Let's start this blog with Isaac Asimov. Currently, I'm engrossed in reading the Galactic Empire series as my bedtime reading, although it often ends up becoming a late-night reading session. Interestingly, the series delves into the concept of collective intelligence. Set millions of years in the future, humans have colonized the Galactic, but they've lost all knowledge of Earth's whereabouts. They believe themselves to be the only intelligent beings in the Galaxy. However, there is one enigmatic planet that deliberately conceals itself from humans because they possess a different kind of wisdom—a collective mind. They refer to themselves using special pronouns to emphasize their shared consciousness: I/we/Gaia.

By briefly exploring the origins of collective intelligence, we can see that it is not a novel concept brought about by Web 2.0 technology. According to the Wikipedia page referenced in this week's reading, as far back as 1785, Marquis de Condorcet, through his jury theorem (Brennan, 2011), established a connection between group sizes and the overall accuracy of their judgments. William Morton Wheeler (1910) later discovered that collaboration between species leads to success otherwise unattainable. Over time, scholars from various disciplines, including social psychologists, neuroscientists, political scientists, and communication experts, became captivated by this idea. Pop culture, such as the book I mentioned earlier, also embraced the concept.

So, what does collective intelligence have to do with Web 2.0 technology, or vice versa? From my perspective, social media, with its fragmented format, provides an accessible gateway to the hive mind. While it's true that discourse has become fragmented, prior to the advent of digital technology, it was much more difficult to record and access others' thoughts. The lack of easily accessible information, or what we now call data, hindered our ability to engage with diverse perspectives.

Moreover, the unimaginable storage capacity of servers now allows recorded discourse to be presented to anyone with access to the platform. It's akin to virtual ethnography—a slice of real life happening online. As individuals visit the platform, they can either directly seek out the information they're looking for or casually browse through unrelated news on the side. It mirrors the scenario Isaac Asimov depicted in his novel, where the creatures residing on Gaia could observe and hear everything happening across Earth, but they had the choice to pay attention or disregard it. Privacy, as we discussed on Canvas, was a non-issue for them because they lacked the concept of privacy altogether.

To conclude this blog, let's indulge in some imaginative speculation: If humans were to evolve to disregard privacy, we might have a chance to achieve collective intelligence.

Here are a few other intriguing points that I plan to explore further in subsequent sections of this blog (if I have time):

  1. Privacy and the balance between collective and individual benefits when utilizing collective intelligence.
  2. The connection between collective intelligence and the science fiction tradition. (As I have recently developed an interest in science fiction, I need to delve deeper into this topic to provide more insights.)
  3. What does collective intelligence have to do with learning science/instructional design, or vice versa?

References
Brennan, J. (2011). Condorcet's Jury Theorem and the Optimum Number of Voters. Politics, 31(2), 55-62.
Wheeler, W. M. (1910). Ants: their structure, development and behavior (Vol. 9). Columbia University Press.