Thomas Malone
About Thomas Malone
“"We at IBM value the perspectives you brought to our session and appreciate the time you spent with us."”
Speech topics
Solving Big Problems with Collective Intelligence
Since its launch in the early 1990s, the internet has changed the way we communicate, share information and work. More recently, it’s dramatically changing how we think about and resolve collective issues. And according to Thomas Malone, the internet – and our use of collective intelligence – will truly transform how we solve big, global problems. Drawing from his work with the Sloan Center for Collective Intelligence (CCI), Malone examines how collective intelligence and new technologies are impacting the way people work together – for the better. The internet, he says, gives more people access to an increasing amount of information that allowed them to make larger contributions to their work and the world. Malone discusses new crowdsourcing resources like InnoCentive and CCI’s own Climate CoLab, their benefits, and how they’re already helping foster solutions to complex challenges – from specific workplace issues to global problems like climate change. Collective intelligence, Malone believes, is set to become an increasingly essential factor in companies’ capacity to achieve long-term competitiveness.
Speaking videos
Books by Thomas Malone
“Superminds: The Surprising Power of People and Computers Thinking Together” (2018)
From the founding director of the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence comes a fascinating look at the remarkable capacity for intelligence exhibited by groups of people and computers working together. If you're like most people, you probably believe that humans are the most intelligent animals on our planet. But there's another kind of entity that can be far smarter: groups of people. In this groundbreaking book, Thomas Malone, the founding director of the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence, shows how groups of people working together in superminds -- like hierarchies, markets, democracies, and communities -- have been responsible for almost all human achievements in business, government, science, and beyond. And these collectively intelligent human groups are about to get much smarter. Using dozens of striking examples and case studies, Malone shows how computers can help create more intelligent superminds simply by connecting humans to one another in a variety of rich, new ways. And although it will probably happen more gradually than many people expect, artificially intelligent computers will amplify the power of these superminds by doing increasingly complex kinds of thinking. Together, these changes will have far-reaching implications for everything from the way we buy groceries and plan business strategies to how we respond to climate change, and even for democracy itself. By understanding how these collectively intelligent groups work, we can learn how to harness their genius to achieve our human goals. Drawing on cutting-edge science and insights from a remarkable range of disciplines, Superminds articulates a bold -- and utterly fascinating -- picture of the future that will change the ways you work and live, both with other people and with computers.
“The Future of Work: How the New Order of Business Will Shape Your Organization, Your Management Style and Your Life” (2004)
At a glanceThomas Malone
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