Technology that enhances collective behaviour clearly has an important role to play in bringing people together, in supporting their collective action and in bringing it to fruition, which is why so much work is being done on collaborative tools.

Future Horizons:

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5-yearhorizon

Modelling of complex systems seeds responsive urban infrastructure

Certain areas in global cities become “smart”: they monitor citizen behaviour in a privacy-respecting way and adapt accordingly, such as increasing phone and data capacity for large gatherings, adapting transport timetables and redeploying resources for street cleaning.

10-yearhorizon

Frameworks for ethical research into collective intelligence are agreed

An international forum allows researchers to reach an agreement on a comprehensive set of ethical rules that will govern future large-scale social and collective-intelligence experiments.

25-yearhorizon

Computer models assist transnational collaboration

Online collaborative tools build trust in a way that allows small businesses to span the globe, with individuals working towards common goals with others they have not met.

However, collective behaviour does not always produce the intended or best results. Groupthink and herding behaviour can push groups towards dangerously wrong-headed actions and amplify negative trends, such as racism, unhealthy behaviours and online hate.³ Computer modelling provides a way to study how collective intelligence emerges (and why it sometimes doesn’t).⁴ Large-scale real-world experiments can help to calibrate these models, provided they can be carried out within a suitable ethical framework. The same models can be used to explore negative outcomes, making it possible, in principle, to find ways to avoid problematic scenarios.

Collective intelligence - Anticipation Scores

The Anticipation Potential of a research field is determined by the capacity for impactful action in the present, considering possible future transformative breakthroughs in a field over a 25-year outlook. A field with a high Anticipation Potential, therefore, combines the potential range of future transformative possibilities engendered by a research area with a wide field of opportunities for action in the present. We asked researchers in the field to anticipate:

The uncertainty related to future science breakthroughs in the field
The transformative effect anticipated breakthroughs may have on research and society
The scope for action in the present in relation to anticipated breakthroughs.

This chart represents a summary of their responses to each of these elements, which when combined, provide the Anticipation Potential for the topic. See methodology for more information.