Superminds: the surprising power of people and computers thinking together pdf

Thomas Malone is the Patrick McGovern Professor of Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management and the founding director of the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence. He was also the founder and director of the MIT Center for Coordination Science and one of the two founding co-directors of the MIT Initiative on “Inventing the Organizations of the 21st Century.” In 2004 he summarized two decades of his groundbreaking research on how work can be organized in new ways to take advantage of the possibilities provided by information technology in the critically acclaimed book The Future oof Work (translated into six languages). He has published over 100 articles, research papers, and book chapters, and is also an inventor with 11 patents and the co-editor of three books: Coordination Theory and Collaboration Technology (Psychology Press, 2001), Inventing the Organizations of the 21st Century (MIT Press, 2003), and Organizing Business Knowledge: The MIT Process Handbook (MIT Press, 2003). In 2012, he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Zurich. He was cofounder of three software companies and has consulted and served as a board member for a number of other organizations. He speaks frequently for business audiences around the world and is often quoted in the media. Before joining MIT in 1983, he was a research scientist at the xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). He has a BA in Mathematical Sciences from Rice University, an MS in Engineering- Economic Systems from Stanford University, and a PhD in Cognitive and Social Psychology from Stanford University.

Superminds: the surprising power of people and computers thinking together pdf by Thomas Malon

From the founding director of the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence comes a fascinating look at the remarkable capacity for intelligence exhibited by groups of people and computers working together. If you're like most people, you probably believe that humans are the most intelligent animals on our planet. But there's another kind of entity that can be far smarter: groups of people. In this groundbreaking book, Thomas Malone, the founding director of the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence, shows how groups of people working together in superminds-like hierarchies, markets, democracies, and communities-have been responsible for almost all human achievements in business, government, science, and beyond. And these collectively intelligent human groups are about to get much smarter. Using dozens of striking examples and case studies, Malone shows how computers can help create more intelligent superminds simply by connecting humans to one another in a variety of rich, new ways. And although it will probably happen more gradually than many people expect, artificially intelligent computers will amplify the power of these superminds by doing increasingly complex kinds of thinking. Together, these changes will have far-reaching implications for everything from the way we buy groceries and plan business strategies to how we respond to climate change, and even for democracy itself. By understanding how these collectively intelligent groups work, we can learn how to harness their genius to achieve our human goals. Drawing on cutting-edge science and insights from a remarkable range of disciplines, Superminds articulates a bold-and utterly fascinating-picture of the future that will change the ways you work and live, both with other people and with computers.;Intro; Title Page; Copyright; Table of Contents; Dedication; Preface; Introduction; Part I. What Are Superminds?; 1. Would You Recognize a Supermind If You Saw It on the Street?; 2. Can a Group Take an Intelligence Test?; Part II. How Can Computers Help Make Superminds Smarter?; 3. How Will People Work with Computers?; 4. How Much General Intelligence Will Computers Have?; 5. How Can Groups of People and Computers Think More Intelligently?; Part III. How Can Superminds Make Smarter Decisions?; 6. Smarter Hierarchies; 7. Smarter Democracies; 8. Smarter Markets; 9. Smarter Communities.