|title=Decide Madrid|publisher=Observatory of Public Sector Innovation (OPSI)|access-date=2025-11-24}}</ref> and Better Reykjavik,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://oecd-opsi.org/innovations/better-reykjavik/|title=Better Reykjavik|publisher=Observatory of Public Sector Innovation (OPSI)|access-date=2025-11-24}}</ref> exploring how collective intelligence shapes democratic innovation and citizen participation in policy design.<ref>{{cite book |last=Olszowski |first=Rafał |title=Collective Intelligence in Open Policymaking |year=2024 |publisher=Springer Nature |location=Cham, Switzerland |isbn=978-3-031-58190-8 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/380988331}}</ref>
Public Deliberation in the Digital Age: Platforms, Participation, and Legitimacy (2025) offers a comprehensive examination of how digital platforms are transforming deliberative democratic processes and citizen engagement. The book combines theoretical insights with empirical case studies to analyze how digital tools influence participation, deliberation quality, and the legitimacy of democratic decision-making. It discusses diverse applications ranging from climate governance to youth engagement and AI-mediated dialogue, exploring challenges such as the digital divide and multilingual deliberation. Using a framework of input-throughput-output legitimacy, it systematically evaluates how digital platforms shape who participates, how engagement occurs, and how these processes connect to broader public outcomes.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Paulis|first1=Emilien|last2=Kies|first2=Raphaël|last3=Östling|first3=Alina|title=Public Deliberation in the Digital Age: Platforms, Participation, and Legitimacy|year=2025|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-040-70586-5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4pCTEQAAQBAJ}}</ref>
Lewis et al. (2025) discuss design principles for digitally enabled civic infrastructure intended to support large scale deliberation and ongoing feedback between citizens and public institutions. The paper describes a modular architecture that combines frequent digital engagement, algorithmic synthesis of contributions, and targeted small-group deliberation so that local deliberative outputs can be aggregated and fed back into policy processes. It recommends tools for clustering and bridging opinion data, Bayesian adaptive evaluation, and iterative sandboxing to test platform designs. The authors (including Geoff Mulgan, Professor of Collective Intelligence, Public Policy and Social Innovation at UCL) emphasise governance requirements such as transparency of aggregation methods, community control of data, and safeguards against manipulation and exclusion.<ref name="Lewis2025">{{cite web |last1=Lewis |first1=Peter |last2=Fischer |first2=Alex |last3=Webb |first3=Adele |title=Civic Infrastructure in the Age of Digital Engagement |year=2025 |url=https://politicsir.cass.anu.edu.au/files/docs/2025/11/Resilient-Democracy---Discussion-Paper-10---Digital-Civic-Platforms---Lewis-et-al---For-web.pdf |publisher=Australian Resilient Democracy Research and Data Network |access-date=26 November 2025}}</ref>
Although the paper does not explicitly use the term "collective intelligence", its proposals map directly onto established collective-intelligence concepts and mechanisms. From a collective-intelligence perspective, the described architecture explicitly addresses three well-studied requirements for producing reliable group judgements: broad and diverse participation to increase the information base; mechanisms for preserving or restoring independence of contributions to avoid correlated errors; and principled aggregation procedures that transform many low-cost inputs into higher-quality collective outputs. Small, well resourced deliberative modules such as citizens' assemblies operate as high-quality signal generators; algorithmic synthesis and targeted sampling convert those local signals into system-level inputs; and adaptive evaluation provides the feedback loops necessary for learning and improvement. The paper therefore provides an applied design programme for connecting deliberative institutions with computational aggregation and governance practices that are central to contemporary collective-intelligence research.<ref name="Lewis2025"/>
==Computational collective intelligence == In 2001, Tadeusz (Tad) Szuba from the AGH University in Poland proposed a formal model for the phenomenon of collective intelligence. It is assumed to be an unconscious, random, parallel, and distributed computational process, run in mathematical logic by the social structure.<ref name="szuba">{{cite web|url=https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.5555/516996|last=Szuba|first=T.|title=Computational Collective Intelligence|publisher=Wiley NY|year=2001}}</ref>
In this model, beings and information are modeled as abstract information molecules carrying expressions of mathematical logic.<ref name="szuba" /> They are quasi-randomly displacing due to their interaction with their environments with their intended displacements.<ref name="szuba" /> Their interaction in abstract computational space creates multi-thread inference process which we perceive as collective intelligence.<ref name="szuba" /> Thus, a non-Turing model of computation is used. This theory allows simple formal definition of collective intelligence as the property of social structure and seems to be working well for a wide spectrum of beings, from bacterial colonies up to human social structures. Collective intelligence considered as a specific computational process is providing a straightforward explanation of several social phenomena. For this model of collective intelligence, the formal definition of IQS (IQ Social) was proposed and was defined as "the probability function over the time and domain of N-element inferences which are reflecting inference activity of the social structure".<ref name="szuba" /> While IQS seems to be computationally hard, modeling of social structure in terms of a computational process as described above gives a chance for approximation.<ref name="szuba" /> Prospective applications are optimization of companies through the maximization of their IQS, and the analysis of drug resistance against collective intelligence of bacterial colonies.<ref name="szuba"/>
== Collective intelligence and leadership == Collective intelligence in organisational teams depends on leadership processes that enable the integration of distributed knowledge, coordination of specialised contributions, and adaptive decision-making. These features indicate a broad overlap with complexity leadership theory, i.e the study of leadership in complex adaptive systems.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://111.68.96.114:8088/get/pdf/The%20SAGE%20Handbook%20of%20Leadership%20-%20Alan%20Bryman_7536.pdf#page=507|title=The Sage Handbook of Leadership, Ch. Complexity leadership theory|first1=Mary|last1=Uhl-Bien|first2=Russ|last2=Marion|year=2011|access-date=2025-12-12}}</ref> Research has identified two broad leadership forms that support collective intelligence: shared or distributed leadership within teams, and systems leadership that coordinates action across organisations and sectors.<ref name="Carson2007">{{cite journal |last1=Carson |first1=Jay B. |last2=Tesluk |first2=Paul E. |last3=Marrone |first3=Jennifer A. |title=Shared leadership in teams: an investigation of antecedent conditions and performance |journal=Academy of Management Journal |year=2007 |volume=50 |issue=5 |pages=1217–1234|url=https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/app/uploads/sites/3344/2024/01/Leadership-in-team_antecedent-condtions.pdf}}</ref><ref name="Bigland2020">{{cite journal |last1=Bigland |first1=Charlotte |last2=Evans |first2=David |last3=Bolden |first3=Richard |last4=Rae |first4=Maggie |title=Systems leadership in practice: thematic insights from three public health case studies |journal=BMC Public Health |year=2020 |volume=20 |issue=1 |article-number=1735 |doi=10.1186/s12889-020-09641-1 |doi-access=free |pmid=33203397 |pmc=7673088 |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201118093302id_/https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/track/pdf/10.1186/s12889-020-09641-1.pdf|access-date=2025-12-12}}</ref>
