Atmospheric methane levels increased over geological formations in Northern Siberia following a heat wave in 2020, suggesting that permafrost thaw releases methane from reservoirs.
Image credit: Wikimedia Commons.
-
Edited by William J. Baumol, New York University, New York, NY, and approved September 17, 2004 (received for review May 25, 2004)
Abstract
We introduce a general framework for modeling functionally diverse problem-solving agents. In this framework, problem-solving agents possess representations of problems and algorithms that they use to locate solutions. We use this framework to establish a result relevant to group composition. We find that when selecting a problem-solving team from a diverse population of intelligent agents, a team of randomly selected agents outperforms a team comprised of the best-performing agents. This result relies on the intuition that, as the initial pool of problem solvers becomes large, the best-performing agents necessarily become similar in the space of problem solvers. Their relatively greater ability is more than offset by their lack of problem-solving diversity.
Footnotes
-
↵ § To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: luhong{at}umich.edu.
-
This paper was submitted directly (Track II) to the PNAS office.
-
↵ ∥ In another set of computational experiments where a different problem was being solved, we consider agents with the same heuristics but whose perspectives vary. Similar results were found {Hong, L. & Page, S. E. (2002) Working paper, Diversity and Optimality [Loyola University (Chicago) and Univ. of Michigan (Ann Arbor)]}.
-
↵ ** Mathematically, the expected diversity of two randomly selected agents equals 11/12 = 0.9183333.
-
↵ †† Hong, L. & Page, S. E. (2002) Working paper, Diversity and Optimality [Loyola Univ. (Chicago) and Univ. of Michigan (Ann Arbor)].
- Copyright © 2004, The National Academy of Sciences
Groups of diverse problem solvers can outperform groups of high-ability problem solvers
Sign up for Article Alerts
Jump to section
You May Also be Interested in
Pottery, burnt clay, and burnt flint from Jordan dated from 7752 BCE to 5069 BCE yielded a record of variations in Earth’s magnetic field strength during the Neolithic period.
Image credit: Thomas E. Levy.
Mechanics of ant tunneling could inspire the development of improved robotic mining techniques.
Image credit: Jose E. Andrade and David R. Miller (California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA).
New observations now allow the seemingly impossible: measuring the speeds of some stars along the line of sight without ascertaining their Doppler shifts.
Image credit: NASA, H.E. Bond, and E. Nelan (Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD); M. Barstow and M. Burleigh (University of Leicester, UK); and J.B. Holberg (University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ).
Researchers found a gene that could pave the way toward modifying crops so that they produce stable hybrid seed lines with desirable traits.
Image credit: Aleksandr Ozerov.