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Is diversity the key to collaboration? New AI research suggests so - ScienceBlog.com
The team wondered if cooperative AI needs to be trained differently. The type of AI being used, called reinforcement learning, traditionally learns how to succeed at complex tasks by discovering which actions yield the highest reward. It is often trained and evaluated against models similar to itself. This process has created unmatched AI players in competitive games like Go and StarCraft.
But for AI to be a successful collaborator, perhaps it has to not only care about maximizing reward when collaborating with other AI agents, but also something more intrinsic: understanding and adapting to others’ strengths and preferences. In other words, it needs to learn from and adapt to diversity.
How to Choose an Ideal Mate (for Your Career) - Bloomberg
Researchers Brittany Solomon and Joshua Jackson analyzed data from over 4,500 married people and found that of the big five, only conscientiousness had a meaningful impact on the other spouse’s job satisfaction, income and likelihood of being promoted. Regardless of their gender, partners who are reliable, organized and hard-working are an asset, perhaps because they take on more housework. […] They may even serve as role models for their spouses. Whatever the cause, the effect is measurable: Andrew O’Connell, writing about these findings for Harvard Business Review, notes that for every one standard deviation increase in a partner’s conscientiousness, their lucky spouse was likely to earn $4,000 more a year. A second desirable trait is a partner who can serve as a “secure base.” This is a term from attachment theory, which initially was thought only to apply to children’s relationships with their parents, but which psychologists increasingly realize also applies to adult relationships. A secure base is a spouse who can be “dependably supportive” while also encouraging “exploratory behavior.”
Paul McCartney reflects on meeting John Lennon and their songwriting partnership
“I think, ‘Wow, how lucky was I to meet this strange Teddy Boy off the bus who turned out to play music like I did, and we get together and, boy, we complemented each other’. They say with marriages opposites attract and we weren’t madly opposites, but I had some stuff that he didn’t have and he had some stuff I didn’t have so when you put them together it made something extra.”
Sunflowers found to share nutrient-rich soil with others of their kind
In the first study, the researchers placed isolated sunflower plants near a rich food source and watched how it behaved. As expected, the plant sent more roots into the area, allowing it to consume more nutrients. But they also found that when they placed two sunflower plants an equal distance from the same food source, both sent fewer roots than they would have were they alone. This was a clear sign that the plants were not only aware of the presence of the other, but were working together to allow both of them to gain the greatest benefit.
In another experiment, the researchers placed sunflower plants at different distances from the rich soil patch and found that the sunflower nearest the soil patch sent out just as many new roots as if it were isolated. In other experiments, the researchers planted multiple plants at different distances from the nutrient-rich patch to see how they would respond. They report that plants that were growing with a neighbor actually decreased root length in such shared patches—and they did not increase them when they were close to very high-quality soil areas. The researchers conclude that sunflowers work together to gain the most benefit from the soil for themselves and for those around them.
How happy couples argue: Focus on solvable issues first -- ScienceDaily
When researchers observed couples discussing marital problems, all couples focused on issues with clearer solutions, such as the distribution of household labor and how to spend leisure time.
"Rebalancing chores may not be easy, but it lends itself to more concrete solutions than other issues," Rauer said. "One spouse could do more of certain chores to balance the scales."
The couples rarely chose to argue about issues that are more difficult to resolve. And Rauer suggests that this strategic decision may be one of the keys to their marital success.
"Focusing on the perpetual, more-difficult-to-solve problems may undermine partners' confidence in the relationship," Rauer said.
Instead, to the extent it is possible, focusing first on more solvable problems may be an effective way to build up both partners' sense of security in the relationship.
"If couples feel that they can work together to resolve their issues, it may give them the confidence to move on to tackling the more difficult issues," Rauer said.
Decentralizing science may lead to more reliable results in biomedical research: Analysis of data on tens of thousands of drug-gene interactions -- ScienceDaily
"The way science is often produced may inadvertently contribute to unreliable results," says senior author James Evans, Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago, and External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute, US. "For example, a large group of scientists who frequently collaborate, use similar methods, share equipment, and frequently cite similar works are prone to producing the same, self-confirming results. Although such a group may produce repeated published experiments, our results demonstrate that their findings are not independent. Independent labs perform experiments in different ways with different expectations and are less prone to peer pressure than a densely connected networks of scientists."
