1.5.1. Large-scale collaboration
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1.5.1. Large-scale collaboration
Use the future to build the present
Large-scale collaboration
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1.1Advanced AI1.2QuantumRevolution1.3UnconventionalComputing1.4AugmentedReality1.5CollectiveIntelligence2.1CognitiveEnhancement2.2HumanApplicationsof GeneticEngineering2.3HealthspanExtension2.4ConsciousnessAugmentation2.5Organoids2.6FutureTherapeutics3.1Decarbonisation3.2EarthSystemsModelling3.3FutureFoodSystems3.4SpaceResources3.5OceanStewardship3.6SolarRadiationModification3.7InfectiousDiseases4.1Science-basedDiplomacy4.2Advancesin ScienceDiplomacy4.3Foresight,Prediction,and FuturesLiteracy4.4Democracy-affirmingTechnologies5.1ComplexSystemsScience5.2Futureof Education5.3Future Economics,Trade andGlobalisation5.4The Scienceof theOrigins of Life5.5SyntheticBiology
1.1Advanced AI1.2QuantumRevolution1.3UnconventionalComputing1.4AugmentedReality1.5CollectiveIntelligence2.1CognitiveEnhancement2.2HumanApplicationsof GeneticEngineering2.3HealthspanExtension2.4ConsciousnessAugmentation2.5Organoids2.6FutureTherapeutics3.1Decarbonisation3.2EarthSystemsModelling3.3FutureFoodSystems3.4SpaceResources3.5OceanStewardship3.6SolarRadiationModification3.7InfectiousDiseases4.1Science-basedDiplomacy4.2Advancesin ScienceDiplomacy4.3Foresight,Prediction,and FuturesLiteracy4.4Democracy-affirmingTechnologies5.1ComplexSystemsScience5.2Futureof Education5.3Future Economics,Trade andGlobalisation5.4The Scienceof theOrigins of Life5.5SyntheticBiology

Sub-Field:

1.5.1Large-scale collaboration

    Digital technology now makes it possible to collaborate on scales unimaginable in the past. This has led to a plethora of approaches aimed at harnessing diverse groups to solve practical problems.

    Crowdsourcing opinions, information or small chunks of work from large numbers of people is helping tackle challenges as varied as training AI to predicting floods.8 Citizen science projects engage the general public to help scientists to collect and analyse data, and even to develop new theories. Open innovation platforms like Kaggle and InnoCentive make it possible for companies to outsource engineering challenges to independent experts. And deliberative democracy is being used to involve everyday citizens in political decision-making in countries such as Taiwan.9

    Technology is already crucial to these projects, but there are growing efforts to augment them with new tools to enhance the CI of large groups. These include better means of gathering and visualising data, collaborative mapping technologies and open source repositories of information and tools. AI is also playing a growing role in facilitating CI by filtering and summarising complex data, organising human knowledge, helping to connect experts, and optimising deliberative processes.10 CI may ultimately incorporate both humans and AI agents working together, though this would require major breakthroughs in AI technology.

    Decentralisation technologies such as blockchain and quadratic voting are also opening up new avenues for enhancing CI.11 In particular, decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs) could help run organisations in a distributed and non-hierarchical fashion.12 The technology is still in its infancy, but could eventually provide ways to organise anything from local energy systems to finance bodies in more collaborative and inclusive ways.

    Future Horizons:

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    5-yearhorizon

    Basic CI becomes everyday tool

    CI will become more ingrained in everyday life, with many micro-collective intelligences emerging to help people deal with a range of issues, such as getting support for specific medical conditions, DIY home repairs, and business or personal mentoring.

    10-yearhorizon

    CI applications grow

    Ideas from CI start to be applied to solving big global challenges such as climate change, access to water and pandemic response. Organisations like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change embrace new tools that use a combination of AI and CI to better organise scientific knowledge and bring in perspectives from more diverse groups.

    25-yearhorizon

    Open innovation hits the mainstream

    Democratic assemblies around the world embrace the CI tools of deliberative democracy to involve people far beyond the elected representatives in political decision-making. Companies' use of open innovation to solve problems becomes mainstream.

    Large-scale collaboration - Anticipation Scores

    How the experts see this field in terms of the expected time to maturity, transformational effect across science and industries, current state of awareness among stakeholders and its possible impact on people, society and the planet. See methodology for more information.

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