How can the military or government employ the wisdom of crowds?(securenation.org)
securenation.org
How can the military or government employ the wisdom of crowds?
http://www.securenation.org/how-can-the-military-and-others-employ-the-wisdom-of-crowds/
7 comments
This is a topic that has been studied quite extensively. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prediction_market for more.
Feynman in 1964 on the existence of flying saucers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLaRXYai19A
America's Army comes to mind: They could learn strategies from players by creating scenarios and levels that exist in real life and see if any highly skilled players develop better strategies than they have had the time to develop.
I worked on a DARPA project to do exactly this called the Policy Analysis Market. Ask me how well that turned out ;)
If it was out of IXO and was associated with the Admiral than I can sure guess. PAM was perhaps the project played up in the press as asking people to predict terrorist actions (the press not reality)? I think the real nail was TIA though not your project.
When IXO folded I was pretty far along in marketing to them. I got strong advice to keep a low profile after that due to superficial similarities.
I think we probably have something to talk about if you have time for lunch. Email is on my profile.
When IXO folded I was pretty far along in marketing to them. I got strong advice to keep a low profile after that due to superficial similarities.
I think we probably have something to talk about if you have time for lunch. Email is on my profile.
Not exactly the same thing, but several tools in the Government rely on "crowd-sourcing" entity extraction and disambiguation vs. using an automated approach -- Axis Pro, Palantir, etc.
You get high quality named entity tagging (since humans are doing it), but it takes a lot longer than doing it by machine, and it has a couple of downsides -- like scaling poorly, involving lots of staff doing entity tagging instead of real work, a noticeable delay between incoming reports and being able to use them (since they aren't tagged and those systems pretty much require tagged documents to do anything useful with them), as well as people fighting over the disambiguation of certain entities.
You get high quality named entity tagging (since humans are doing it), but it takes a lot longer than doing it by machine, and it has a couple of downsides -- like scaling poorly, involving lots of staff doing entity tagging instead of real work, a noticeable delay between incoming reports and being able to use them (since they aren't tagged and those systems pretty much require tagged documents to do anything useful with them), as well as people fighting over the disambiguation of certain entities.
Those particular authoritative institutions are usually trying to control the oh-so-wise crowd. In other words, you're asking how the authorities can use the communications of the crowd against the crowd.
You're really eager to get new weapons into the hands of the Masters?
You're really eager to get new weapons into the hands of the Masters?
I think the OP's question was asked in innocence... They were probably looking for something along the lines of a web-based registry where various agencies could post their more vexing problems.
But yes government, with it's monopoly on force and tendency towards regulation is fundamentally antithetical to the crowd. Government can achieve certain efficiencies through uniformity but mandates don't really foster innovation.
To more thoroughly answer the OP, government can work with the crowd to 'promote the general welfare' by limiting itself. Ideally, the more remote levels of government should tolerate the experimentation and even the failings of the more local levels. By "tolerate" I mean less regulation but also withholding subsidies and bailouts. As Jefferson said,
"The policy of the American government is to leave their citizens free, neither restraining nor aiding them in their pursuits."
The reason for this is twofold.
1) Government cannot create an incentive/bailout/subsidy without diminishing other, more successful pursuits through a taking.
2) By propping up self-destructive behavior, government enables it to perpetuate.
The experimentation of the more local levels of government and ultimately the individual citizens that compose self-government _is_ the exercise of the crowds. E.g., think of the unsolicited advancements the Wright brothers brought to the military.
But yes government, with it's monopoly on force and tendency towards regulation is fundamentally antithetical to the crowd. Government can achieve certain efficiencies through uniformity but mandates don't really foster innovation.
To more thoroughly answer the OP, government can work with the crowd to 'promote the general welfare' by limiting itself. Ideally, the more remote levels of government should tolerate the experimentation and even the failings of the more local levels. By "tolerate" I mean less regulation but also withholding subsidies and bailouts. As Jefferson said,
"The policy of the American government is to leave their citizens free, neither restraining nor aiding them in their pursuits."
The reason for this is twofold.
1) Government cannot create an incentive/bailout/subsidy without diminishing other, more successful pursuits through a taking.
2) By propping up self-destructive behavior, government enables it to perpetuate.
The experimentation of the more local levels of government and ultimately the individual citizens that compose self-government _is_ the exercise of the crowds. E.g., think of the unsolicited advancements the Wright brothers brought to the military.
How many people makes an Einstein? a Gauss? we can calculate the population at that time, or better the total pupulation until that moment...
Create an electronic/internet based voting system? Let the crowds vote on issues and bypass congress/lobbying/corruption :) If only....
In fact, I would go so far as to say wisdom typically is contrary to group think.