Ronin Public Seminar: Human Swarming: Towards Better Decision-making Systems

This seminar is part of the Ronin Institute Public Seminar Series, featuring our Research Scholars. We welcome members of the public, but please register ahead of time to get the meeting link.

PresenterGregg Willcox, Ronin Institute Research Scholar

Date: Mar 10, 2021
Time: 11:00 AM-12:00 PM US Eastern Time / 16:00-17:00 UTC (in your local timeAdd to your calendar
Hosted byVarsha Dani, Ronin Institute Research Scholar

Summary: Many social species amplify their decision-making accuracy by deliberating in real-time closed-loop systems made of many independent individuals. Known as Swarm Intelligence (SI), this natural process has been studied extensively in schools of fish, flocks of birds, swarms of bees, and even groups of slime molds. Artificial Swarm Intelligence (ASI) is a hybrid AI technology based on natural swarms that enables distributed human groups to think together in real-time systems. Along with Louis Rosenberg, Hans Schumann, and Colin Domnauer, I help to show that by forming “human swarms,” networked groups can substantially amplify their combined intelligence and produce significantly more accurate forecasts than traditional methods.

This seminar will introduce human swarms in the context of forecasting and group decision-making. I seek to answer: (i) What structures enable groups to make better decisions? (ii) To what extent are these structures already present in different societal contexts, and what can we learn from these other contexts? (iii) How can we develop tools that enable teams–both human and human-AI teams–to work together more effectively?

Fun Fact from Gregg: I just started a freshwater aquarium and my one snail (Gary) has cloned themself rather unexpectedly (and asexually?) into 50 or so little snails!  

Here is the recording of the seminar:


Questions about the seminar? Contact seminars@ronininstitute.org. See the list of past seminars, as well as some recordings on the Ronin Institute YouTube.

One Comment

  1. Leon Khaimovich

    It sounds as a statistical study of correlation between decision-making structures and outcomes. In order to understand how structures and outcomes influence each other, it may be useful to look at team decision making as a dynamic process: http://khaimovich.name/thesis.pdf

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