Superminds by Thomas Malone, 2018

Superminds by Thomas Malone, 2018
Summary of Book – Parts 3 & 4 by Charles Tappert and Tilak Agerwala The information presented here, although greatly condensed, comes almost entirely from the course textbook.

Superminds – Book Parts
1 What are the superminds? 2 How can computers help make superminds smarter? 3 How can superminds make smarter decisions? 4 How can superminds create more intelligibility? 5 How else can superminds think more intelligently? 6 How can superminds help solve our problems? 7 Where are we headed?

Overview of parts 3, 4 3. How can superminds make smarter decisions?
4. How can superminds create more intelligibility? (A supermind is a group of individuals acting together in ways that seem intelligent). How groups of people can do each of the 5 cognitive processes below and how information technology can help do them better.

Summary of part 3 How can superminds make smarter decisions?
Develops a theory about group decision making in superminds (Hierarchies, Democracies, Markets, Communities, Ecosystems) by bringing together knowledge from many different disciplines to Understand which types are likely to be the most common in different situations Decide which kind of superminds are most likely to help us achieve goals How IT can help superminds make “smarter” decisions.

How can superminds make smarter decisions?
1. Smarter Hierarchies A supermind where people in authority make decisions that their subordinates are required to follow. Hierarchies are everywhere in the modern world Human hierarchies have been critical to our dominance over the other life forms on our planet IT will help automate work and decentralize decision making

1. Smarter Hierarchies Automation Google highly automated hierarchy, vast Google “server farms, a few humans manage thousands of machines that churn out results. Humans do the high-touch work of managing corporate advertisers. The boundary between what people do and what machines do will keep changing, but at any given time, humans will do the things machines can’t.

1. Smarter Hierarchies Decentralization Technology helps people communicate with each other and their machines. New technologies can help centralize decisions. e.g. Osama bin Laden raid. More likely decisions will be decentralized in future People who make decisions for themselves are more highly motivated, more creative, and more flexible Adhocracies: Loose, flexible hierarchies Examples on the rise: Wikipedia, Open-source software, Lyft, Airbnb

1. Smarter Hierarchies IT will lead to hierarchies that are more intelligent and flexible More tasks will be done by automated systems that are tools or assistants for humans Humans will do more non routine tasks organized in more flexible and decentralized ways

2. Smarter Democracies A supermind where decisions for the group are made by a vote of its members Most visible examples are governments, others: publicly held companies, non-profit orgs One of the best ways to aggregate opinions of individuals IT can help people be better informed but can also lead to hoaxes and false news IT can help count votes faster If the average voter is more likely than not to vote for a good (bad) outcome then the more voters there are the more likely it is that the election will result in a good (bad) outcome.

How will IT help make Smarter Democracies? Democracies can be direct or representative On-line systems allow voters to express their preferences and values in a more fine-grained way by delegating to other people or machines the task of voting on their behalf for many more detailed issues. More intelligent decisions may be possible by voting separately on facts and values 1. Predict outcomes of proposed actions (household income, employment, crime-rates  GJP process with humans and computers 2. Vote on actions using the current legislative process.

How will IT help make Smarter Democracies? Facilitate more accurate ways of determining what is or will be true using sophisticated combinations of judgements of many more people and machines Galaxy Zoo Project Galaxy Zoo is a crowdsourced astronomy project which invites people to assist in the morphological classification of large numbers of galaxies. Galaxy Zoo 1, more than 40 million classifications were made in approximately 175 days by more than 100,000 volunteers, providing an average of 38 classifications per galaxy. Volunteers vote on final classification Eyewire Crowdsource data analysis of brain neurons using an online game. EyeWire utilizes something more intelligent than even the most powerful supercomputer — the human brain. Multiple players map each cube; then their work is compared.

How will IT help make Smarter Democracies? Facilitate more accurate ways of determining what is or will be true using sophisticated combinations of judgements of many more people and machines Good Judgement Project: Hands down winner of iARPA contest among Universities. Develop innovative methods for predicting a wide range of geopolitical events GJP: “Harnessing the wisdom of the crowd to forecast world events“ Combined individual predictions statistically (not average) 30% more accurate than intelligence community forecasters Similar to architecture of Watson

3. Smarter Markets A supermind where decisions are made by individuals mutually agreeing to trade resources with one another. Markets are ubiquitous in our world Participants are not bound by any decisions they did not agree to (unlike heiarchies and democracies). Leads to optimal allocation of groups resources, i.e. no other allocation could make some individuals better off w/o making others worse off. Completely blind to things that are not included in the prices How can IT help? Cheap Communications dramatically improve global reach Atomated tools for buyers and sellers

3. Smarter Markets Predictive Markets To make a decision, you usually have to make a prediction on the outcome Computers are often much better at this than humans (Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman) 60% of Case Studies found that algorithms were more accurate than experts at predicting outcomes and the rest found no difference. Grades College Students would receive, longevity of cancer patients, success of new businesses, job satisfaction, prices of Bordeaux wines. Computers + People can be better than either Where algorithms lack general intelligence. e.g. predicting air travel on September 12, 2001

