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Big Mind: How Collective Intelligence Can Change Our World Hardcover – Illustrated, November 28, 2017

4.1 out of 5 stars 36

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"One of The Guardian’s Favourite Reads of 2017 as chosen by scientists"

"A fascinating and important book."
---James Crabtree, Financial Times

"The trenchant questions and thoughtful discussion in
Big Mind . . . will help us to reimagine our institutions and convince us of the urgency of doing so."---Beth Simone Noveck, Nature

"Brilliant. . . . Drawing on such disciplines as social psychology, computer science, and economics, as well as his experiences as a co-founder of the think tank Demos, Mulgan outlines the elements of CI, which has informed collaborations from the Manhattan project and NASA's moon landings to Google Maps and Wikipedia." ―
Kirkus Reviews

"A perfect introduction to collective intelligence. . . . The book draws on subjects such as social psychology, computer sciences and economics, as well as the author’s experiences as co-founder of the think tank Demos." ―
Arab News

"[
Big Mind] charts the emergence of the new field of collective intelligence, which is harnessing human and digital capabilities for collaborative problem-solving on an unprecedented scale. It’s an argument with profound implications for the way we organise science, universities, businesses and governments."---James Wilsden, The Guardian

"[
Big Mind] raises many awkward questions about why modern institutions, stacked with clever people and overflowing with useful data, are so often prone to collective intelligence failures, from some of the policy decisions that led up to this year’s Grenfell Tower fire in London to the run-in to the financial crisis a decade ago."---James Crabtree, Financial Times

"Mr Mulgan’s basic thought is that organisations, like individual minds, can contain highly intelligent elements and yet still be pretty stupid as a whole . . . . The trick is to balance the different sources of cleverness in such a way as to get the best out of all of them."
---Oliver Moody, The Times

"An engaging and important read." ―
Paradigm Explorer

Review

"This important work provides a sophisticated analysis of the various human and computational forms of collective intelligence. Mulgan demonstrates in a powerful way how such collective intelligence can be mobilized to deal effectively and wisely with the most urgent problems on the planet."―Howard Gardner, author of Multiple Intelligences

"In
Big Mind, Mulgan nails it yet again. How collective intelligence can stay ahead of artificial intelligence is the big question of the day and Mulgan has answers. This is a smart, lucid, and compelling book."―Julia Hobsbawm, author of Fully Connected

"This insightful and broad-ranging book will appeal to business leaders at all levels, from tech giants to start-ups."
―Martha Lane Fox, executive chair of Doteveryone

"Mulgan combines distinguished academic expertise with extensive real-world policy experience. In this important, wide-ranging book, he shows how decision making can be hugely improved in our increasingly networked world. To those of us dismayed by how ineffectually democracy now operates,
Big Mind offers a dose of optimism and many concrete proposals. It's enlightening―indeed inspiring―and should be read by all citizens, especially those aspiring to improve all levels of governance."―Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal and former president of the Royal Society

"
Big Mind is a book the world needs. At a time of intense pessimism about our capacity to reimagine society's systems, and amid rising populism, Mulgan offers a balanced and highly sophisticated approach to revamping democracy and our institutions. Rather than providing technocratic solutions, he lays out intelligent ways to more deeply involve individuals. Through smartly designed systems that structure for participation, a better world is possible―Mulgan’s magnificent book shows us how."―Jeremy Heimans, cofounder of Purpose, GetUp!, and Avaaz

"This book presents a novel way of seeing the world that places collective intelligence center stage. It assesses the practice and evidence on how we might achieve more intelligent institutions and systems, by making the most use of emerging technologies, and by applying more systematic methods to amplifying intelligence in everyday tools for shaping and making decisions."
―Stefaan G. Verhulst, GovLab, New York University

"
Big Mind brims with pragmatic, unexpected insights. Mulgan filters his awe-inspiring breadth of academic knowledge through the lens of decades of practical experience."―Scott Page, University of Michigan

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Princeton University Press; Illustrated edition (November 28, 2017)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 288 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0691170797
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0691170794
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.25 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1 x 9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.1 out of 5 stars 36

