Conversational Swarm Intelligence amplifies the accuracy of networked groupwise deliberations

Conversational Swarm Intelligence (CSI) is a communication technology that enables large, networked groups (25 to 2500 people) to hold real-time conversational deliberations online. Modeled on the dynamics of biological swarms, CSI enables the reasoning benefits of small-groups with the collective intelligence benefits of large-groups. In this pilot study, groups of 25 to 30 participants were asked to select players for a weekly Fantasy Football contest over an 11-week period. As a baseline, participants filled out a survey to record their player selections. As an experimental method, participants engaged in a real-time text-chat deliberation using a CSI platform called Thinkscape to collaboratively select sets of players. The results show that the real-time conversational group using CSI outperformed 66% of survey participants, demonstrating significant amplification of intelligence versus the median individual (p=0.020). The CSI method also significantly outperformed the most popular choices from the survey (the Wisdom of Crowd, p<0.001). These results suggest that CSI is an effective technology for amplifying the intelligence of groups engaged in real-time large-scale conversational deliberation and may offer a path to collective superintelligence.