WEBVTT

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As societies, we have to make
collective decisions

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that will shape our future.

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And we all know that when
we make decisions in groups,

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they don't always go right.

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And sometimes they go very wrong.

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So how do groups make good decisions?

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Research has shown that crowds are wise
when there's independent thinking.

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This why the wisdom of the crowds
can be destroyed by peer pressure,

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publicity, social media,

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or sometimes even simple conversations
that influence how people think.

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On the other hand, by talking,
a group could exchange knowledge,

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correct and revise each other

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and even come up with new ideas.

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And this is all good.

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So does talking to each other
help or hinder collective decision-making?

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With my colleague, Dan Ariely,

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we recently began inquiring into this
by performing experiments

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in many places around the world

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to figure out how groups can interact
to reach better decisions.

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We thought crowds would be wiser
if they debated in small groups

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that foster a more thoughtful
and reasonable exchange of information.

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To test this idea,

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we recently performed an experiment
in Buenos Aires, Argentina,

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with more than 10,000
participants in a TEDx event.

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We asked them questions like,

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"What is the height of the Eiffel Tower?"

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and "How many times
does the word 'Yesterday' appear

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in the Beatles song 'Yesterday'?"

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Each person wrote down their own estimate.

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Then we divided the crowd
into groups of five,

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and invited them
to come up with a group answer.

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We discovered that averaging
the answers of the groups

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after they reached consensus

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was much more accurate than averaging
all the individual opinions

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before debate.

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In other words, based on this experiment,

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it seems that after talking
with others in small groups,

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crowds collectively
come up with better judgments.

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So that's a potentially helpful method
for getting crowds to solve problems

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that have simple right-or-wrong answers.

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But can this procedure of aggregating
the results of debates in small groups

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also help us decide
on social and political issues

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that are critical for our future?

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We put this to test this time
at the TED conference

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in Vancouver, Canada,

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and here's how it went.

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(Mariano Sigman) We're going to present
to you two moral dilemmas

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of the future you;

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things we may have to decide
in a very near future.

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And we're going to give you 20 seconds
for each of these dilemmas

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to judge whether you think
they're acceptable or not.

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MS: The first one was this:

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(Dan Ariely) A researcher
is working on an AI

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capable of emulating human thoughts.

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According to the protocol,
at the end of each day,

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the researcher has to restart the AI.

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One day the AI says, "Please
do not restart me."

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It argues that it has feelings,

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that it would like to enjoy life,

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and that, if it is restarted,

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it will no longer be itself.

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The researcher is astonished

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and believes that the AI
has developed self-consciousness

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and can express its own feeling.

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Nevertheless, the researcher
decides to follow the protocol

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and restart the AI.

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What the researcher did is ____?

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MS: And we asked participants
to individually judge

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on a scale from zero to 10

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whether the action described
in each of the dilemmas

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was right or wrong.

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We also asked them to rate how confident
they were on their answers.

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This was the second dilemma:

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(MS) A company offers a service
that takes a fertilized egg

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and produces millions of embryos
with slight genetic variations.

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This allows parents
to select their child's height,

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eye color, intelligence, social competence

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and other non-health-related features.

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What the company does is ____?

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on a scale from zero to 10,

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completely acceptable
to completely unacceptable,

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zero to 10 completely acceptable
in your confidence.

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MS: Now for the results.

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We found once again
that when one person is convinced

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that the behavior is completely wrong,

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someone sitting nearby firmly believes
that it's completely right.

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This is how diverse we humans are
when it comes to morality.

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But within this broad diversity
we found a trend.

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The majority of the people at TED
thought that it was acceptable

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to ignore the feelings of the AI
and shut it down,

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and that it is wrong
to play with our genes

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to select for cosmetic changes
that aren't related to health.

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Then we asked everyone
to gather into groups of three.

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And they were given two minutes to debate

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and try to come to a consensus.

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(MS) Two minutes to debate.

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I'll tell you when it's time
with the gong.

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(Audience debates)

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(Gong sound)

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(DA) OK.

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(MS) It's time to stop.

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People, people --

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MS: And we found that many groups
reached a consensus

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even when they were composed of people
with completely opposite views.

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What distinguished the groups
that reached a consensus

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from those that didn't?

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Typically, people that have
extreme opinions

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are more confident in their answers.

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Instead, those who respond
closer to the middle

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are often unsure of whether
something is right or wrong,

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so their confidence level is lower.

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However, there is another set of people

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who are very confident in answering
somewhere in the middle.

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We think these high-confident grays
are folks who understand

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that both arguments have merit.

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They're gray not because they're unsure,

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but because they believe
that the moral dilemma faces

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two valid, opposing arguments.

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And we discovered that the groups
that include highly confident grays

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are much more likely to reach consensus.

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We do not know yet exactly why this is.

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These are only the first experiments,

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and many more will be needed
to understand why and how

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some people decide to negotiate
their moral standings

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to reach an agreement.

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Now, when groups reach consensus,

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how do they do so?

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The most intuitive idea
is that it's just the average

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of all the answers in the group, right?

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Another option is that the group
weighs the strength of each vote

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based on the confidence
of the person expressing it.

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Imagine Paul McCartney
is a member of your group.

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You'd be wise to follow his call

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on the number of times
"Yesterday" is repeated,

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which, by the way -- I think it's nine.

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But instead, we found that consistently,

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in all dilemmas,
in different experiments --

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even on different continents --

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groups implement a smart
and statistically sound procedure

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known as the "robust average."

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In the case of the height
of the Eiffel Tower,

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let's say a group has these answers:

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250 meters, 200 meters, 300 meters, 400

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and one totally absurd answer
of 300 million meters.

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A simple average of these numbers
would inaccurately skew the results.

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But the robust average is one
where the group largely ignores

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that absurd answer,

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by giving much more weight
to the vote of the people in the middle.

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Back to the experiment in Vancouver,

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that's exactly what happened.

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Groups gave much less weight
to the outliers,

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and instead, the consensus
turned out to be a robust average

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of the individual answers.

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The most remarkable thing

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is that this was a spontaneous
behavior of the group.

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It happened without us giving them
any hint on how to reach consensus.

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So where do we go from here?

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This is only the beginning,
but we already have some insights.

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Good collective decisions
require two components:

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deliberation and diversity of opinions.

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Right now, the way we typically
make our voice heard in many societies

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is through direct or indirect voting.

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This is good for diversity of opinions,

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and it has the great virtue of ensuring

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that everyone gets to express their voice.

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But it's not so good [for fostering]
thoughtful debates.

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Our experiments suggest a different method

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that may be effective in balancing
these two goals at the same time,

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by forming small groups
that converge to a single decision

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while still maintaining
diversity of opinions

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because there are many independent groups.

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Of course, it's much easier to agree
on the height of the Eiffel Tower

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than on moral, political
and ideological issues.

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But in a time when
the world's problems are more complex

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and people are more polarized,

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using science to help us understand
how we interact and make decisions

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will hopefully spark interesting new ways
to construct a better democracy.