Shared leadership is where leadership functions are exercised by multiple team members rather than a single designated leader. It is also defined as an emergent phenomenon that arises naturally among team members when the conditions are conducive to it. Such shared leadership is consistently associated with higher team performance and greater collective efficacy. Network and density measures of shared leadership often predict performance better than single-source measures. Other determining factors are task interdependence, psychological safety, and member expertise.<ref name="DInnocenzo2016">{{cite journal |last1=D'Innocenzo |first1=Lauren |last2=Mathieu |first2=John E. |last3=Kukenberger |first3=Michael R.|title=A meta-analysis of different forms of shared leadership–team performance relations |journal=Journal of Management |year=2016 |volume=42 |issue=7 |pages=1964–1991|doi=10.1177/0149206314525205 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/275441637}}</ref><ref name="Nicolaides2014">{{cite journal |last1=Nicolaides |first1=Vias C. |last2=LaPort |first2=Kate A. |last3=Chen |first3=Tiffani R.|first4=Alan J.|last4= Tomassetti|first5=Eric J.|last5=Weis|first6=Stephen J.|last6= Zaccaro|first7=Jose M.|last7= Cortina |title=The shared leadership of teams: a meta-analysis of proximal, distal, and moderating relationships |journal=The Leadership Quarterly |year=2014 |volume=25 |issue=5 |pages=923–942|doi=10.1016/j.leaqua.2014.06.006 |url=https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2014-30742-001}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325060349|title=Shared leadership: A state-of-the-art review and future research agenda|first1=Jinlong|last1=Zhu|first2=Zhenyu|last2=Liao|first3=Kai Chi|last3=Yam|first4=Russell E.|last4=Johnson|journal=Journal of Organizational Behavior|volume=39|issue=7|pages=834–852|year=2018|doi=10.1002/job.2296 |access-date=2025-12-12}}</ref>
Systems leadership refers to leadership enacted across institutional boundaries to mobilise multiple organisations and stakeholders for problems that no single actor can solve. Leadership dispersed through networks and practised as a set of functions or processes can increase a group's capacity to integrate diverse information and adapt to complex tasks.<ref name="DistributedReview">{{cite web |last1=Harris |first1=Alma|first2=Michelle|last2=Jones|first3=Nashwa|last3=Ismail|title=Distributed leadership: taking a retrospective and contemporary view of the evidence base |year=2022 |url=https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/OutputFile/1178513 |access-date=2025-12-12}}</ref> A review of empirical case studies found that effective systems leadership begins with a clear call to action and the formation of a committed coalition. Sustaining momentum depends on system structures, supportive cultures and interpersonal factors, including maintaining a shared purpose, strong relationships, curiosity, and an understanding of system dynamics and resilience. Indicators of success include enjoyment in the work, gains in system resources and observable improvements in population-level data. Also, seeing leadership as a distributed, resourcing function rather than a single-person role. Systems leadership is especially relevant where collective intelligence must be organised at scale, for example in the emergency response to a crisis such as a pandemic.<ref name="Beharrell2021">{{cite journal |last=Beharrell |first=William |title=What can we learn about systems leadership from the building of a Welsh surge hospital and how might this be applied beyond the current COVID-19 response? |journal=BMJ Leader |year=2021 |volume=5 |issue=2 |pages=93–97 |doi=10.1136/leader-2020-000311 |pmid=37579292 |url=https://bmjleader.bmj.com/content/5/2/93.full.pdf |access-date=2025-12-12}}</ref><ref name="Bigland2020b">{{cite journal |last1=Bigland |first1=Charlotte |last2=Evans |first2=David |title=Systems leadership in practice: thematic insights from three public health case studies |journal=BMC Public Health |year=2020 |volume=20 |issue=1 |article-number=1735 |doi=10.1186/s12889-020-09641-1 |doi-access=free |pmid=33203397 |pmc=7673088 }}</ref>
To fully unlock collective intelligence at scale, Cairney and Toomey (2025) advocate for multi-level and systems-oriented leadership for addressing complex societal problems. This approach confirms the conclusions of earlier research that successful leadership is a distributed capability that must be cultivated across organisations and networks. They identified several key features of collectively intelligent systems leadership: "reject heroic top-down leadership and central control in favour of collaboration across boundaries; develop attributes (e.g. humility), mindsets (e.g. big picture), and skills (e.g. facilitation) to act in complex systems (albeit without a common view on what a complex system is); and, seek organisational and political support for this approach."<ref name="SystemsLeadership">{{cite journal |last1=Cairney |first1=Paul|first2=Claire|last2=Toomey |title=Systems leadership: a qualitative systematic review of advice for policymakers |journal=Open Research Europe |year=2025 |volume=5 |page=6 |doi=10.12688/openreseurope.18982.1 |doi-access=free |pmid=40013101 |pmc=11862379 }}</ref>
Pentland (2012) reports applied sociometric studies showing that team performance correlates with three measurable interaction parameters: amount of exchanges, evenness of participation, and external connections. He found that measurable patterns of interaction and communication within teams, such as balanced conversational turn-taking, broad participation, and high engagement, predict team performance more reliably than individual intelligence measures. The study frames leadership as a pattern-shaping role in which leaders and “charismatic connectors” facilitate distributed participation and information flow rather than solely exercising hierarchical authority. From a collective intelligence perspective the paper maps onto core CI mechanisms: it treats reliable performance as an emergent property of interaction patterns (not of individual ability), it identifies measurable signals that support shared situational awareness and information integration, and it demonstrates how feedback loops (measurement → visualization → training → improved interaction) can increase collective problem solving. This applied work has influenced managerial practice but should be read alongside peer-reviewed studies such as Woolley et al. (2010).<ref name="Pentland2012">{{cite web |last=Pentland |first=Alex 'Sandy' |title=The New Science of Building Great Teams |publisher=Harvard Business Review |year=2012 |url=https://globalioc.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/The-New-Science-of-Team-Building.pdf|access-date=2025-12-12}}</ref><ref name="Woolley2010">{{cite journal |last1=Woolley |first1=Anita W. |last2=Chabris |first2=Christopher F. |last3=Pentland |first3=Alex 'S.' |last4=Hashmi |first4=Nada |last5=Malone |first5=Thomas W. |title=Evidence for a collective intelligence factor in the performance of human groups |journal=Science |year=2010 |volume=330 |issue=6004 |pages=686–688 |doi=10.1126/science.1193147 |pmid=20929725 |bibcode=2010Sci...330..686W |url=https://ofew.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/evidence_for_a_collective_intelligence_factor_in_the_performance_of_human_groups_woolley_et_al.pdf |accessdate=26 November 2025}}</ref><ref name="Wang2014">{{cite journal |last1=Wang |first1=Danni |last2=Waldman |first2=David A. |last3=Zhang |first3=Zhen |title=A meta-analysis of shared leadership and team effectiveness |journal=Journal of Applied Psychology |year=2014 |volume=99 |issue=2 |pages=181–198 |doi=10.1037/a0034531 |pmid=24188392 }}</ref>
== Applications ==
As well as Wikipedia itself, there have been many recent applications of collective intelligence, including in fields such as crowdsourcing, citizen science and prediction markets. The Nesta Centre for Collective Intelligence Design<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nesta.org.uk/project/centre-collective-intelligence-design/|title=Centre for Collective Intelligence Design|publisher=NESTA|access-date=2025-12-13}}</ref> was launched in 2018 and has produced many surveys of applications as well as funding experiments. In 2020 the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Accelerator Labs<ref>{{cite web |url=https://acceleratorlabs.undp.org/ |title=Accelerator Labs|publisher=United Nations Development Program (UNDP)|access-date=2025-12-13}}</ref> began using collective intelligence methods in their work to accelerate innovation for the Sustainable Development Goals, e.g. Global Mindpool.
=== Wikimedia projects as examples of collective intelligence === In Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects, large numbers of volunteers collaborate to create and curate content without centralised editorial control. In this participatory knowledge-building process, Wikipedia editors rely on consensus decision-making methods down to the edit level, minimizing deference to authority in favour of processes that consult all interested and involved parties.
