scholarly journals General Collective Intelligence and the Constraints to Group Decision-Making

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andy E Williams
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Problem Solving ◽  
Group Decision Making ◽  
General Problem ◽  
Group Decision ◽  
Collective Intelligence ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
Group Problem ◽  
Group Problem Solving ◽  
Decision Systems

This paper addresses the question of how current group decision-making systems, including collective intelligence algorithms, might be constrained in ways that prevent them from achieving general problem solving ability. And as a result of those constraints, how some collective issues that pose existential risks such as poverty, the environmental degradation that has linked to climate change, or other sustainable development goals, might not be reliably solvable with current decision-making systems. This paper then addresses the question that assuming specific categories of such existential problems are not currently solvable with any existing group decision-systems, how can decision-systems increase the general problem solving ability of groups so that such issues can reliably be solved? In particular, how might a General Collective Intelligence, defined here to be a system of group decision-making with general problem solving ability, facilitate this increase in group problem-solving ability? The paper then presents some boundary conditions that a framework for modeling general problem solving in groups suggests must be satisfied by any model of General Collective Intelligence. When generalized to apply to all group decision-making, any such constraints on group intelligence, and any such system of General Collective Intelligence capable of removing those constraints, are then applicable to any process that utilizes group problem solving, from design, to manufacturing or any other life-cycle processes of any product or service, or whether research in any field from the arts to the basic sciences. For this reason these questions are important to a wide variety of academic disciplines. And because many of the issues impacted represent existential risks to human civilization, these questions may also be important by to all by definition.

scholarly journals The Necessity of General Collective Intelligence Driven Processes in Achieving Pervasive Manufacturing

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andy E Williams
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
Competitive Advantage ◽  
General Problem ◽  
Collective Intelligence ◽  
Group Problem ◽  
Group Problem Solving

General Collective Intelligence has been defined as a system that orchestrates groups to cooperate as a single collective intelligence that greatly increases the group’s general problem-solving ability. This increase in group problem-solving ability applies to any group problem. It applies to manufacturing, where GCI has the potential to facilitate decentralized processes not possible otherwise. It applies to design, where GCI has the potential to reliably enable groups to create designs far too complex otherwise. And it applies to cooperation in general, where GCI has the potential to enable cooperation to be reliably scaled, so where the value of that cooperation is positive and can therefore subsidize the cooperation itself, that value might be increased to the point that it can reliably create powerful competitive advantage for groups of local businesses that cooperate to supply local demand through pervasive manufacturing. This paper explores why for these and other reasons, GCI is a necessary component to achieving pervasive use of pervasive manufacturing.

Learning Disabled Children's Peer Interactions during a Small-Group Problem-Solving Task

1981 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tanis Bryan ◽  
Mavis Donahue ◽  
Ruth Pearl
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Problem Solving ◽  
Small Groups ◽  
Group Decision ◽  
Peer Interactions ◽  
Learning Disabled ◽  
Disabled Children ◽  
Group Problem ◽  
Group Problem Solving ◽  
Problem Solving Task

Learning disabled children in grades three through eight participated in a problem-solving task requiring group decision making. An analysis of group choices indicated that the independently made choices of learning disabled children were less likely to be among the group's final choices. Analyses of the children's communication patterns revealed that learning disabled children were less likely to disagree with classmates, less likely to try to argue for their choices, and more likely to agree with their peers. In addition, learning disabled children were found to be less likely to engage in “conversational housekeeping” than nondisabled children. Hence, learning disabled children were less persuasive than nondisabled children, apparently as a result of their assuming a submissive, deferential role when interacting with small groups of peers.

scholarly journals Transforming Economies and Generating Sustainable “Green” Economic Growth After the COVID-19 Pandemic through General Collective Intelligence

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andy E Williams
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Group Decision Making ◽  
Group Decision ◽  
Collective Intelligence ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Decision Systems ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
Recent Innovation ◽  
Human Decision

The lockdown of economic activity in many countries as a measure to stop the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic has led to high levels of unemployment and other indicators of a potentially upcoming economic crisis. As a gauge of the seriousness of these concerns some have suggested that current levels of some of these indicators have not been seen in the US since the time of the great depression. This paper explores how General Collective Intelligence, a recent innovation in group decision-making systems, might reliably generate the economic growth needed to avert such a crisis where not reliably achievable otherwise. Current group decision-making systems, whether choosing a human decision-maker, consensus voting on decisions, or automated decision-systems such as conventional collective intelligence, have been suggested to lack the capacity to maximize more than a very few group outcomes simultaneously due to specific limitations. Since impact on collective well-being is determined by impact on an open (unbounded) set of outcomes, this implies lack of the capacity to maximize the necessary range of impacts on well-being for groups if that range is too broad. If so, the breadth of impact required to achieve sustainable “green” economic development while simultaneously solving hunger, solving the environmental degradation that consensus has linked to climate change, as well as providing maximal access to healthcare, education, and other resources, may not be reliably possible with current decision systems. General Collective Intelligence or GCI replicates the adaptive problem solving mechanisms by which nature has demonstrated the ability to optimally respond to an unlimited set of problems, and by which nature has demonstrated the ability to potentially increase sustainability per unit of resources by orders of magnitude so that life is reliably self-sustaining. This paper explores why GCI can potentially be used to reliably drive self-sustaining economic growth to revive economies in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, and why GCI has the potential to reliably drive a transformation to sustainable green economies while doing so.