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Geoff Mulgan
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Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5 stars
4.1 out of 5
36 global ratings
Aggregation without integration is not enough
5 Stars
Aggregation without integration is not enough
We are, as ever, at a crossroads. We have the choice to combine forces for the greater good, or leave all the potential just sitting there, and proceed as usual, learning the hard way. We can pool our data, expertise and ideas to resolve climate change issues, or argue about whether they should even be considered. It’s back to Carl Sagan’s point – who speaks for Earth or even just earthlings? If we could get our acts aligned, we could make much deeper progress much faster. But our competitive society prevents such thoughts, let alone actions.I think the reason I like Geoff Mulgan’s books is that ideas come at you like buckshot. Packets of multiple ideas fire again and again with every chapter, page and paragraph. If you’ve learned nothing from a Geoff Mulgan exercise, you must have slept through it. In Big Mind:-Computers can generate answers much more easily than they can generate questions, the mark of real intelligence.-Greater knowledge does not bring greater comfort. It brings awareness, anxiety, caution and worry. It gives us vast new things to worry about.-All our gadgets do not make our lives simpler; they add complexity.-The vast majority of meetings in business, academia and politics ignore almost everything that is known about what make meetings work.-There’s a temptation to make too much use of data that happens to exist, and manage what’s measured rather than what matters.-We spend our lives looking for confirmation rather than responding to intelligence.-We risk not having internalized the lesson if we haven’t experienced the errors.-There are levels of abstraction as organizations move to more diverse ways of looking at their situations. Those that can’t, stay stuck in the primordial reactions to events. (eg. airline security, which continually punishes passengers further every time there is a threat, instead of thinking how to make flying safer.)-Universities do research and development on everything except themselves. (Universities should be actively collecting knowledge as much as disseminating it.)-Cultures that think of themselves as individualistic, dissident and rebellious tend to be highly conformist.-The biggest danger in any field is the delusion you understand why you succeeded.-intelligence is highly improbable, and collective intelligence is even more so.All of this pivots about the point Mulgan calls the third loop of learning. The first loop is what we all do – observe, and apply rules we know. The second loop makes use of knowledge to come to new and innovative conclusions. The third loop is when whole sectors and industries change in light of anticipated developments and ways of thinking and doing. Doing this at world scale is Mulgan’s idea of collective intelligence. It means combining with data and artificial intelligence, because people alone and computers alone can accomplish far less.What emerges is that although he has been thinking along the lines of a collective intelligence for many years, Mulgan is not prepared to predict or envision it. There are too many variables, too many unknowns, and too many rogue components for anyone to pretend they can nail it down. We are held back because our institutions aren’t open in their thinking, and we are stymied by competition rather than co-operation. He would like collective intelligence to coalesce into a discipline.David Wineberg
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5.0 out of 5 stars Aggregation without integration is not enough
Reviewed in the United States on November 16, 2017
We are, as ever, at a crossroads. We have the choice to combine forces for the greater good, or leave all the potential just sitting there, and proceed as usual, learning the hard way. We can pool our data, expertise and ideas to resolve climate change issues, or argue about whether they should even be considered. It’s back to Carl Sagan’s point – who speaks for Earth or even just earthlings? If we could get our acts aligned, we could make much deeper progress much faster. But our competitive society prevents such thoughts, let alone actions.

I think the reason I like Geoff Mulgan’s books is that ideas come at you like buckshot. Packets of multiple ideas fire again and again with every chapter, page and paragraph. If you’ve learned nothing from a Geoff Mulgan exercise, you must have slept through it. In Big Mind:

-Computers can generate answers much more easily than they can generate questions, the mark of real intelligence.
-Greater knowledge does not bring greater comfort. It brings awareness, anxiety, caution and worry. It gives us vast new things to worry about.
-All our gadgets do not make our lives simpler; they add complexity.
-The vast majority of meetings in business, academia and politics ignore almost everything that is known about what make meetings work.
-There’s a temptation to make too much use of data that happens to exist, and manage what’s measured rather than what matters.
-We spend our lives looking for confirmation rather than responding to intelligence.
-We risk not having internalized the lesson if we haven’t experienced the errors.
-There are levels of abstraction as organizations move to more diverse ways of looking at their situations. Those that can’t, stay stuck in the primordial reactions to events. (eg. airline security, which continually punishes passengers further every time there is a threat, instead of thinking how to make flying safer.)
-Universities do research and development on everything except themselves. (Universities should be actively collecting knowledge as much as disseminating it.)
-Cultures that think of themselves as individualistic, dissident and rebellious tend to be highly conformist.
-The biggest danger in any field is the delusion you understand why you succeeded.
-intelligence is highly improbable, and collective intelligence is even more so.

All of this pivots about the point Mulgan calls the third loop of learning. The first loop is what we all do – observe, and apply rules we know. The second loop makes use of knowledge to come to new and innovative conclusions. The third loop is when whole sectors and industries change in light of anticipated developments and ways of thinking and doing. Doing this at world scale is Mulgan’s idea of collective intelligence. It means combining with data and artificial intelligence, because people alone and computers alone can accomplish far less.

What emerges is that although he has been thinking along the lines of a collective intelligence for many years, Mulgan is not prepared to predict or envision it. There are too many variables, too many unknowns, and too many rogue components for anyone to pretend they can nail it down. We are held back because our institutions aren’t open in their thinking, and we are stymied by competition rather than co-operation. He would like collective intelligence to coalesce into a discipline.

David Wineberg
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16 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on December 18, 2017
4 people found this helpful
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