Last time, we talked about the concept of Speed Superintelligence as proposed by philosopher
Nick Bostrom at the University of Oxford. If you haven’t seen the previous videos on this topic,
do check them out, the link is in the description below.
Today, we will be looking at a different kind of superintelligence
known as Collective Superintelligence and some of its defining characteristics!
A collective superintelligence according to Bostrom is a form of superintelligence that
is a system achieving superior performance by aggregating large numbers of smaller
intelligences. So, he formally defines collective superintelligence as “a system composed of a
large number of smaller intellects such that the system’s overall performance across many
very general domains vastly outstrips that of any current cognitive system.” Now, Collective
superintelligence may be less conceptually clear-cut than speed superintelligence,
however, it is more familiar empirically. For example, firms, work teams, academic communities,
countries, and even humankind as a whole, can fall under collective superintelligence.
Since these loosely defined “systems” are capable of solving classes of intellectual problems by
breaking them into parts that can be pursued in parallel and verified independently. Tasks like
building a space shuttle or operating a hamburger franchise offer many opportunities for division of
labor: different engineers work on different components of the spacecraft, and different
staff members operate different restaurants for the smooth operation of the whole franchise.
Now, a system’s collective intelligence could be enhanced by expanding the number or the
quality of its constituent intellects, or by improving the quality of their organization.
But to obtain a collective superintelligence from any present-day collective intelligence
would require a very great degree of enhancement. The resulting system would need to be capable
of vastly outperforming any current collective intelligence or other cognitive systems across
many very general domains. Meaning, it wouldn’t be enough, for instance, to
invent a new conference format that lets scholars exchange information more effectively, or simply
increase the population of the world by 50%. Some far more extreme growth of humanity’s collective
cognitive capacity would be required to meet the criterion of collective superintelligence.
It should be noted that the threshold for collective superintelligence is based on the
performance levels of the present, that is, the early twenty-first century. Throughout history,
humanity’s collective intelligence has grown by very large factors. For example, the World
population has increased by at least a factor of a thousand since the Pleistocene. On this
basis alone, current levels of human collective intelligence could be regarded as approaching
superintelligence relative to a Pleistocene baseline. Some improvements in communications
technologies, especially spoken language, but perhaps also cities, writing, and printing,
could also be argued to have, individually or in combination, provided super-sized boosts,
in the sense that if another innovation of comparable impact to our collective intellectual
problem-solving capacity were to happen, it would result in collective superintelligence.
Now, one could argue that modern society does not seem so particularly intelligent
since it makes all these unwise decisions that lead to the depletion of natural resources,
pollution, and extinction of certain species, and so on. However, for Bostrom, nothing in
the definition of collective superintelligence implies that a society with greater collective
intelligence is necessarily better off. The definition does not even imply that the more
collectively intelligent society is wiser. So, we can think of wisdom as the ability
to get the important things approximately right. It is then possible to imagine an
organization composed of a very large group of very efficiently coordinated knowledge workers,
who collectively can solve intellectual problems across many general domains. This organization,
say, can operate most kinds of businesses, invent most kinds of technologies, and optimize most
kinds of processes. Even then, it might get a few key big-picture issues entirely wrong,
for example, it may fail to take proper precautions against existential risks,
and as a result, pursue a short explosive growth spurt that ends ingloriously in total collapse.
Such an organization could have a very high degree of collective intelligence;
and if sufficiently high, the organization could be classified as a collective superintelligence.
Now, collective superintelligence comes in two forms, loosely integrated superintelligence,
and tightly integrated superintelligence. For loosely integrated collective superintelligence,
imagine a planet, let’s call it Mega-Earth, which has the same level of communication and
coordination technologies that we currently have on our Earth but with a population
one million times as large. With such a huge population, the total intellectual workforce on
Mega-Earth would be correspondingly larger than on our planet. Now, suppose that a scientific
genius of the caliber of a Newton or an Einstein arises at least once for every 10 billion people,
then on Mega-Earth, there would be about 700,000 such geniuses living contemporaneously,
alongside proportionally vast multitudes of other slightly lesser talents.
New ideas and technologies would be developed at a furious pace, and global civilization
on Mega-Earth would constitute a loosely integrated collective superintelligence.
But, if we gradually increase the level of integration of a collective intelligence,
it may eventually become a unified intellect, a single large “mind” as opposed to a mere
collection of loosely interacting smaller human minds. The inhabitants of Mega-Earth
could take steps in that direction by improving communications and coordination technologies
and by developing better ways for many individuals to work on any hard intellectual problem together.
A collective superintelligence could thus, after gaining sufficiently in integration,
become a “quality superintelligence.” But that is a discussion, best left for another time!
And that brings us to the end of this video. If you enjoyed it,
do leave a like, share, and subscribe to our channel for more content ahead!
What do you think Quality Superintelligence would be like once we attain it? Let us know
your thoughts in the comment section down below. Until then, we’ll see you in the next one!