Artists Become Famous through Their Friends, Not the Originality of Their Work - Artsy
While past studies have suggested that there is a link between creativity and fame, Ingram and Banerjee found, in contrast, that there was no such correlation for these artists. Rather, artists with a large and diverse network of contacts were most likely to be famous, regardless of how creative their art was.
Specifically, the greatest predictor of fame for an artist was having a network of contacts from various countries. Ingram believes this indicates that the artist was cosmopolitan and had the capacity to reach different markets or develop ideas inspired by foreign cultures. The “linchpin of the network,” he added, was Kandinsky. They also found that famous artists tended to be older, likely because they were already famous as abstraction was emerging, Ingram explained.
Comparative Accuracy of Diagnosis by Collective Intelligence of Multiple Physicians vs Individual Physicians. | Medical Education and Training | JAMA Network Open | JAMA Network
Using the top 3 diagnoses given by each user to adjudicate solutions, the diagnostic accuracy of all users was 62.5% (95% CI, 60.1%-64.9%). The accuracy of individual residents and fellows was 65.5% (95% CI, 63.1%-67.8%) compared with 55.8% for medical students (95% CI, 53.4%-58.3%; P < .001 for difference vs residents and fellows by z test for proportions) and 63.9% for attending physicians (95% CI, 61.6%-66.3%; P = .10 for difference vs residents and fellows).
Collaborative video games could increase office productivity: Team video gaming increased effectiveness of newly-formed teams by 20 percent -- ScienceDaily
A new study by four BYU information systems professors found newly-formed work teams experienced a 20 percent increase in productivity on subsequent tasks after playing video games together for just 45 minutes. The study, published in AIS Transactions on Human-Computer Interaction, adds to a growing body of literature finding positive outcomes of team video gaming.
"To see that big of a jump -- especially for the amount of time they played -- was a little shocking," said co-author and BYU associate professor Greg Anderson. "Companies are spending thousands and thousands of dollars on team-building activities, and I'm thinking, go buy an Xbox."
Pando, the Trembling Giant – Richfield, Utah - Atlas Obscura
Spanning 107 acres and weighing 6,615 tons, Pando was once thought to be the world’s largest organism (now usurped by thousand-acre fungal mats in Oregon), and is almost certainly the most massive. In terms of other superlatives, the more optimistic estimates of Pando’s age have it as over one million years old, which would easily make it one of the world’s oldest living organisms.
A Step-by-Step Guide to Boosting Work Morale - WSJ
As one of three women on a team of 60, and the boss, she struggled to feel like “one of the guys.”
When she discovered that many of the men used the lunch hour to exercise, she asked to join. They use the Culver City Stairs, 282 steps that form a steep climb, as a gym. “I started working out at lunch, because I didn’t want to waste an hour doing nothing,” says Victor Mancia, a 45-year-old in the glass department. “When Elizabeth joined, I think it motivated others.”
Ms. Kaplan says she noticed a few of her colleagues struggled with health issues, such as diabetes. “I’m a working mother, so I get it’s hard to carve out time to exercise. But I also realize your habits—diet, activity level—rub off on your family,” she says. Her children are 23, 22 and 18. “I hoped that if people saw me joining the workouts, they’d feel more inclined to join.”
Teens who help strangers have more confidence: Get your kids involved in service to strangers in this season of giving, researchers suggest -- ScienceDaily
In the study, researchers looked at 681 adolescents, 11-14 years old, in two U.S. cities. They tracked them for four different time points, starting in 2008 through 2011. The participants responded to 10 statements such as "I feel useless at times" or "I am satisfied with myself" to assess self-esteem. Prosocial behavior was measured by self-reports, looking at various aspects of kindness and generosity, such as "I help people I don't know, even if it's not easy for me" or "I go out of my way to cheer up my friends" or "I really enjoy doing small favors for my family."
"A unique feature of this study is that it explores helping behaviors toward multiple different targets," Padilla-Walker said. "Not all helping is created equal, and we're finding that prosocial behavior toward strangers is protective in a variety of ways that is unique from other types of helping. Another important finding is that the link between prosocial behavior and self-esteem is over a one-year time period and present across all three age lags in our study. Though not an overly large effect, this suggests a stable link between helping and feeling better about oneself across the early adolescent years."
