Hybrid Collective Intelligence for Decision Support in Complex Open-Ended Domains

Abstract

Human knowledge is growing exponentially, providing huge and sometimes contrasting evidence to support decision making in the realm of complex problems. To fight knowledge fragmentation, collective intelligence leverages groups of experts (possibly from diverse domains) that jointly provide solutions. However, to promote beneficial outcomes and avoid herding, it is necessary to (i) elicit diverse responses and (ii) suitably aggregate them in a collective solution. To this end, AI can help with dealing with large knowledge bases, as well as with reasoning on expert-provided knowledge to support decision-making. A hybrid human-artificial collective intelligence can leverage the complementarity of expert knowledge and machine processing to deal with complex problems. We discuss how such a hybrid human-artificial collective intelligence can be deployed to support decision processes, and we present case studies in two different domains: general medical diagnostics and climate change adaptation management.