These projects are therefore cited in the academic literature as prominent examples of large-scale collective intelligence. Livingstone (2016), for example, states that Wikipedia, “by relying on sociotechnical ensembles of human intelligence, programmed bots, social bureaucracy, and software protocols, a more humanistic CI, as proposed by Lévy, is realized in a virtual knowledge space that embodies information as both product and process (...).”<ref name="Livingstone2016">{{cite journal |last=Livingstone |first=Randall M. |title=Models for Understanding Collective Intelligence on Wikipedia |journal=Social Science Computer Review |year=2016 |volume=34 |issue=4 |pages=497–508 |doi=10.1177/0894439315591136 |url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0894439315591136 |access-date=2025-12-13|url-access=subscription }}</ref>
Early research conceptualised Wikipedia’s model of knowledge production as replacing traditional expert gatekeeping with consensus-oriented, participatory mechanisms that harness diverse contributions from lay contributors.<ref name="Lichtenstein2009">{{cite journal |last1=Lichtenstein |first1=Sharman |last2=Parker |first2=Craig M. |title=Wikipedia model for collective intelligence: a review of information quality |journal=International Journal of Knowledge and Learning |year=2009 |volume=5 |issue=3/4 |pages=254–272 |article-number=31199 |doi=10.1504/IJKL.2009.031199 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/220428468 |access-date=2025-12-13}}</ref> A meta-review of academic work notes that Wikipedia exhibits key collective intelligence features such as indirect coordination (stigmergy), distributed cognition through bots and tools, and emergent structures arising from many individual edits and discussions.<ref name="Meta2015">{{cite web |title=Wikipedia as an example of collective intelligence |url=https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Newsletter/2015/July |publisher=Wikimedia Research Newsletter, July|year=2015|access-date=2025-12-13}}</ref> Recent systematic reviews of automated content generation for Wikipedia also describe the interaction between human contributors and automated agents (bots) as part of a broader collective intelligence ecosystem, with implications for collaborative content creation and quality management at Internet scale.<ref name="Reeves2025">{{cite arXiv |last1=Reeves |first1=Neal |last2=Simperl |first2=Elena |title=Machines in the Margins: A Systematic Review of Automated Content Generation for Wikipedia |date=2025 |class=cs.HC |eprint=2509.22443 }}</ref>
Wikidata, a collaboratively edited structured data knowledge graph associated with Wikimedia projects, has also been described as a large-scale collective intelligence platform. It supports multilingual knowledge representation and is maintained by a global community of volunteers, allowing widely distributed contributions to a shared data resource that underpins various Wikimedia and external applications.<ref name="Wikidata">{{cite web |title=Wikidata |url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikidata |publisher=Wikipedia|access-date=2025-12-13}}</ref>
===United Nations' Global Mindpool===
Global Mindpool is a global collective intelligence for a sustainable future. Created by the United Nations Development Program, Its goal is to empower people everywhere on the planet and harvest their insights with a platform that involves them in finding the best ways of solving the climate crisis.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.undp.org/press-releases/un-development-programme-launches-global-mindpool-collective-intelligence-platform-take-action-against-climate-change|title=UN Development Programme launches 'Global Mindpool', a collective intelligence platform to take action against climate change|work=UNDP |publisher=United Nations Development Program (UNDP)|access-date=2025-12-13}}</ref>
===Government and public policy=== Lowry et al. (2023) present a peer-reviewed case study illustrating how structured collective intelligence methods can be used to redesign public sector data infrastructures. Working with researchers, data custodians and policy stakeholders, the authors applied scenario-based design, interactive management and ideawriting to surface unmet user needs and points of friction in the Northern Ireland Longitudinal Study. The process produced concrete institutional changes, including a redesigned research interface, synthetic training datasets and new user forums intended to widen access to complex administrative data and strengthen its policy value. The study is cited as evidence that collective intelligence techniques can support practical improvements in government data systems while highlighting challenges such as stakeholder representativeness and the labour required to maintain research-ready datasets.<ref name="Lowry2023">{{cite journal |last1=Lowry |first1=Estelle |last2=Hogan |first2=Michael J. |last3=Moriarty |first3=John |last4=Harney |first4=Owen M. |last5=Ruijer |first5=Erna |title=Using collective intelligence methods to improve government data infrastructures and promote the use of complex data: the example of the Northern Ireland Longitudinal Study |journal=Health Research Policy and Systems |year=2023 |volume=21 |issue=1 |article-number=134 |doi=10.1186/s12961-023-01070-x |pmid=38111046 |pmc=10726592 |doi-access=free }}</ref>
===Automated software construction=== Collective intelligence has been applied to automated software engineering through frameworks that aggregate and operationalise distributed developer knowledge. Liu et al. (2025) propose CIPAC (Collective Intelligence–based Program Automated Construction), a framework that uses both historical collective intelligence from open-source repositories and real-time collective input from developer communities to automate the construction of software-level programs. The system integrates collective specification refinement, architecture generation, program synthesis and quality optimisation within a single workflow, enabling the automatic assembly of complete and test-validated software projects rather than isolated code fragments. CIPAC operationalises collective intelligence by weighting and aggregating contributions from large developer populations, combining them with algorithmic coordination mechanisms derived from swarm intelligence, and embedding feedback loops across the software development lifecycle. Empirical case studies, including applications in matrix computation and aerospace domains, indicate that collective intelligence can be systematically harnessed to scale program synthesis beyond function-level code toward fully integrated software systems.<ref name="Liu2025CIPAC">{{cite journal |last1=Liu |first1=Jiaxin |last2=Zhang |first2=Yating |last3=Li |first3=Yiwei |last4=Ma |first4=Tiecheng |last5=Dong |first5=Wei |title=CIPAC: A framework of automated software construction based on collective intelligence |journal=Journal of Systems and Software |volume=222 |year=2025 |article-number=112335 |publisher=Elsevier |doi=10.1016/j.jss.2025.112335 |url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0164121225000032|url-access=subscription }}</ref>
=== Cognition ===
==== Market judgment ==== Because of the Internet's ability to rapidly convey large amounts of information throughout the world, the use of collective intelligence to predict stock prices and stock price direction has become increasingly viable.<ref name=":22">{{Cite book|last=Kaplan|first=Craig A.|title=2001 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics. E-Systems and e-Man for Cybernetics in Cyberspace (Cat.No.01CH37236)|year=2001|url=http://www.iqco.com/consulting/Kaplan_TESADI_Final.pdf|volume=5|pages=2893–2898|doi=10.1109/ICSMC.2001.971949|isbn=978-0-7803-7087-6|chapter=Collective intelligence: A new approach to stock price forecasting|s2cid=4836176|access-date=12 December 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170610153216/http://www.iqco.com/consulting/Kaplan_TESADI_Final.pdf|archive-date=10 June 2017|url-status=live}}</ref> Websites aggregate stock market information that is as current as possible so professional or amateur stock analysts can publish their viewpoints, enabling amateur investors to submit their financial opinions and create an aggregate opinion.<ref name=":22" /> The opinion of all investor can be weighed equally so that a pivotal premise of the effective application of collective intelligence can be applied: the masses, including a broad spectrum of stock market expertise, can be utilized to more accurately predict the behavior of financial markets.<ref>{{cite book|doi=10.1007/978-3-642-15420-1|last1=Ma|first1=Ying|last2=Li|first2=Guanyi|last3=Dong|first3=Yingsai|last4=Qin|first4=Zengchang|chapter=Agents and Data Mining Interaction |title=Agents and Data Mining Interaction, 6th International Workshopon Agents and Data Mining Interaction, ADMI 2010|volume=5980|year=2010|chapter-url=http://icmll.buaa.edu.cn/publications/Conference%20Papers/LectureNotesCS/ADMI.pdf|series=Lecture Notes in Computer Science|isbn=978-3-642-15419-5|bibcode=2010LNCS.5980.....C|s2cid=36758062|access-date=2 March 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121021040736/http://icmll.buaa.edu.cn/publications/Conference%20Papers/LectureNotesCS/ADMI.pdf|archive-date=21 October 2012}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|doi=10.1007/978-3-642-23935-9_24|last1=Yu|first1=Du|last2=Dong|first2=Yingsai|last3=Qin|first3=Zengchang|last4=Wan|first4=Tao|title=Computational Collective Intelligence. Technologies and Applications |chapter=Exploring Market Behaviors with Evolutionary Mixed-Games Learning Model |volume=6922|year=2011|url=http://dsd.future-lab.cn/research/publications/2011/ICCCI-springer.pdf|pages=244–253|series=Lecture Notes in Computer Science|isbn=978-3-642-23934-2|access-date=10 May 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170919180051/http://dsd.future-lab.cn/research/publications/2011/ICCCI-springer.pdf|archive-date=19 September 2017|url-status=live}}</ref>