When Pixels Collide
Each pixel you see was placed by hand. Each icon, each flag, each meme created painstakingly by millions of people who had nothing in common except an Internet connection. Somehow, someway, what happened in Reddit over those 72 hours was the birth of Art.
IBM is ending its decades-old remote work policy — Quartz
Team proximity appears to help foster better new ideas. One Harvard study found that researchers who worked in close physical proximity produced more impactful papers. Another report used data from badges that collect data on employee interaction to argue that employees who have more chance encounters and unplanned interaction perform better. This idea, known as the “water cooler effect,” has been embraced by the most successful technology companies. Steve Jobs was obsessed with creating unplanned meetings, going so far as to propose building all of the bathrooms in Pixar’s offices in only one part of the building to encourage them (luckily for Pixar employees, someone vetoed this idea). Facebook offers workers a $10,000 bonus if they live near headquarters.
Human animal collabortion
Off Laguna, in southern Brazil, people and bottlenose dolphins have fished together for generations. The dolphins swim towards the beach, driving mullet towards the fishermen. The men wait for a signal from the dolphins—a distinctive dive—before throwing their nets. The dolphins are in charge, initiating the herding and giving the vital signal, though only some do this. The people must learn which dolphins will herd the fish and pay close attention to the signal, or the fishing will fail. Both groups of mammals must learn the necessary skills. Among the humans, these are passed down from father to son; among the dolphins, from mother to calf. In this example, how much do the species differ?
In the brain, Apollo and Dionysis work together to create
"On the one hand, there is surely a need for a region that tosses out innovative ideas, but on the other hand there is also the need for one that will know to evaluate how applicable and reasonable these ideas are. The ability of the brain to operate these two regions in parallel is what results in creativity. It is possible that the most sublime creations of humanity were produced by people who had an especially strong connection between the two regions," the researchers concluded.
Dolphin talk
When given the hand signal to “innovate,” Hector and Han know to dip below the surface and blow a bubble, or vault out of the water, or dive down to the ocean floor, or perform any of the dozen or so other maneuvers in their repertoire—but not to repeat anything they’ve already done during that session. Incredibly, they usually understand that they’re supposed to keep trying some new behavior each session.
Bolton presses her palms together over her head, the signal to innovate, and then puts her fists together, the sign for “tandem.” With those two gestures, she has instructed the dolphins to show her a behavior she hasn’t seen during this session and to do it in unison.
Hector and Han disappear beneath the surface. With them is a comparative psychologist named Stan Kuczaj, wearing a wet suit and snorkel gear and carrying a large underwater video camera with hydrophones. He records several seconds of audible chirping between Hector and Han, then his camera captures them both slowly rolling over in unison and flapping their tails three times simultaneously.
Above the surface Bolton presses her thumbs and middle fingers together, telling the dolphins to keep up this cooperative innovation. And they do. The 400-pound animals sink down, exchange a few more high-pitched whistles, and then simultaneously blow bubbles together. Then they pirouette side by side. Then they tail walk. After eight nearly perfectly synchronized sequences, the session ends.
Friends collaborate better in work
Friendship groups performed significantly better than acquaintance groups on both decision-making and motor tasks because of a greater degree of group commitment and cooperation. Critical evaluation and task monitoring also significantly increased decision-making performance, whereas positive communication mediated the relationship between friendship and motor task performance.
EyeWire game to map mouse eye neurons
In 2012, Seung started EyeWire, an online game that challenges the public to trace neuronal wiring — now using computers, not pens — in the retina of a mouse’s eye. Seung’s artificial-intelligence algorithms process the raw images, then players earn points as they mark, paint-by-numbers style, the branches of a neuron through a three-dimensional cube. The game has attracted 165,000 players in 164 countries. In effect, Seung is employing artificial intelligence as a force multiplier for a global, all-volunteer army that has included Lorinda, a Missouri grandmother who also paints watercolors, and Iliyan (a.k.a. @crazyman4865), a high-school student in Bulgaria who once played for nearly 24 hours straight. Computers do what they can and then leave the rest to what remains the most potent pattern-recognition technology ever discovered: the human brain.