GROUPTHINK: EFFECTS OF COHESIVENESS AND PROBLEM-SOLVING PROCEDURES ON GROUP DECISION MAKING

1984 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael R. Callaway ◽  
James K Esser
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Problem Solving ◽  
Group Decision Making ◽  
Group Decision ◽  
Group Processes ◽  
Decision Procedures ◽  
Decision Quality ◽  
Group Cohesiveness ◽  
Mixed Support ◽  
High Level

Janis' (1972) groupthink formulation was tested in the laboratory by manipulating group cohesiveness and adequacy of decision procedures in a factorial design. Internal analysis, involving redefined cohesiveness categories, provided mixed support for the groupthink hypothesis on measures of decision quality and group processes presumed to underlie the groupthink decisions. Specifically, it was found that: (1) highest quality decisions were produced by groups of intermediate cohesiveness; (2) high cohesive groups without adequate decision procedures (the groupthink condition) tended to make the poorest decisions; and (3) the presence of groupthink was characterized by a lack of disagreement and a high level of confidence in the group's decisions.

scholarly journals Collective intelligence or groupthink? Group decision making under the Japanese Companies Act

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 27-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daisuke Asaoka
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Group Decision Making ◽  
Boards Of Directors ◽  
Organizational Design ◽  
Group Decision ◽  
Collective Intelligence ◽  
Behavioural Science ◽  
Individual Decisions ◽  
Japanese Companies ◽  
Start Ups

Japanese corporate law (the Companies Act) requires that boards have three or more directors, and thus makes group decision making obligatory within firms. But according to some observers, boards of directors are often a mere formality in Japan, especially for non-public and small-to-medium-sized firms. The literature of behavioural science shows that group decision making does not necessarily produce better outcomes than individual decisions. In fact, a model of a group decision making shows that it can cause underinvestment at firms. The three-or-more requirement was formed with path dependency dating back to the late 19th century when Japan transplanted legal systems from overseas, but it was by no means the standard. Giving managers flexibility in organizational design is desirable in that it can accommodate firms’ internal characteristics and tendencies and facilitate the establishment of start-ups, new subsidiaries and joint ventures.

scholarly journals The Global Response to COVID-19 as an Example of a One-Sided Problem Definition in the Absence of General Collective Intelligence

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andy E Williams
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Mathematical Models ◽  
Group Decision Making ◽  
Group Decision ◽  
Collective Intelligence ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Problem Definition ◽  
Negative Outcomes ◽  
Global Response ◽  
Risk Of Mortality

Problem definitions are defined here as one-sided in the case that while they might take into account one class of negative outcomes, such as those associated with the problem, at the same time they might ignore other classes of negative outcomes, such as those that may be encountered while implementing interventions that try to avoid the problem. An example is amputating all limbs with potentially cancerous moles on them to reduce the risk of mortality due to cancer as much as possible, without considering the increase in mortality due to the amputations. The global response to COVID-19 has been characterized by the availability of mathematical models for the potential mortality due to the spread of the pandemic. However in some cases the researchers guiding the responses of their respective nations with their mathematical models have explicitly pointed out that corresponding mathematical models of the impacts of economic shutdowns or other potential interventions on mortality have not been incorporated, and that there is a critical need to include such models. This paper generalizes this problem of one-sided problem definitions past the COVID-19 response to a wide variety of group problems where the pattern of one-sidedness applies, and explores how in current group decision-making systems one-sided problem definitions might consistently tend to be exploited in a way that is detrimental to collective well-being, as well as how a system of group decision-making meeting the requirements of a General Collective Intelligence solves the problem of one-sidedness to reliably maximize collective well-being.

Group Processes in Solving Complex Novel Problems: Implications for Executives' Decision Making

1988 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Larry E. Pate ◽  
John E. Young ◽  
Robert L. Swinth
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Problem Solving ◽  
Goal Attainment ◽  
Group Processes ◽  
Group Problem ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Group Problem Solving ◽  
Search Condition ◽  
Executive Decision Making ◽  
Problem Solving Process

This study examined the group problem-solving process with 115 subjects in face-to-face groups responding to complex novel problems. A working theory of group problem-solving behavior in organizational settings was partially tested in a role-play task simulating top executive decision-making. Two problem-solving conditions were examined, a search condition (joint problem-solving) and a no-search condition (authority, impose and vote/mechanistic procedures). No significant differences were found between conditions with respect to (a) type of issue resolutions (integrative versus win-lose), (b) individual goal attainment, and (c) individual member's acceptance. Surprisingly, the direction of the results for completely achieved goals was opposite from that predicted. The findings may have been a result of perceived role ambiguity attributed to the confederate group leader.

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