Collective intelligence underpins the efficient-market hypothesis of Eugene Fama<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Fama | first1 = E.F. | year = 1970 | title = Efficient Capital Markets: A Review of Theory and Empirical Work | journal = Journal of Finance | volume = 25 | issue = 2| pages = 383–417 | doi=10.2307/2325486| jstor = 2325486 }}</ref> – although the term collective intelligence is not used explicitly in his paper. Fama cites research conducted by Michael Jensen<ref name=":23">{{cite journal | last1 = Jensen | first1 = M.C | year = 1967 | title = The Performance of Mutual Funds in the Period 1945–1964 | journal = Journal of Finance | volume = 23 | issue = 2| pages = 389–416 | doi=10.1111/j.1540-6261.1968.tb00815.x| hdl = 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1968.tb00815.x | hdl-access = free }}</ref> in which 89 out of 115 selected funds underperformed relative to the index during the period from 1955 to 1964. But after removing the loading charge (up-front fee) only 72 underperformed while after removing brokerage costs only 58 underperformed. On the basis of such evidence index funds became popular investment vehicles using the collective intelligence of the market, rather than the judgement of professional fund managers, as an investment strategy.<ref name=":23" />
==== Predictions in politics and technology ==== thumb|Voting methods used in the United States 2016 Political parties mobilize large numbers of people to form policy, select candidates and finance and run election campaigns.<ref name=":24">{{cite web|url=http://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/11168/vote-amount-according-to-intelligence|title=Vote amount according to "intelligence"|website=politics.stackexchange.com|access-date=2016-12-12|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161220093535/http://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/11168/vote-amount-according-to-intelligence|archive-date=20 December 2016|url-status=live}}</ref> Knowledge focusing through various voting methods allows perspectives to converge through the assumption that uninformed voting is to some degree random and can be filtered from the decision process leaving only a residue of informed consensus.<ref name=":24" /> Critics point out that often bad ideas, misunderstandings, and misconceptions are widely held, and that structuring of the decision process must favor experts who are presumably less prone to random or misinformed voting in a given context.<ref>{{Cite book|url=http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9907.html|title=Landemore, H.: Democratic Reason: Politics, Collective Intelligence, and the Rule of the Many. (eBook and Paperback)|isbn=978-0-691-17639-0|access-date=2016-12-04|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161220050449/http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9907.html|archive-date=20 December 2016|url-status=live|last1=Landemore|first1=Hélène|date=28 February 2017|publisher=Princeton University Press }}</ref>
Companies such as Affinnova (acquired by Nielsen), Google, InnoCentive, Marketocracy, and Threadless<ref name=":17">{{Cite journal|last=Bonabeau|first=E|year=2009|title=The power of collective intelligence|journal=MIT Sloan Management Review|volume=50|pages=45–52|id={{ProQuest|224962498}}}}</ref> have successfully employed the concept of collective intelligence in bringing about the next generation of technological changes through their research and development (R&D), customer service, and knowledge management.<ref name=":17" /><ref>{{Cite report|last1=Malone|first1=Thomas W.|last2=Laubacher|first2=Robert|last3=Dellarocas|first3=Chrysanthos|date=2009-02-03|title=Harnessing Crowds: Mapping the Genome of Collective Intelligence|ssrn=1381502|location=Rochester, NY|publisher=Social Science Research Network|id=MIT Sloan Research Paper No. 4732-09}}</ref> An example of such application is Google's Project Aristotle in 2012, where the effect of collective intelligence on team makeup was examined in hundreds of the company's R&D teams.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/what-google-learned-from-its-quest-to-build-the-perfect-team.html|title=What Google Learned From Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team|last=Duhigg|first=Charles|date=2016-02-25|newspaper=The New York Times|access-date=2016-12-11|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170223084955/https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/what-google-learned-from-its-quest-to-build-the-perfect-team.html|archive-date=23 February 2017|url-status=live}}</ref>
=== Cooperation === ==== Networks of trust ==== thumb|left|Application of collective intelligence in the Millennium Project In 2012, the ''Global Futures Collective Intelligence System'' (GFIS) was created by The Millennium Project,<ref name=GFIS/> which epitomizes collective intelligence as the synergistic intersection among data/information/knowledge, software/hardware, and expertise/insights that has a recursive learning process for better decision-making than the individual players alone.<ref name=GFIS>{{cite web|url=http://www.millennium-project.org/millennium/GFIS.html|title=Global Futures Intelligence System|website=millennium-project.org|access-date=2016-12-11|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161225025210/http://www.millennium-project.org/millennium/GFIS.html|archive-date=25 December 2016|url-status=live}}</ref>
New media are often associated with the promotion and enhancement of collective intelligence. The ability of new media to easily store and retrieve information, predominantly through databases and the Internet, allows for it to be shared without difficulty. Thus, through interaction with new media, knowledge easily passes between sources{{sfn|Flew|2008}} resulting in a form of collective intelligence. The use of interactive new media, particularly the internet, promotes online interaction and this distribution of knowledge between users.
Francis Heylighen, Valentin Turchin, and Gottfried Mayer-Kress are among those who view collective intelligence through the lens of computer science and cybernetics. In their view, the Internet enables collective intelligence at the widest, planetary scale, thus facilitating the emergence of a global brain.
The developer of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, aimed to promote sharing and publishing of information globally. Later his employer opened up the technology for free use. In the early '90s, the Internet's potential was still untapped, until the mid-1990s when 'critical mass', as termed by the head of the Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA), Dr. J.C.R. Licklider, demanded more accessibility and utility.<ref name="Weiss, A. 2005 pp. 19-23">Weiss, A. (2005). The Power of Collective Intelligence. Collective Intelligence, pp. 19–23</ref> The driving force of this Internet-based collective intelligence is the digitization of information and communication. Henry Jenkins, a key theorist of new media and media convergence draws on the theory that collective intelligence can be attributed to media convergence and participatory culture.{{sfn|Flew|2008}} He criticizes contemporary education for failing to incorporate online trends of collective problem solving into the classroom, stating "whereas a collective intelligence community encourages ownership of work as a group, schools grade individuals". Jenkins argues that interaction within a knowledge community builds vital skills for young people, and teamwork through collective intelligence communities contribute to the development of such skills.<ref name=":25">{{cite web |first=Henry |last=Jenkins |title=Interactive audiences? The collective intelligence of media fans |date=2002 |work=The new media book |url=https://scholar.archive.org/work/f3fexvnpd5babcjfnqbyckwyvu/access/wayback/https://labweb.education.wisc.edu/curric606/readings/Jenkins2002.pdf}}</ref> Collective intelligence is not merely a quantitative contribution of information from all cultures, it is also qualitative.<ref name=":25" />
Lévy and de Kerckhove consider CI from a mass communications perspective, focusing on the ability of networked information and communication technologies to enhance the community knowledge pool. They suggest that these communications tools enable humans to interact and to share and collaborate with both ease and speed.{{sfn|Flew|2008}} With the development of the Internet and its widespread use, the opportunity to contribute to knowledge-building communities, such as Wikipedia, is greater than ever before. These computer networks give participating users the opportunity to store and to retrieve knowledge through the collective access to these databases and allow them to "harness the hive"{{sfn|Flew|2008}} Researchers at the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence research and explore collective intelligence of groups of people and computers.<ref>[http://cci.mit.edu/people/index.html MIT Center for Collective Intelligence] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100611041615/http://cci.mit.edu/people/index.html |date=11 June 2010 }}. Cci.mit.edu. Retrieved on 2013-07-13.</ref>
In this context collective intelligence is often confused with shared knowledge. The former is the sum total of information held individually by members of a community while the latter is information that is believed to be true and known by all members of the community.<ref>{{cite book |first=Henry |last=Jenkins |title=Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HZgUCgAAQBAJ |date=2008 |publisher=NYU Press |isbn=978-0-8147-4295-2}}</ref> Collective intelligence as represented by Web 2.0 has less user engagement than collaborative intelligence. An art project using Web 2.0 platforms is "Shared Galaxy", an experiment developed by an anonymous artist to create a collective identity that shows up as one person on several platforms like MySpace, Facebook, YouTube and Second Life. The password is written in the profiles and the accounts named "Shared Galaxy" are open to be used by anyone. In this way many take part in being one.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Scardamalia|first1=Marlene|last2=Bereiter|first2=Carl|date=1994-07-01|title=Computer Support for Knowledge-Building Communities|journal=Journal of the Learning Sciences|volume=3|issue=3|pages=265–283|doi=10.1207/s15327809jls0303_3|citeseerx=10.1.1.600.463}}</ref> Another art project using collective intelligence to produce artistic work is Curatron, where a large group of artists together decides on a smaller group that they think would make a good collaborative group. The process is used based on an algorithm computing the collective preferences<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.vocativ.com/culture/art-culture/math-takes-guessing-art-curation/|title=Math Takes the Guessing Out of Artistic Collaboration|work=Vocativ |date=9 July 2014|access-date=30 April 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141001052839/http://www.vocativ.com/culture/art-culture/math-takes-guessing-art-curation/|archive-date=1 October 2014|url-status=live}}</ref> In creating what he calls 'CI-Art', Nova Scotia based artist Mathew Aldred follows Pierry Lévy's definition of collective intelligence.