Title

Beyond collective intelligence: Collective adaptation

Abstract

Throughout our human history and in our daily lives, we have been co-evolving our social networks and a variety of social learning strategies suitable for the particular challenges we believe are important. We are so good at moving between these different socio-cognitive constellations  that we are often not aware of this constant collective adaptation – until it goes wrong. Sometimes our collectives seem stuck and unable to adapt to the problems they face, even though the solutions might seem obvious. Going beyond identifying static “intelligent” or “stupid” collectives, I will describe a conceptual framework for studying collective adaptation and related initial modeling and empirical work. This framework stresses the importance of path dependence, satisficing, and collective myopia for understanding the sometimes counterintuitive outcomes of collective adaptation. This is particularly important in today’s turbulent world in which collectives face diverse and rapidly changing challenges.

If you wish to attend this seminar online, please send an email to m.t.pham@uva.nl to receive the zoom-link.