The wisdom of the cloud

Are crowds really that smart?

A great deal of evidence, nicely summarized in James Surowiecki’s?The Wisdom of Crowds, suggests very wise. Crowds seem to be better at providing estimates and coming closer to a more accurate answer, at improving the diversity of opinion, at coordinating action, at facilitating societal functions, even at investing in the stock market. It’s a simple statistical observation: from diversity of estimates comes improved accuracy. But not so fast. What happens if this so-called wisdom, while theoretically true, is, practically speaking, not so easy??A study just published in?PNAS?suggests that all it takes is a whiff of social influence (the knowledge of how others are acting) for the wisdom to evaporate – and for crowds to become even less wise than individual decision makers.

Do crowds increase engagement? Marketers, industries, and employers are trying to get more engagement from stakeholders, including patients, and employees in the belief that it will lead to better outcomes and help them attain their mission, ma eting, and business goals. The conventional wisdom seems to be that crowdsourcing results in better engagement. But, if it happens, does it create value? A deeper dive into the literature leads to different conclusions.

Does CrowdMOOCing increase learning? Not as much as we think. Course sharing is a better idea.

Now, data and computer scientists are envisioning the wisdom of the cloud, i.e. using artificial intelligence to inform not just one cybernervous system but interconnected and collaborating systems to inform each other in the cloud.

Those shooting for this AI cyber moonshot, however, will encounter some issues before liftoff:

1. The 5 Vs of big data
2. The legal, ethical and societal implications
3. Global data interoperability
4. The lack of repeatability and generalizability of AI algorithms
5. Clinical validation of AI products and services
6. AI regulations
7. Cloud safety and security
8. Data literacy, dexterity, and AI education and training
9. Closing the AI digital divide
10. Barriers to dissemination and implementation
11. Testing the value of cloud sourcing and its impact on productivity and workflow
12. Issues with the IoMT

The check list prior to launch includes an AI informed weather report. The headwinds now are substantial so we will have to scrub the mission and launch when conditions are favorable. The irony is that the rocket we use to launch is built by the guy who is predicting the AI apocalypse.

Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA is the President and CEO of the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs