Video on Collaboration and Collective Intelligence

The panel was made up of diverse individuals with professions that focus on collective intelligence.  This included; Mimi Ito, a cultural anthroplogist who studies media usage of young people in America and Japan, Cory Ondrejka, who is affiliated with Linden Lab, known for it's creation of an online 3D virtual reality collaboration tool called "2nd Life," and Trevor Scholz, an assistant professor and researcher at University of New York at Buffalo and creator of the Institute of Distributed Creativity.

After watching the video hosted by MIT, I have a more well-rounded perspective toward the collective intelligence topics that were discussed.  Collective intelligence is described in the video as being a group of people forming together to make decisions.  This collaboration between our kind is assumed to have been existent in some form or another as long as humans have inhabited the earth.  However the video focuses mainly on the role that information technology has played in allowing collective intelligence to be fully harnessed and possibly abused.  To harness collective intelligence, it requires successfully connecting the right people with computers.

One key point made is how corporations are able to monopolize through social networking websites.  Social networking websites operate on a platform in which the user creates the content.   Once a user creates their profile, they give up personal information that is aggregated to a population for the benefit of staying connected to their friends and families.  Due to a site's volume of traffic, companies that run these websites gain ad revenue.  The more eyes that are tuned in, the higher an ad price could be.  An argument that is proposed is that the companies that run social networking sites should operate as a non-profit.  If this cannot be done other things are suggested, such as; allowing users to exit easy, to increase the transparency of the terms and conditions and also give the public control over the content that they have created.

Another key point made is that of today's youth in collective imagination through social media.  Because of social media, a small niche idea can become infectious.  One example used is that of Japan's craze of the portable technology for kids, called Pokemon.  With this highly interactive toy, in order to play, kids have to interact with each other.  One comment that relates to collective intelligence is that the kids feel they can accomplish more as a group than as an individual.  This game allows kids to do that.  An argument made is that of it being a moral hazard for society due to the indifference in traditional ideologies.  The retort is that esoteric knowledge is common that we all want to be involved in something or feel accepted.

The last key point discussed is that of the differences between professionals and amateurs and how information technology has allowed amateurs to gain professional insights.  Because of the internet users have and now are able to compare their knowledge with professional knowledge.  Now, the only difference between amateurs and professionals is their lingo.