<ref>Mathew Aldred, May 2016. {{cite web|title=What is Collective Intelligence Art?|year=2016|url=http://www.collectiveintelligenceart.ca/collective-intelligence-art.html|access-date=1 October 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161002024912/http://www.collectiveintelligenceart.ca/collective-intelligence-art.html|archive-date=2 October 2016}}</ref> Aldred's CI-Art event in March 2016 involved over four hundred people from the community of Oxford, Nova Scotia, and internationally.<ref>Amherst News Citizen Record, 17 March 2016. {{cite web|title=Community creation taking place in Oxford|year=2016|url=http://www.cumberlandnewsnow.com/News/Local/2016-03-17/article-4469315/Community-creation-taking-place-in-Oxford/1|access-date=1 October 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161006015018/http://www.cumberlandnewsnow.com/News/Local/2016-03-17/article-4469315/Community-creation-taking-place-in-Oxford/1|archive-date=6 October 2016}}</ref><ref>Oxford Regional Education Centre{{cite web|title=Nexus OREC|year=2016|url=http://www.goldenbears.ca/nexus-orec.html|access-date=1 October 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161006014256/http://www.goldenbears.ca/nexus-orec.html|archive-date=6 October 2016}}</ref> Later work developed by Aldred used the UNU swarm intelligence system to create digital drawings and paintings.<ref>{{cite web|title=Artwork from an emergent "Hive Mind" |date=23 May 2016 |url=http://unu.ai/ci-art/|access-date=1 October 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161005002146/http://unu.ai/ci-art/|archive-date=5 October 2016|first1=Mathew |last1=Aldred }}</ref> The Oxford Riverside Gallery (Nova Scotia) held a public CI-Art event in May 2016, which connected with online participants internationally.<ref>{{cite web|title=CI-Art event at Oxford Riverside Gallery 'Nexus' opening|date=22 May 2016 |website=Oxford Riverside Gallery |url=http://www.oxfordriversidegallery.ca/news/ci-art-event-at-oxford-riverside-gallery-nexus-opening|access-date=1 October 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161002104037/http://www.oxfordriversidegallery.ca/news/ci-art-event-at-oxford-riverside-gallery-nexus-opening|archive-date=2 October 2016|url-status=live}}</ref> thumb|Parenting social network and collaborative tagging as pillars for automatic IPTV content blocking system In social bookmarking (also called collaborative tagging),<ref name=":26">{{Cite book|last1=Millen|first1=David R.|last2=Feinberg|first2=Jonathan|last3=Kerr|first3=Bernard|title=Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems |chapter=Dogear |date=2006-01-01|series=CHI '06|location=New York, NY, US|publisher=ACM|pages=111–120|doi=10.1145/1124772.1124792|isbn=978-1-59593-372-0|s2cid=18423803}}</ref> users assign tags to resources shared with other users, which gives rise to a type of information organisation that emerges from this crowdsourcing process. The resulting information structure can be seen as reflecting the collective knowledge (or collective intelligence) of a community of users and is commonly called a "Folksonomy", and the process can be captured by models of collaborative tagging.<ref name=":26" />
Recent research using data from the social bookmarking website Delicious, has shown that collaborative tagging systems exhibit a form of complex systems (or self-organizing) dynamics.<ref name="WWW07-ref" >Harry Halpin, Valentin Robu, Hana Shepherd [http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1242572.1242602 The Complex Dynamics of Collaborative Tagging], Proceedings 6th International Conference on the World Wide Web (WWW'07), Banff, Canada, pp. 211–220, ACM Press, 2007.</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Fu |first1=Wai-Tat |chapter=The microstructures of social tagging: A rational model |title=Proceedings of the 2008 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work |date=8 November 2008 |pages=229–238 |doi=10.1145/1460563.1460600 |chapter-url=https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1460563.1460600 |publisher=Association for Computing Machinery |isbn=978-1-60558-007-4 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Fu|first1=Wai-Tat|title=2009 International Conference on Computational Science and Engineering |chapter=A Semantic Imitation Model of Social Tag Choices |pages=66–72|date=August 2009|doi=10.1109/CSE.2009.382|isbn=978-1-4244-5334-4|s2cid=10229043}}</ref> Although there is no central controlled vocabulary to constrain the actions of individual users, the distributions of tags that describe different resources has been shown to converge over time to a stable power law distributions.<ref name="WWW07-ref" /> Once such stable distributions form, examining the correlations between different tags can be used to construct simple folksonomy graphs, which can be efficiently partitioned to obtained a form of community or shared vocabularies.<ref name="TWEB-ref" >{{cite journal | last1=Robu | first1=Valentin | last2=Halpin | first2=Harry | last3=Shepherd | first3=Hana | title=Emergence of consensus and shared vocabularies in collaborative tagging systems | journal=ACM Transactions on the Web | date=2009 | volume=3 | issue=4 | pages=1–34 | doi=10.1145/1594173.1594176 | url=http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1594173.1594176 }}</ref> Such vocabularies can be seen as a form of collective intelligence, emerging from the decentralised actions of a community of users. The Wall-it Project is also an example of social bookmarking.<ref>Carlos J. Costa, January 2012. {{cite web|title=Article on Wall-it project|year=2012|url=http://masteropensource.wordpress.com/2012/01/21/wall-it/|access-date=23 January 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131218122446/http://masteropensource.wordpress.com/2012/01/21/wall-it/|archive-date=18 December 2013|url-status=live}}</ref>
==== P2P business ==== Research performed by Tapscott and Williams has provided a few examples of the benefits of collective intelligence to business:<ref name="Tapscott, D. 2008" />
;Talent utilization :At the rate technology is changing, no firm can fully keep up in the innovations needed to compete. Instead, smart firms are drawing on the power of mass collaboration to involve participation of the people they could not employ. This also helps generate continual interest in the firm in the form of those drawn to new idea creation as well as investment opportunities.<ref name="Tapscott, D. 2008" /> ;Demand creation :Firms can create a new market for complementary goods by engaging in open-source community. Firms also are able to expand into new fields that they previously would not have been able to without the addition of resources and collaboration from the community. This creates, as mentioned before, a new market for complementary goods for the products in said new fields.<ref name="Tapscott, D. 2008" /> ;Costs reduction :Mass collaboration can help to reduce costs dramatically. Firms can release a specific software or product to be evaluated or debugged by online communities. The results will be more personal, robust and error-free products created in a short amount of time and costs. New ideas can also be generated and explored by collaboration of online communities creating opportunities for free R&D outside the confines of the company.<ref name="Tapscott, D. 2008" />
==== Open-source software ==== Cultural theorist and online community developer, John Banks considered the contribution of online fan communities in the creation of the Trainz product. He argued that its commercial success was fundamentally dependent upon "the formation and growth of an active and vibrant online fan community that would both actively promote the product and create content- extensions and additions to the game software".<ref name="jbanks">John A.L. Banks. ''Negotiating Participatory Culture in the New Media Environment: Auran and the Trainz Online Community – An (Im)possible Relation'', The University of Queensland. School of English, Media Studies and Art History. MelbourneDAC2003</ref>
The increase in user created content and interactivity gives rise to issues of control over the game itself and ownership of the player-created content. This gives rise to fundamental legal issues, highlighted by Lessig<ref>L, Lessig (2006) Code Version 2.0 (2nd ed.). New York: Basic Books.</ref> and Bray and Konsynski,<ref>Bray, DA & Konsynski, BR, 2007, ''Virtual Worlds, Virtual Economies, Virtual Institutions'', viewed 10 October 2008, p. 1-27 <http://ssrn.com/abstract=962501></ref> such as intellectual property and property ownership rights.
Gosney extends this issue of Collective Intelligence in videogames one step further in his discussion of alternate reality gaming. This genre, he describes as an "across-media game that deliberately blurs the line between the in-game and out-of-game experiences"<ref name=":27">Gosney, J.W, 2005, ''Beyond Reality: A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming'', Thomson Course Technology, Boston.</ref> as events that happen outside the game reality "reach out" into the player's lives in order to bring them together. Solving the game requires "the collective and collaborative efforts of multiple players"; thus the issue of collective and collaborative team play is essential to ARG. Gosney argues that the Alternate Reality genre of gaming dictates an unprecedented level of collaboration and "collective intelligence" in order to solve the mystery of the game.<ref name=":27" />
==== Benefits of co-operation ==== Co-operation helps to solve most important and most interesting multi-science problems. In his book, James Surowiecki mentioned that most scientists think that benefits of co-operation have much more value when compared to potential costs. Co-operation works also because at best it guarantees number of different viewpoints. Because of the possibilities of technology global co-operation is nowadays much easier and productive than before. It is clear that, when co-operation goes from university level to global it has significant benefits.
