What smart bees can teach us about collective intelligence

Collective intelligence means smart decision making among groups of individuals that improves on the ability of one single person.

It can be useful in areas such as management, product development and predicting elections.

... or maladaptive herding, happens in groups when ineffective or harmful knowledge amplifies due to copying and can cause events like instability in stock markets.

If we simply imitate other people without connecting what we see to our own experience, any idea, good or bad, can spread.

Striking the right balance between copying others and relying on personal experience is key. It's the only way social learning can improve decision making.

Humans are not the only animals to display collective intelligence. Bees are also well known for their ability to make accurate collective decisions when they search for foods or new nests.

And bees can even avoid maladaptive herding: they prevent bad information from amplifying and spreading, although they copy each other through communication and social learning.

• We should take account of not just the most popular opinion, but also other minority opinions.
• Stimulating independent thought in individuals may reduce the risk of collective madness. Dividing a group into sub-groups or breaking down a task into small easy steps promotes flexible, yet smart, human intelligence.