Though not officially launched until Oct. 13 [webcast available], the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence (CCI) has already set an ambitious goal to understand how to harness the power of large numbers of people --connected together through Internet and other technologies-- to better solve a range of business, scientific, and societal problems.
“The recent successes of things like Google and Wikipedia suggest that the time is now ripe for many more such systems,” said CCI Director Thomas Malone, author of the influential 2004 book, The Future of Work, which examined how information technology enables business to organize itself in new ways. “At CCI, our basic research question is: How can people and computers be connected so that --collectively-- they act more intelligently than any individuals, groups, or computers have ever done before?”
As an example, Malone cites the process of writing books. “Today’s publishing industry is built on the assumption that books are written by a single author --or at most a few people. But Wikipedia shows that very different approaches may be possible. What if, for instance, certain kinds of books could be written by large numbers of people with very little central direction?” ...
“CCI is trying to look over the horizon to see what will be common five, 10, or 20 years from now. Google, Wikipedia, Linux, and e-Bay are examples that show something interesting and important is already happening. Such examples are not the end of the story, but just the beginning. And I hope that our work can help people understand and take advantage of these exciting possibilities,” Malone said.
Comment. So far, the OA connection is weak. But CCI already recognizes that OA information is the lifeblood of collective intelligence, and we can hope that it formalizes this recognition in concrete forms of support for OA and projects to put it to work.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 10/14/2006 01:12:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