For example, why do scientists co-operate? Science has become more and more isolated and each science field has spread even more and it is impossible for one person to be aware of all developments. This is true especially in experimental research where highly advanced equipment requires special skills. With co-operation scientists can use information from different fields and use it effectively instead of gathering all the information just by reading by themselves."<ref name="Surowiecki">{{cite book | last=Surowiecki | first=James | title=The wisdom of crowds: why the many are smarter than the few | publisher=Abacus | publication-place=London | date=2007 | isbn=978-0-349-11605-1 | oclc=58997957}}</ref>
=== Coordination === ==== Ad-hoc communities ==== Military, trade unions, and corporations satisfy some definitions of CI – the most rigorous definition would require a capacity to respond to very arbitrary conditions without orders or guidance from "law" or "customers" to constrain actions. Online advertising companies are using collective intelligence to bypass traditional marketing and creative agencies.<ref>Lee, Sang M., et al. "Success factors of platform leadership in web 2.0 service business." Service Business 4.2 (2010): 89–103.</ref>
The UNU open platform for "human swarming" (or "social swarming") establishes real-time closed-loop systems around groups of networked users molded after biological swarms, enabling human participants to behave as a unified collective intelligence.<ref name="Human Swarms">{{cite web|url=http://news.discovery.com/human/life/swarms-of-humans-power-a-i-platform-150603.htm|title=Swarms of Humans Power A.I. Platform|last=DNews|date=3 June 2015|access-date=21 June 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150621165834/http://news.discovery.com/human/life/swarms-of-humans-power-a-i-platform-150603.htm|archive-date=21 June 2015|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/titles/content/ecal2015/ch117.html|first1=Louis B.|title=07/20/2015-07/24/2015|last1=Rosenberg|first2=Unanimous|last2=A.I.|first3=San|last3=Francisco|last4=California|last5=USA|date=1 January 2016|volume=13|pages=658–659|doi=10.7551/978-0-262-33027-5-ch117|isbn=978-0-262-33027-5|access-date=12 October 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151027132802/https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/titles/content/ecal2015/ch117.html|archive-date=27 October 2015}}</ref> When connected to UNU, groups of distributed users collectively answer questions and make predictions in real-time.<ref>{{Cite conference |last=Rosenberg |first=Louis B. |date=September 2015 |title=Human swarming, a real-time method for parallel distributed intelligence |conference=Swarm/Human Blended Intelligence Workshop (SHBI) |publisher=IEEE |pages=1–7 |doi=10.1109/SHBI.2015.7321685 |isbn=978-1-4673-6522-2}}</ref> Early testing shows that human swarms can out-predict individuals.<ref name="Human Swarms"/> In 2016, an UNU swarm was challenged by a reporter to predict the winners of the Kentucky Derby, and successfully picked the first four horses, in order, beating 540 to 1 odds.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.newsweek.com/artificial-intelligence-turns-20-11000-kentucky-derby-bet-457783|title=Artificial intelligence turns $20 into $11,000 in Kentucky Derby bet|website=Newsweek|date=10 May 2016|access-date=4 June 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160604063846/http://www.newsweek.com/artificial-intelligence-turns-20-11000-kentucky-derby-bet-457783|archive-date=4 June 2016|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/06/02/what-happened-when-an-ai-hive-mind-answered-reddits-burning-politics-questions/|title=What happened when an A.I. hive mind answered Reddit's burning politics questions|first=Abby|last=Ohlheiser|date=2 June 2016|newspaper=The Washington Post|access-date=4 June 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160604022928/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/06/02/what-happened-when-an-ai-hive-mind-answered-reddits-burning-politics-questions/|archive-date=4 June 2016|url-status=live}}</ref>
Specialized information sites such as Digital Photography Review<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.dpreview.com/|title=Digital Photography Review|website=dpreview.com|access-date=2016-12-07|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161209013719/https://www.dpreview.com/|archive-date=9 December 2016|url-status=live}}</ref> or Camera Labs<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.cameralabs.com/|title=Camera reviews, DSLR reviews, lens reviews, photography guides |website=Cameralabs |access-date=2016-12-07|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161210142203/http://cameralabs.com/|archive-date=10 December 2016|url-status=live}}</ref> is an example of collective intelligence. Anyone who has an access to the internet can contribute to distributing their knowledge over the world through the specialized information sites.
In learner-generated context a group of users marshal resources to create an ecology that meets their needs often (but not only) in relation to the co-configuration, co-creation and co-design of a particular learning space that allows learners to create their own context.<ref>Luckin, R., du Boulay, B., Smith, H., Underwood, J., Fitzpatrick, G., Holmberg, J., Kerawalla, L., Tunley, H., Brewster, D. and Pearce, D. (2005), '[http://srodev.sussex.ac.uk/403/1/jime.pdf Using Mobile Technology to Create Flexible Learning Contexts] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190108200742/http://srodev.sussex.ac.uk/403/1/jime.pdf |date=8 January 2019 }} '. Journal of Interactive Media in Education, 22.</ref><ref>Luckin, R. (2006), Understanding Learning Contexts as Ecologies of Resources: From the Zone of Proximal Development to Learner Generated Contexts. Paper presented at the Proceedings of World Conference on Elearning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education 2006.</ref><ref>{{cite journal | last1=Luckin | first1=Rose | last2=Shurville | first2=Simon | last3=Browne | first3=Tom | title=Initiating e-learning by stealth, participation and consultation in a late majority institution | journal=Journal of Organisational Transformation & Social Change | date=2007 | volume=3 | issue=3 | pages=317–332 | doi=10.1386/jots.3.3.317_1 }}</ref> Learner-generated contexts represent an ''ad hoc'' community that facilitates coordination of collective action in a network of trust. An example of learner-generated context is found on the Internet when collaborative users pool knowledge in a "shared intelligence space". As the Internet has developed so has the concept of CI as a shared public forum. The global accessibility and availability of the Internet has allowed more people than ever to contribute and access ideas.{{sfn|Flew|2008}}
Games such as ''The Sims'' Series, and ''Second Life'' are designed to be non-linear and to depend on collective intelligence for expansion. This way of sharing is gradually evolving and influencing the mindset of the current and future generations.<ref name="Weiss, A. 2005 pp. 19-23"/> For them, collective intelligence has become a norm. In Terry Flew's discussion of 'interactivity' in the online games environment, the ongoing interactive dialogue between users and game developers,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Flew |first1=Terry |last2=Humphreys |first2=Sal |year=2005 |chapter=Games: Technology, Industry, Culture |editor-first=Terry |editor-last=Flew |title=New Media: An Introduction |edition=2nd |publisher=Oxford University Press |place=South Melbourne |pages=101–114}}</ref> he refers to Pierre Lévy's concept of collective intelligence and argues this is active in videogames as clans or guilds in MMORPG constantly work to achieve goals. Henry Jenkins proposes that the participatory cultures emerging between games producers, media companies, and the end-users mark a fundamental shift in the nature of media production and consumption. Jenkins argues that this new participatory culture arises at the intersection of three broad new media trends.<ref>{{harvtxt|Jenkins|2002}} in {{harvtxt|Flew|Humphreys|2005}}</ref> Firstly, the development of new media tools/technologies enabling the creation of content. Secondly, the rise of subcultures promoting such creations, and lastly, the growth of value adding media conglomerates, which foster image, idea and narrative flow.
