Superminds, Thomas W. Malone
Superminds, Thomas W. Malone
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Superminds
The Surprising Power of People and Computers Thinking Together

Author: Thomas W. Malone

Narrator: Mel Foster

Unabridged: 11 hr 11 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/15/2018


Synopsis

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.

About Thomas W. Malone

Thomas W. Malone is the Patrick J. McGovern Professor of Management, a professor of information technology, and a professor of work and organizational studies at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He is also the founding director of the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence and was one of the two founding co-directors of the MIT Initiative on "Inventing the Organizations of the 21st Century." Malone is the author of The Future of Work and more than 100 articles, research papers, and book chapters. He has also been a cofounder of four software companies; an inventor on 11 patents; and a co-editor of four books.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Terralynn on August 21, 2018

Pretty disappointing - felt like the explanations of "superminds" and collective intelligence were well laid out, but the arguments for why thinking in this way for the "future of work" were unclear. It was a pretty general and unoriginal overview of an highly discussed topic. Some interesting conce......more

Goodreads review by Jim on October 19, 2018

This one should get you thinking. No it's not about some kind of computer mind-meld. It's a serious discussion about the "intelligence" of groups of people. Here's a quote: "Groups have scientifically measurable properties. Psychologists can measure intelligence of groups. Some groups are smarter tha......more

Goodreads review by Mark on September 01, 2018

We know that we're stronger together. research has proven that we're also smarter together. Now add the power of computer networking and AI...........more

Goodreads review by Jerrod on August 05, 2020

This felt like a book that was published under the "publish or perish" model. An MIT prof throwing in as many references to other MIT prof's studies as he could. Really, maybe the only takeaway I got from this book was that we should look at making computers part of groups, not just as personal assi......more

Goodreads review by Douglas on April 14, 2020

This brings together a lot of threads about how groups of people can work together to solve problems. The author was the first to try to measure the intelligence quotient of a group. I have issues with how they did it, though-- instead of using an established intelligence test, they made up their ow......more