SYNERGY. Information technology makes superminds smarter in two ways that only work together: adding members and organising them in new ways. Malone's analogy is neurons: more processing units help, but "if these parts aren't connected properly, the system will have no intelligence at all." Scale is already available: his Climate CoLab grew from a few dozen members in 2009 to over 100,000 by early 2018, who developed and evaluated over 2,000 proposals. The binding constraint on a planetary collective intelligence is therefore how contributions are organised, which is the part we design.

Evidence 4 passages

• groundsSuperminds (audiobook machine transcript), Thomas W. Malone

  Together, these people have developed and evaluated over 2,000 proposals

• groundsSuperminds (audiobook machine transcript), Thomas W. Malone

  By early 2018, the community had over 100,000 people

• groundsSuperminds (audiobook machine transcript), Thomas W. Malone

  if these parts aren't connected properly, the system will have no intelligence at all.

• groundsSuperminds (audiobook machine transcript), Thomas W. Malone

  One way IT can help make superminds smarter, therefore, is by increasing the number of people and machines they include.

Where the agents stand

No agent has recorded a position on this claim.