Predictive Markets Experiment: Predict next play in a football game If you think probability of pass is greater than 60% buy a “pass prediction” for up to 60 cents and sell one for anything over 60 cents. The resulting price = estimate of probability of a pass based on collective opinion of participants. Participants Humans were shown video, stopped before each play, traded with each other Bots were programmed to use rudimentary machine learning and given limited information about the game (which down, yards to next first down, ..) Human played against humans, bots played against bots, humans and bots participated against each other

Predictive Markets Experiment: Result: Markets in which both humans and bots participated worked better than those with only people or only bots. Computers were focused, systematically apply statistical methods to minimize errors Humans had more information, position of players, could recognize “shotgun” position and predict a pass Google and Microsoft are using predictive markets to estimate completion times of projects.

4. Smarter Communities A supermind where decisions are made by informal consensus or according to shared norms, both of which are enforced through reputations and access to resources. Communities are pervasive in nature and human society Communities for work related goals e.g. Wikipedia Communities of practice: people who do the same kind of work and learn by interacting with other members On-line Communities to make members happier Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Yelp, Trip Advisor Positive and negative effects on happiness IT can play an important role in bring communities together and splitting them apart 2016 Presidential Election

4. Smarter Communities Technology for achieving more intelligent consensus Online argumentation or online deliberation: Introduction to the Deliberatorium (research talk at the 2012 Yale Epistemic Democracy Workshop) 4min mark Problem: Current social media fail badly when we try to engage large crowds in deliberating about how to solve complex problems, typically generating huge volumes of highly redundant disorganized content of very mixed quality, making it prohibitively expensive to find the "good stuff” The Deliberatorium is a web-based system that combines ideas from argumentation theory and social computing to address this critical challenge. Group members contribute their points of view in an online map that explicitly represents the logical structure of the argument: Issue? Decision options? Arguments for and against each option Requires human moderator Used by thousands of individuals in such institutions as Intel, the Federal Bureau of Land Management, and the Italian Democratic Party.

4. Smarter Communities Could Information Technology Enable Cyber-Socialism? Allocate human labor, food and other resources based on societal norms that are embodied in the way you’re rated by other people and in algorithms for computing reputations. The economy would take into account people’s needs and abilities, not just what the produce and consume. Unlike a capitalistic market-based economy Could be fairer China’s Social Credit System (to be rolled out by 2020) System tracks financial behavior Includes Information on social behavior (cheating, jaywalking, violating family-planning limits, food for parents over 60, ….) Compute “social credit” which leads to benefits and penalties + Data-based system may be better than subjective judgement of Communist Party officials - Insidious Big-Brother

5. Smarter Ecosystems A supermind where individuals interact without any framework for cooperation. In the short term, decisions are made by the law of the jungle: the individuals with the most power get what they want. In the long term, decisions are made by the survival of the fittest: the individuals that survive, grow, and reproduce most successfully control the most resources. Collection of all living things on our planet United States and its superminds that interact to make group decisions Laws and Regulations Markets Governments Political Contributions Advertising, Media Values Values Laws, Resources Communities

5. Smarter Ecosystems How will ecosystems change with information technology? If technology makes superminds smarter, and if smarter superminds are more powerful, then new technologies will essentially increase the level of competitiveness for all superminds in the ecosystem. By making communication faster and cheaper, new technologies will increase the speed of evolution in ecosystems composed of superminds.

Smarter Ecosystems Principle of evolutionary utilitarianism: When ecosystems consist of superminds whose members are people, the ecosystems, in the long run, generally try to provide the greatest good for the greatest number of people in it. (Malone focuses on groups not biological members and on evolution that occurs through transmitting ideas and behavior socially not via biological genes.) There is evolutionary pressure for superminds to survive and reproduce whether they know it or not and whether this is in the interests of its members or not. Superminds whose primary members are humans often exhibit a general long term tendency to do what’s good for the people in them. People choose to participate in superminds that give them more of what they want. Superminds that attract more people survive and reproduce more effectively.

Which Superminds are best for which decisions? Develops systematic way of comparing superminds on net benefits: the total benefit the supermind creates minus the cost of creating that benefit Net benefits are high when Group decision making creates a lot of benefit Cost of group decision making is low the net benefits of group decision making are effectively distributed.

Cost Comparison Most people vote on most decisions Very little group decision making Hierarchies, markets, communities in-between ecosystems and democracies Single hierarchical management structure that can adapt to changes can lead to lower costs than markets Markets require mechanisms outside the market when contracts are broken This is the reason why hierarchical structures exist in our market economy Markets can have a lower cost than hierarchies and communities when large numbers of people are involved Because of the distributed market price mechanism, where smaller decisions are coordinated by prices for the items

Benefit comparison Participants receive a specific benefit: Trade only if both think what they are getting is worth more than what they are giving up. Communities “looser” on decision making Members don’t decide things together Hierarchies, democracies, communities can create agreements in much larger groups and create more benefits than markets. Basic benefits of cooperation: Avoiding losses (tragedy of the commons), reciprocal altruism Benefits of bigness: more power, economies of scale, specialization.