Charismatic leaders helped by perception of mortal threats
For example, the researchers asked students to think about death or a control topic and then read statements supposedly written by gubernatorial candidates of varying leadership styles. You are not just an ordinary citizen, you are part of a special state and a special nation, the charismatic leader said. I can accomplish all the goals that I set out to do. I am very careful in laying out a detailed blueprint of what needs to be done so that there is no ambiguity, a task-oriented leader said. I encourage all citizens to take an active role in improving their state. I know that each individual can make a difference, the relationship-oriented leader said. Participants then picked the candidate they would vote for. After thinking about a control topic, four of 95 people chose the charismatic leader. After a death reminder, that candidate’s votes increased nearly eightfold. Such results, the psychologists wrote, suggested that "close elections could be decided as a result of nonrational terror-management concerns."
Marathon des Sables camaradarie
His head torch is brighter than mine and lights up the dips and rocks. My eyesight is better than his and I can make out the dim glowticks that mark out the course of the Marathon des Sables, a seven-day, 250-kilometer (155-mile) race in the Moroccan desert where competitors must carry their own food. Today's stage is the longest ever in the race's 30-year history at 92 kilometers. My new friend and I spur each other along. Alex Morales during the 91.7-kilometer stage 4, the longest in the 30-year history of the Marathon des Sables. […] "For me, the best aspect of the Marathon des Sables was the camaraderie,'' Gemma Game, a 35-year-old fund manager at Norges Bank in London who placed 87th out of about 1,300 runners and was the fourth woman, wrote in an e-mail. "A passion for running united men and women, transcending differences of language, gender or nationality.''
Unlocking the organization with simple network mapping
Our client asked us to map cooperation in their organization because they had the feeling something might not be quite right.When together we looked at the network map, our client immediately recognized the bottleneck:the Head of Customer Services. This manager’s centrality was constraining the speed, spread and quality of information flow, creating a major HR risk. If this person were occupied, then the exchange of information between the Customer Service department and the rest of the organization would be seriously impaired. And on top of all of this, given that all information in the organization flowed through this same person, all information had the same “imprint” and was colored by the values and opinions of this person.
How women led Congress out of the swamp
Growing evidence shows that women leaders operate differently. The government shutdown of October 2013 ended, despite a complete congressional impasse, when three women Republican Senators broke ranks from their party. Two women Democrats followed their lead, and men on both sides came along. The bipartisan committee that worked on the final deal was gender balanced, but
John McCain
perceptively joked that the women were taking over. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who had started it all by courageously calling for compromise, told a reporter, “I don’t think it’s a coincidence…. Although we span the ideological spectrum, we are used to working together.” While male colleagues crossed their arms and sulked, women crossed the aisle with phone calls, email and social media. The men saw a deal they could live with and followed suit.
Booktrope brings collaboration to publishing
Anyway, if you’re accepted into the system, you then post your completed manuscript on Booktrope and try to attract a team of editors, designers and marketers, who can then collaborate through Booktrope’s online tools. Authors aren’t paying other team members directly, but offering them a share of the royalties. That means the author doesn’t have to pay out of their own pocket for these services, and the team members will have an incentive for the book to do well.
In Venture Capital, Birds of a Feather Lose Money Together (Success Defined as IPO)
They found that the probability of success decreased by 17 percent if two co-investors had previously worked at the same company—even if they hadn't worked there at the same time. In cases where investors had attended the same undergraduate school, the success rate dropped by 19 percent. And, overall, investors who were members of the same ethnic minority were 20 percent less successful than investors with different ethnic backgrounds.
Czechoslovakia in the 70s
In January 1969, Jan Palach, a philosophy undergraduate, burned himself to death in Wenceslas Square to protest the Soviet invasion. Unlike most of his fellow dissidents, Havel did not react to Palach’s death with tears, desperation, or hopeless rage. Instead, like the politician he was to become, he gave a television interview in which he declared, with strange—and up to this point uncharacteristic—bravado, “There is just one road open to us: to wage our political battle until the end … I understand the death of Jan Palach as a warning against the moral suicide of all of us.” Moral suicide—taking a job with the regime, informing on your erstwhile dissident friends—became a standard if depressing mode of collaboration in the 1970s. The parallel polis collapsed, leaving the few remaining dissidents to face the full pressure of the regime alone. Of that long decade, Zantovsky writes, “few … can imagine the twilight mood, the torpor, which resembled a state of semi-anaesthesia.”