==== Coordinating collective actions ==== thumb|The cast of After School Improv learns an important lesson about improvisation and life. Improvisational actors also experience a type of collective intelligence which they term "group mind", as theatrical improvisation relies on mutual cooperation and agreement,<ref name=":18">{{Cite journal|last1=Vera|first1=Dusya|last2=Crossan|first2=Mary|date=2004-06-01|title=Theatrical Improvisation: Lessons for Organizations|journal=Organization Studies|volume=25|issue=5|pages=727–749|doi=10.1177/0170840604042412|s2cid=144386272}}</ref> leading to the unity of "group mind".<ref name=":18" /><ref>{{Cite journal |first=R. Keith |last=Sawyer|date=2004-06-01|title=Improvised lessons: collaborative discussion in the constructivist classroom|journal=Teaching Education|volume=15|issue=2|pages=189–201|doi=10.1080/1047621042000213610|s2cid=219643591}}</ref>
Growth of the Internet and mobile telecom has also produced "swarming" or "rendezvous" events that enable meetings or even dates on demand.<ref name="Wolpert arXiv:cs/9905004"/> The full impact has yet to be felt but the anti-globalization movement, for example, relies heavily on e-mail, cell phones, pagers, SMS and other means of organizing.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vskz1poDuvoC&q=anti+globalization+collective+intelligence&pg=PR7|title=Globalization / Anti-Globalization: Beyond the Great Divide|last1=Held|first1=David|last2=McGrew|first2=Anthony|date=2007-11-19|publisher=Polity|isbn=978-0-7456-3911-6}}</ref> The Indymedia organization does this in a more journalistic way.<ref name=":19">{{cite web|url=http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2001/09/11129.html|title='Anti-Globals' Use Internet As Collective Intelligence – UK Indymedia|website=indymedia.org.uk|access-date=2016-12-11|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161220122251/http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2001/09/11129.html|archive-date=20 December 2016|url-status=live}}</ref> Such resources could combine into a form of collective intelligence accountable only to the current participants yet with some strong moral or linguistic guidance from generations of contributors – or even take on a more obviously democratic form to advance shared goal.<ref name=":19" />
A further application of collective intelligence is found in the "Community Engineering for Innovations".<ref name="Idea Competitions">{{cite journal | last1=Leimeister | first1=Jan Marco | last2=Huber | first2=Michael | last3=Bretschneider | first3=Ulrich | last4=Krcmar | first4=Helmut | title=Leveraging Crowdsourcing: Activation-Supporting Components for IT-Based Ideas Competition | journal=Journal of Management Information Systems | date=2009 | volume=26 | pages=197–224 | doi=10.2753/MIS0742-1222260108 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Ebner |first1=Winfried |last2=Leimeister |first2=Jan Marco |last3=Krcmar |first3=Helmut |title=Community engineering for innovations: The ideas competition as a method to nurture a virtual community for innovations |journal=R&D Management |date=2009 |volume=39 |issue=4 |pages=342–356 |doi=10.1111/j.1467-9310.2009.00564.x |url=https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/219672/1/JML_145.pdf}}</ref> In such an integrated framework proposed by Ebner et al., idea competitions and virtual communities are combined to better realize the potential of the collective intelligence of the participants, particularly in open-source R&D.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Ebner|first1=Winfried|last2=Leimeister|first2=Jan Marco|last3=Krcmar|first3=Helmut|date=2009-09-01|title=Community engineering for innovations: the ideas competition as a method to nurture a virtual community for innovations|journal=R&D Management|volume=39|issue=4|pages=342–356|doi=10.1111/j.1467-9310.2009.00564.x|s2cid=16316321|url=https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/219699/1/JML_173.pdf|access-date=2 October 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170922012931/https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/219699/1/JML_173.pdf|archive-date=22 September 2017|url-status=live}}</ref> In management theory the use of collective intelligence and crowd sourcing leads to innovations and very robust answers to quantitative issues.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Fladerer |first1=Johannes-Paul |last2=Kurzmann |first2=Ernst |title=WISDOM OF THE MANY: how to create self-organisation and how to use collective... intelligence in companies and in society from mana. |date=November 2019 |publisher=BOOKS ON DEMAND |isbn=978-3-7504-2242-1 |url=https://www.bod.de/buchshop/the-wisdom-of-the-many-johannes-paul-fladerer-9783750422421 |language=de |access-date=23 December 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191223093505/https://www.bod.de/buchshop/the-wisdom-of-the-many-johannes-paul-fladerer-9783750422421 |archive-date=23 December 2019 |url-status=live }}</ref> Therefore, collective intelligence and crowd sourcing is not necessarily leading to the best solution to economic problems, but to a stable, good solution.
==== Coordination in different types of tasks ==== Collective actions or tasks require different amounts of coordination depending on the complexity of the task. Tasks vary from being highly independent simple tasks that require very little coordination to complex interdependent tasks that are built by many individuals and require a lot of coordination. In the article written by Kittur, Lee and Kraut the writers introduce a problem in cooperation: "When tasks require high coordination because the work is highly interdependent, having more contributors can increase process losses, reducing the effectiveness of the group below what individual members could optimally accomplish". Having a team too large the overall effectiveness may suffer even when the extra contributors increase the resources. In the end the overall costs from coordination might overwhelm other costs.<ref>{{cite book | last1=Kittur | first1=Aniket | last2=Lee | first2=Bryant | last3=Kraut | first3=Robert E. | title=Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems | chapter=Coordination in collective intelligence: The role of team structure and task interdependence | date=2009 | pages=1495–1504 | doi=10.1145/1518701.1518928 | isbn=978-1-60558-246-7 | chapter-url=https://doi.org/10.1145/1518701.1518928 }}</ref>
Group collective intelligence is a property that emerges through coordination from both bottom-up and top-down processes. In a bottom-up process the different characteristics of each member are involved in contributing and enhancing coordination. Top-down processes are more strict and fixed with norms, group structures and routines that in their own way enhance the group's collective work.<ref name=":11"/>
==Challenges and future directions== Collective intelligence systems face significant challenges that threaten their effectiveness, particularly as these systems become more complex and augmented by artificial intelligence.
A core vulnerability is the loss of independent thought due to social influence, which Lorenz et al. (2011) showed can reduce opinion diversity and lead to convergence on inaccurate group judgments. They identified phenomena such as social influence reducing diversity without improving accuracy, range reduction shifting true values, and unwarranted confidence among participants.<ref name="How social influence can undermine"/> Emerging collective intelligence platforms increasingly integrate AI to enhance human collaboration. According to Riedl et al. (2025), AI can augment collective intelligence by improving distributed knowledge aggregation, coordinating attention, and facilitating collective reasoning. However, deploying AI at scale introduces challenges including preserving user trust, ensuring equitable representation, facilitating usability, and protecting privacy. The complexity of social dynamics and constant changes in community structure require sophisticated human-centered design principles and governance frameworks to avoid amplifying biases or creating algorithmic monocultures.<ref>{{cite journal | last1=Riedl | first1=Christoph | last2=De Cremer | first2=David | last3=Lucarelli | first3=Gina | last4=Antoine-Souklaye | first4=Erika | last5=Bullock | first5=Seth | last6=Ajmeri | first6=Nirav | last7=Batty | first7=Mike | last8=Black | first8=Michaela | last9=Cartlidge | first9=John | last10=Challen | first10=Robert | last11=Chen | first11=Cangxiong | last12=Chen | first12=Jing | last13=Condell | first13=Joan | last14=Danon | first14=Leon | last15=Dennett | first15=Adam | last16=Heppenstall | first16=Alison | last17=Marshall | first17=Paul | last18=Morgan | first18=Phil | last19=o'Kane | first19=Aisling | last20=Smith | first20=Laura GE | last21=Smith | first21=Theresa | last22=Williams | first22=Hywel | last23=Pescetelli | first23=Niccolo | last24=Denis | first24=Georgina | title=The potential and challenges of AI for collective intelligence | journal=Collective Intelligence | date=2025 | volume=4 | article-number=26339137241308821 | doi=10.1177/26339137241308821 | hdl=1983/3dfb6030-2f60-45de-b11b-5088b0e1a16f | hdl-access=free }}</ref>
Recent work has proposed viewing collective intelligence in terms of "human–machine social systems," in which humans and heterogeneous artificial agents (such as algorithms, bots, and robots) jointly form complex networks whose emergent outcomes cannot be deduced from human or machine behavior alone. Under this perspective, researchers study how different configurations of human–human, human–machine, and machine–machine interactions affect competition, coordination, cooperation, contagion, and collective decision-making, and how design and regulation of these socio-technical ecologies can improve robustness, resilience, and group performance.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Tsvetkova |first1=Milena |last2=Yasseri |first2=Taha |last3=Pescetelli |first3=Niccolo |last4=Werner |first4=Tobias |title=A new sociology of humans and machines |date=2024 |volume=8 |issue=10 |pages=1864–1876 |doi=10.1038/s41562-024-02001-8 |journal=Nature Human Behaviour |pmid=39438685 |arxiv=2402.14410}}</ref>
Scaling collective intelligence to national or global levels further complicates these issues, demanding robust governance structures and sustainable, transparent AI systems. To maintain robustness in problem-solving around complex global challenges such as climate change or sustainable development, future platforms must carefully balance AI augmentation with human autonomy, diversity, and openness.
==Conferences and workshops== The progress made in the rapidly developing field of collective intelligence can be followed via conferences and their proceedings, posters, etc. Conference presentations are usually published afterwards as ‘Proceedings’ and/or made available post-conference on the website.
===Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)=== The ACM Collective Intelligence Conference Series is an interdisciplinary event sponsored by Special Interest Group On Computer-Human Interaction (SIGCHI). It is for academics, businesspeople, nonprofits, government policymakers etc. to share insights and ideas relevant to understanding and designing collective intelligence in its many forms in order to promote its use.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://ci.acm.org/|title=ACM Collective Intelligence Conference Series|access-date=2025-12-10}}</ref>
===Santa Fe Institute=== The Santa Fe Institute held a workshop in 2021 called “Frontiers in Collective Intelligence.” It brought together researchers from computer science, biology, social science and philosophy to survey current work and identify research frontiers. The report synthesised talks and discussions on topics such as agent-based models of analogy making, collective computation and coarse-graining, neural and cortical accounts of distributed cognition, communication costs and benefits, mechanisms for coordination, and applications to misinformation and human–machine collaboration. It highlighted recurring themes for future research, including the role of optimization and modularity, the trade-offs introduced by communication, and the need for interdisciplinary methods to link theory, experiment and application.<ref>{{cite arXiv |last1=Millhouse |first1=Tyler |last2=Moses |first2=Melanie |last3=Mitchell |first3=Melanie |title=Frontiers in Collective Intelligence: A Workshop Report |year=2021|class=cs.AI |eprint=2112.06864v2 }}</ref>
===DIStributed COllective Intelligence Workshop (DISCOLI)===
The DISCOLI (DIStributed COLlective Intelligence) workshop series is an annual academic forum, first held in 2022, that brings together researchers and practitioners working on distributed and engineered forms of collective intelligence. Typically co-located with conferences such as the International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS) and Distributed Computing in Smart Systems (DCOSS), DISCOLI focuses on algorithms and architectures for self-organising and multi-agent systems, human-AI socio-technical collaborations, extraction of collective knowledge in Internet of Things deployments, programming and verification of emergent behaviour, and related engineering challenges. Editions have been held in Bologna (2022), Pafos (2023), Abu Dhabi (2024) and Tuscany (2025), with a fifth edition planned for 2026.<ref name="DISCOLIhistory">{{cite web |title=DISCOLI Workshop on DIStributed COLlective Intelligence – History |url=https://discoli-workshop.github.io/history/ |publisher=DISCOLI Workshop |accessdate=10 December 2025}}</ref>
===Computational Collective Intelligence (ICCCI) ===
The International Conference on Computational Collective Intelligence (ICCCI) is an established annual conference focusing on computational and applied aspects of collective intelligence. Since the late 2000s the series has published proceedings (Springer) under themes such as computational collective intelligence, semantic web, social networks, multi-agent systems and applications. Recent ICCCI editions have included conferences in Hammamet (2022), Rhodes (2021), Budapest (2023), Leipzig (2024) and Ho Chi Minh City (2025). ICCCI serves as a principal venue for computational, algorithmic and application-oriented CI research with an emphasis on methods, evaluation and deployment of large-scale CI systems.<ref name="ICCCI">{{cite web |title=International Conference on Computational Collective Intelligence (ICCCI) — Past Editions |url=https://link.springer.com/conference/iccci |access-date=10 December 2025}}</ref>
===International Symposium on Educating for Collective Intelligence===
The First International Symposium on Educating for Collective Intelligence, convened by the Connected Intelligence Centre (University of Technology Sydney) on 5–6 December 2024, examined pedagogical, technical and ethical approaches to cultivating collective-intelligence capacities in education. The symposium brought together researchers and practitioners to discuss topics such as pedagogies for CI, design of educational technologies that support shared situational awareness and collective problem solving, methods for assessing CI in learning contexts, and the role of AI in supporting collaborative cognition. Keynote speakers included scholars working on CI education and learning analytics. The event is cited as an example of an emergent research and practice community focused on “education for CI” that links education, learning-analytics, and CI research agendas.<ref name="CICedu2024">{{cite web |title=First International Symposium on Educating for Collective Intelligence |url=https://cic.uts.edu.au/events/collective-intelligence-edu-2024/ |publisher=Connected Intelligence Centre, University of Technology Sydney |date=6 December 2024 |accessdate=10 December 2025}}</ref>
== See also == {{div col|colwidth=20em}}
=== Similar concepts and applications === * Citizen science * Civic intelligence * Collaborative filtering * Collaborative innovation network * Collective decision-making * Collective effervescence * Collective memory * Collective problem solving * Crowd psychology * Global Consciousness Project * Group behaviour * Group mind (science fiction) * Knowledge ecosystem * Open-source intelligence * Prediction market * Recommendation system * Smart mob * Social commerce * Social epistemology * Social information processing * Stigmergy * Swarm intelligence * Syntality * Wisdom of the crowd * Think tank * Wiki * Wikipedia
=== Computation and computer science === * Bees algorithm * Cellular automaton * {{slink|Cognitive model#Mother-fetus cognitive model}} * Collaborative human interpreter * Collaborative software * Connectivity (graph theory) * Enterprise bookmarking * Human-based computation * Open-source software * Organismic computing * Preference elicitation
=== Others === * Customer engagement * Dispersed knowledge * Distributed cognition * Facilitation (business) * Facilitator * Group cognition * Hundredth monkey effect * Intersubjectivity * Keeping up with the Joneses * Library * Library of Alexandria * Meme * Open-space meeting * Shared intentionality * Situated cognition
{{Div col end}}
== References == {{reflist}}
== Further reading == {{refbegin}} * {{cite book | last1=Lévy | first1=Pierre | year=1997 | title = Collective Intelligence: Mankind's Emerging World in Cyberspace | publisher = Basic Books | isbn=978-0-306-45635-0 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sjjbAAAAMAAJ }} * {{cite book | last1=Malone | first1=Thomas W. | last2=Bernstein | first2=Michael S. | year=2022 | title = MIT Handbook of Collective Intelligence | publisher = MIT Press |url=https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262545846/handbook-of-collective-intelligence/ | isbn = 978-0-262-54584-6 }} * {{cite book | last = Surowiecki | first = James | title = The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many are Smarter than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economics, Society and Nations | date = 16 August 2005 | publisher = Anchor Books |isbn=978-0-385-72170-7 | url = https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/175380/the-wisdom-of-crowds-by-james-surowiecki/ }} * {{cite book | last=Mulgan | first=Geoff | year=2017 | title = Big Mind | publisher = Princeton University Press |isbn=9780691170794 |url=https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691170794/big-mind }} * {{cite book |title=The Routledge Handbook of Collective Intelligence for Democracy and Governance |year=2023 |first1=Stephen|last1=Boucher |first2=Carina|last2=Hallin |first3=Lex|last3=Paulso |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=978-1-032-10561-1 |url=https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/63621/9781000846737.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y}} * {{cite book | last=Landemore | first=Hélène. | year=2017 | title = Democratic Reason: Politics, Collective Intelligence, and the Rule of the Many | publisher = Princeton University Press | isbn = 978-0-691-17639-0 |url=https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691176390/democratic-reason }} * {{cite web |title=Collective Intelligence Journal |publisher=SAGE Publishing, the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), and the Centre for Collective Intelligence Design (NESTA) |url=https://journals.sagepub.com/overview-metric/col }} * {{cite web |title=CI Reading List |publisher=ACM Collective Intelligence 2024 |url=https://ci2024.weebly.com/ci-reading-list.html }} * {{cite book |last=Baltzersen |first=Rolf K. |title=Cultural-Historical Perspectives on Collective Intelligence: Patterns in Problem Solving and Innovation |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2022 |isbn=978-1-108-98136-1 |doi=10.1017/9781108981361 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/367B658082C1381F97FF6DD56A60C8C1/9781108833745AR.pdf/Cultural-Historical_Perspectives_on_Collective_Intelligence.pdf?event-type=FTLA}} {{refend}}
== External links == *[https://www.cip.org/ The Collective Intelligence Project] *[https://www.nesta.org.uk/project/centre-collective-intelligence/ The NESTA Centre for Collective Intelligence] - National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA), UK *[https://www.crowdwisdomproject.org/ The Crowd Wisdom Project, UK] uses pol.is for polling *[https://www.undp.org/acceleratorlabs/collective-intelligence-sustainable-development-getting-smarter-together Collective Intelligence for Sustainable Development - United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Accelerator Labs] *[https://www.classcentral.com/subject/collective-intelligence Collective intelligence online courses] at Class Central
{{DEFAULTSORT:Collective Intelligence}} Category:Collective intelligence Category:Intelligence by type Category:Multi-robot systems