The might of many minds

The wisdom of crows could be harnessed to predict elections and terrorist attacks, argues US writer and columnist James Surowiecki.

By Rebecca Macfie In Commentary

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9th May, 2009

After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, American intelligence agencies struggled to fix the system that had failed so dismally to predict the catastrophic assault. Some wondered whether part of the solution lay in setting up a kind of intelligence marketplace, where people could take a punt on the likelihood of, say, a future al Qaeda attack. Enabling informed observers to buy and sell futures contracts based on possible terrorist activity or developments in the Middle East would, theoretically, tap into the collective wisdom of the intelligence community and yield ...

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