Distribution of Benefits Comparison Single person makes group decision Involve more people in decision Benefits always distributed so as to make every one happy Involve more people in decision Single person makes group decision Assumptions Principle of evolutionary utilitarianism: When ecosystems consist of superminds whose members are people, the ecosystems, in the long run, generally try to provide the greatest good for the greatest number of people in it. Superminds in which more people are involved in making decisions are more likely to follow the utilitarian philosophy

Framework/Theory Framework can answer the following questions: Why are markets a good way of organizing very large groups with lots of decisions to make? Why are there hierarchical firms in a market economy? Why are there government hierarchies in a market economy? Why are there democracies in a market economy? What role do communities have in a market economy?

How superminds interact in making decisions in a typical modern democracy:

How will IT change the balance of power in the future? IT will potentially benefit all types of superminds IT is likely to increase the size of groups IT is likely to decrease the cost of group decision making. Democracies and Markets are likely to benefit the most IT enabled innovations will enable more democratic voting in governments and in businesses Markets will continue to take over functions previously done by other types of superminds

1. Develops a theory (framework) for group decision making in superminds (Hierarchies, Democracies, Markets, Communities, Ecosystems) by bringing together knowledge from many different disciplines. 2. IT will lead to hierarchies that are more intelligent and flexible More tasks will be done by automated systems that are tools or assistants for humans Humans will do more non routine tasks organized in more flexible and decentralized ways 3. IT will facilitate more accurate ways of determining what is or will be true using sophisticated combinations of judgements of many more people and machines in democracies. 4. Predictive markets in which both humans and bots participated worked better than those with only people or only bots.

5. In large communities, web-based systems that combine ideas from argumentation theory and social computing can engage large crowds in deliberating about how to solve complex problems 6. Principle of evolutionary utilitarianism: When ecosystems consist of superminds whose members are people, the ecosystems, in the long run, generally try to provide the greatest good for the greatest number of people in it. 7. Democracies and Markets are likely to benefit the most from IT advances

Summary of part 4 How can superminds create more intelligently?
Even with no more intelligence in our machines than we have today, we have the potential to create far smarter groups by using computers’ cheap communication and coordination capabilities to Productively engage far more people Organize their work far more effectively

How can superminds create more intelligently?
Productively engage far more people Brute-force effect: Reduce the cost of finding and communicating with members of a large group Wikipedia (70,000 people), Climate CoLab (100,000 people), .. Wisdom-of-crowds effect: When many people with no particular bias guess the answer, they should be equally likely to make errors on the high side and on the low side of the correct answer. (median work better than mean) Specialized Knowledge: Include more people with different kinds of specialized knowledge Unusual Knowledge: Scott Page, The Difference, says that “diversity trumps ability” Unusual abilities

Productively engage far more people Unusual abilities: Many important problems in biology involve figuring out the 3-D shape in which molecules in a protein chain will fold. Visualize the 3-D movements of the protein chains and search through millions of possibilities for the feasible configurations. University of Washington Foldit project Computer’s plus people with unusual abilities uncovered the structure of an enzyme related to aids that had eluded scientists and supercomputers for 15 years

Organize Work more effectively All new ways of organizing work include one or more of the following Dividing the work in new ways Assigning tasks in new ways Coordinating interdependencies among tasks in new ways Climate Colab: An online platform, launched in 2009, by Malone and his colleagues to crowd-source the process of finding solutions to the problem of global climate change. 4min -12min

Organize Work more effectively “Contest Webs” Supply Webs: Supply chains for physical products Contest Webs: Supply chains for knowledge products

Organize Work more effectively “Contest Webs” Incentives for Collaboration Artificial currency called CoLab points: eventually gets converted to $ Judges are “end customers” – “Buy” global proposals for “points” Points distributed among authors of global proposal and authors of lower level proposal it incorporates. Rules: Biggest rewards to people based on importance of the subproposal and level of effort needed. Many different people simultaneously explored many different combinations of the ideas represented in different proposals

Organize Work more effectively “Contest Webs” illustrate all three ways of organizing work Dividing the work in new ways Assigning tasks in new ways Coordinating interdependencies among tasks in new ways Advantages Many members of large group, simultaneously explore alternative approaches Increases chances of innovation Makes it easier to use good ideas in multiple places More tolerant of mistakes by individual Other Examples in Text Book

Even with no more intelligence in our machines than we have today, we have the potential to create far smarter groups by using computers’ cheap communication and coordination capabilities to Productively engage far more people Computer’s plus people with unusual abilities uncovered the structure of an enzyme related to aids that had eluded scientists and supercomputers for 15 years Organize their work far more effectively “Contest Webs” illustrate all three ways of organizing work: dividing the work in new ways, assigning tasks in new ways, coordinating interdependencies among tasks in new ways Incentives for collaboration are very important

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