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The collective intelligence of evolution and development

The collective intelligence of evolution and development
The collective intelligence of evolution and development
Collective intelligence and individual intelligence are usually considered to be fundamentally different. Individual intelligence is uncontroversial. It occurs in organisms with special neural machinery, evolved by natural selection to enable cognitive and learning functions that serve the fitness benefit of the organism, and then trained through lifetime experience to maximise individual rewards. Whilst the mechanisms of individual intelligence are not fully understood, good models exist for many aspects of individual cognition and learning. Collective intelligence, in contrast, is a much more ambiguous idea. What exactly constitutes collective intelligence is often vague, and the mechanisms that might enable it are frequently domain-specific. These cannot be mechanisms selected specifically for the purpose of collective intelligence because collectives are not (except in special circumstances) evolutionary units, and it is not clear that collectives can learn the way individual intelligences do since they are not a singular locus of rewards and benefits. Here, we use examples from evolution and developmental morphogenesis to argue that these apparent distinctions are not as categorical as they appear. Breaking down such distinctions enables us to borrow from and expand existing models of individual cognition and learning as a framework for collective intelligence, in particular connectionist models familiar in the context of neural networks. We discuss how specific features of these models inform the necessary and sufficient conditions for collective intelligence, and identify current knowledge gaps as opportunities for future research.
Watson, Richard
ce199dfc-d5d4-4edf-bd7b-f9e224c96c75
Levin, Michael
6d5972ec-9c46-4603-b7e0-c811137f69ed
Watson, Richard
ce199dfc-d5d4-4edf-bd7b-f9e224c96c75
Levin, Michael
6d5972ec-9c46-4603-b7e0-c811137f69ed

Watson, Richard and Levin, Michael (2023) The collective intelligence of evolution and development. Collective Intelligence, 2 (2). (doi:10.1177/26339137231168355).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Collective intelligence and individual intelligence are usually considered to be fundamentally different. Individual intelligence is uncontroversial. It occurs in organisms with special neural machinery, evolved by natural selection to enable cognitive and learning functions that serve the fitness benefit of the organism, and then trained through lifetime experience to maximise individual rewards. Whilst the mechanisms of individual intelligence are not fully understood, good models exist for many aspects of individual cognition and learning. Collective intelligence, in contrast, is a much more ambiguous idea. What exactly constitutes collective intelligence is often vague, and the mechanisms that might enable it are frequently domain-specific. These cannot be mechanisms selected specifically for the purpose of collective intelligence because collectives are not (except in special circumstances) evolutionary units, and it is not clear that collectives can learn the way individual intelligences do since they are not a singular locus of rewards and benefits. Here, we use examples from evolution and developmental morphogenesis to argue that these apparent distinctions are not as categorical as they appear. Breaking down such distinctions enables us to borrow from and expand existing models of individual cognition and learning as a framework for collective intelligence, in particular connectionist models familiar in the context of neural networks. We discuss how specific features of these models inform the necessary and sufficient conditions for collective intelligence, and identify current knowledge gaps as opportunities for future research.

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Published date: 23 May 2023

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Local EPrints ID: 502001
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/502001
PURE UUID: d65c28ba-848b-4cb4-b3ce-a59c50fbd696
ORCID for Richard Watson: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-2521-8255

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Date deposited: 13 Jun 2025 16:31
Last modified: 22 Aug 2025 01:53

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Author: Richard Watson ORCID iD
Author: Michael Levin

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