Collective Intelligence

Collective intelligence is a shared or group intelligence that emerges from the collaboration and competition of many individuals. You will be hearing much about this soon. It adds what people are good at with what computers are good at and shares with many unrelated people and machines. Because of each unique idea of how to solve problems combined with other unique views, the power of collective thought is much more profound than any few combinations. In other words, we get smarter quicker.

A recent study proves how powerful this can be. Researchers at the University of Washington have successfully leveraged the power of gamers to determine the folding structure of a complex protein related to the development of AIDS.

The team had been working on the puzzle for years without success and decided to use a new computer program called Foldit. It is a simulation game where individuals can seek new solutions for how genes fold and get points We all need rewards) for correct answers. The whole problem does not have to be solved, just individual pieces.

The collected individual little bits are put back into the researchers model and recomputed with all other bits to come up with an new overall model. The problem was solved in three weeks. Let's go think about that for a while.

What's in a Name - Aids

When Joan Woehrmann started her ambulance company in Whittier, CA, in 1955, she hit on a pretty brilliant acronym: AIDS. The letters stood for attitude, integrity, dependability, and service, which are all great qualities for an ambulance line. The name was also easy to remember in times of crisis.

By 1985, the LA Times reported that Woehrmann’s drivers were being taunted and that the public mistakenly started to think that the line only transported AIDS patients. Finally, she had enough and changed the line’s name to “AME,” even giving up the ambulances’ customized line of “AIDS 1” and “AIDS 2” license plates.