Using Games to Tap Collective Intelligence

[leunas]

The Wisdom of Crowds theory argues that, given the right circumstances, better decisions are made by larger groups than by smaller elites. Can games become a powerful tool in harnessing public appreciation for crucial issues, thereby giving more power to the many?

Nowadays, everyone is talking about the broad potential applications of video games. Combating obesity, managing chronic disease, general education, employee training, military preparedness and recruiting. The list seems endless. But one unique and important aspect of games has yet to be tapped:
I believe they can effectively aggregate individual players' actions into a form of collective intelligence.

Basis of the Idea: Wisdom of Crowds

First, a bit of background. Few things have become conventional wisdom so quickly as the Wisdom of Crowds, an idea that has
captivated savvy businesses seeking to improve their internal prediction and decision-making processes. There's great reason to believe the hype - just ask HP, which has used idea markets to generate more accurate sales predictions, or read about the Iowa Electronic Markets, which have predicted presidential
election outcomes more accurately than the polls in 75% of cases.

However, despite a lasting surge in media, business, and academic interest, proven mechanisms via which to harness the wisdom of crowds remain in short supply. Idea markets have existed for many years, as have the "opinion aggregation" systems in websites (i.e. the user-generated product rankings
found in Amazon.com). The chief obstacle is and always has been: how to properly incentivize the participants in a system, such that they generate meaningful, unbiased input.

Idea markets use real or virtual currency to give participants a vested interest in the outcome of their predictions. Opinion aggregation sites rely on social and cultural forces to encourage useful behavior. Unfortunately, anything other than markets based on real currency investments can be manipulated by those who wish to bias the system for personal gain (or perverse pleasure). Amazon, for example, has always struggled in the fight
against "shill" product rankings. And of course, even real currency-based markets can be manipulated under certain circumstances, if the incentives are great enough.

Games are Wonderful Incentive Systems

There is, however, one well-known mechanism that does an amazing job of incentivizing people to think seriously and passionately about a given set of problems. A mechanism that compels people to meaningfully compete, against other people or against themselves, for no monetary benefit whatsoever. That's right - video games.

For many years now, developers have been creating games that revolve around real-world problems such as resource development, political maneuvering, etc. One of the most famous of these is SimCity in which players are taught to grapple with zoning issues, tax rates, etc. What if games that encouraged
people to solve real-world problems (as a means of accomplishing larger objectives) were developed in tandem with corporate or government sponsors? Not "business games", but commercially-viable, entertaining games that consumers might not even recognize as out of the ordinary?

Give Me An Example

Imagine a SimCity-esq game in which the player is given the financial reins to a region. The game could be set in a real location (i.e. California), incorporate real world constraints (i.e you can't indulge in deficit spending forever), and could dynamically import the latest avail able real-world regional data via the Internet (i.e. demographic figures, current spending levels, etc).

That way, when players begin a new game, they are immersed in a situation that closely resembles whatever situation California's politicians are currently grappling with. But here's the catch:
once players get out of the tutorial phase, the game can begin recording their decisions and transmitting them to a central database, where they are aggregated into a form of "collective vote" on what actions to take (i.e. raise the sales tax or lower the sales tax). If the Wisdom of Crowds is correct, the collective choices of 100,000 game players in California (which would include knowledgeable people as well as many less-knowledgeable people) may very well be better than the choices of 1,000 Californian policy experts.

Sound like something that governments would never even consider? The French government recently announced that it would be releasing a video game called Cyber Budget that enables French citizens to play finance minister. Cyber Budget appears to be purely educational (and promotional?) in nature, but it's certainly a step in the right direction.

for more, goto: www.edery.org/2006/09/using-games-to-tap-collective-intelligence/