Join us for our monthly seminar meeting with a presentation on collective intelligence by Ian Miller followed by a group discussion.

Ian described his research as follows:

I take the perspective that social phenomena can be modelled with the use of computational agents, and that psychology provides models of agent behaviour.  Agents may be connected through a variety of networks that provide mediated vectors of transmission. In the particular case of online information networks, we observe nonlinear transmission phenomena in which memes (a unit of cultural reproduction) spread as a social information epidemic.  Online memes are a mechanism for agents to message and influence one another, providing a social coordination function. My work therefore uses social agents who transmit memes to model and explore social phenomena.

In this talk, I will discuss several recent studies, including:

– 2016 US presidential candidates and the memes created about them

– urban legend transmission

– the influence of Individuals and Organizations in open source software

– a computer simulation of the human population

– the research literature of social psychology and artificial intelligence