Frontiers in Collective Intelligence: A Workshop Report

Abstract: In August of 2021, the Santa Fe Institute hosted a workshop on collective intelligence as part of its Foundations of Intelligence project. This project seeks to advance the field of artificial intelligence by promoting interdisciplinary research on the nature of intelligence. The workshop brought together computer scientists, biologists, philosophers, social scientists, and others to share their insights about how intelligence can emerge from interactions among multiple agents--whether those agents be machines, animals, or human beings. In this report, we summarize each of the talks and the subsequent discussions. We also draw out a number of key themes and identify important frontiers for future research. When building intelligent systems, the need to employ complex systems comprising a large number of more basic components seems inescapable. Brains are composed of billions of neurons, and digital computers are composed of billions of transistors. It is the myriad ...