Pietro Michelucci

Human Computation Institute · Office of the Director

Artificial Intelligence (AI) can augment and sometimes even replace human cognition. Inspired by efforts to value human agency alongside productivity, we discuss and categorize the potential of solving Citizen Science (CS) tasks with Hybrid Intelligence (HI), a synergetic mixture of human and artificial intelligence. Due to the unique participant-c...

Artificial Intelligence (AI) can augment and sometimes even replace human cognition. Inspired by efforts to value human agency alongside productivity, we discuss the benefits of solving Citizen Science (CS) tasks with Hybrid Intelligence (HI), a synergetic mixture of human and artificial intelligence. Currently there is no clear framework or method...

This guest editorial briefly describes a history of activities related to engaging the U.S. federal government in citizen science, and presents the recent public comments that we submitted to the American National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) in response to their recently published draft citizen science strategy.

Machine learning, artificial intelligence, and deep learning have advanced significantly over the past decade. Nonetheless, humans possess unique abilities such as creativity, intuition, context and abstraction, analytic problem solving, and detecting unusual events. To successfully tackle pressing scientific and societal challenges, we need the co...

With humans increasingly serving as computational elements in distributed information processing systems and in consideration of the profit-driven motives and potential inequities that might accompany the emerging thinking economy[1], we recognize the need for establishing a set of related ethics to ensure the fair treatment and wellbeing of online...

Exercise exerts a beneficial effect on the major pathological and clinical symptoms associated with Alzheimer’s disease in humans and mouse models of the disease. While numerous mechanisms for such benefits from exercise have been proposed, a clear understanding of the causal links remains elusive. Recent studies also suggest that cerebral blood fl...

Obesity is linked to increased risk for and severity of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Cerebral blood flow (CBF) reductions are an early feature of AD and are also linked to obesity. We recently showed that non-flowing capillaries, caused by adhered neutrophils, contribute to CBF reduction in mouse models of AD. Because obesity could exacerbate the vasc...

Exercise exerts a beneficial effect on the major pathological and clinical symptoms associated with Alzheimers disease in humans and mouse models of the disease. While numerous mechanisms for such benefits from exercise have been proposed, a clear understanding of the causal links remains elusive. Recent studies also suggest that cerebral blood flo...

Obesity is linked to increased risk for and severity of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Cerebral blood flow (CBF) reductions are an early feature of AD and are also linked to obesity. We showed that non-flowing capillaries, caused by adhered neutrophils, underlie the CBF reduction in mouse models of AD. Because obesity could exacerbate the vascular infla...

This postmortem report will provide all readers with important information about the Open Science workshop which took place in Vienna, Austria on the 20th of September 2017. The workshop was organised by the Open Innovation in Science Research and Competence Center, Open Access Austria, Austrian Transition to Open Access and Open Knowledge Austria....

Humans are the most effective integrators and producers of information, directly and through the use of information-processing inventions. As these inventions become increasingly sophisticated, the substantive role of humans in processing information will tend toward capabilities that derive from our most complex cognitive processes, e.g., abstract...

Human computation, a term introduced by Luis von Ahn (1), refers to distributed systems that combine the strengths of humans and computers to accomplish tasks that neither can do alone (2). The seminal example is reCAPTCHA, a Web widget used by 100 million people a day when they transcribe distorted text into a box to prove they are human. This fre...

Humans are the most effective integrators and producers of information, directly and through the use of information-processing inventions. As these inventions become increasingly sophisticated, the substantive role of humans in processing information will tend toward capabilities that derive from our most complex cognitive processes, e.g., abstract...

The internet has given rise to human participation in computational systems, via social networking, crowdsourcing, collective intelligence, and other manifestations in which people contribute information processing that is central to system behaviors and outcomes. For example, the online verification service, reCAPTCHA provides a resource by which...

We are not the first to recognize the tremendous potential of human cooperation, nor are we the first to consider the capabilities that might be enabled by bringing together humans and computing machines. Nonetheless, with this inaugural issue of Human Computation we come together earnestly, as a global, interdisciplinary scientific community to ma...

Herein we entertain the prospect that engineered approaches to human computation can foster more effective collaborations than are possible today. It is commonly known that adding more people to a group effort eventually produces diminishing returns. Need this be the case? Recent evidence suggests that group efficacy is related less to the individu...

This volume addresses the emerging area of human computation. The chapters, written by leading international researchers, explore existing and future opportunities to combine the respective strengths of both humans and machines in order to create powerful problem-solving capabilities. The book bridges scientific communities, capturing and integrati...

Today humans face many challenges as a species, including some that pose grave risks. Technology has been a significant contributor to these risks, but it may also lead to solutions. In the first part of this chapter, we consider how Human Computation (HC), the study of humans as computational elements in a purposeful system, has already been helpf...

This chapter seeks to characterize the conceptual space of human computation by defining key terminology within an evolving taxonomy.

Information processing systems composed of groups of humans may exhibit modes of dysfunction that correspond to psychopathology observed in individuals. Thus, clinical models normally applied to individuals are considered as candidate models for understanding psychosis and neurosis in distributed systems. In the first part, Matthew Blumberg conside...

Surely you have heard of Pandora, who according to Greek mythology was the first woman on Earth. Perhaps even more famous is the container she was gifted by the gods and instructed to never open. Of course, ultimately, Pandora succumbed to her curiosity and let escape all of the evils of the universe before she managed to replace the lid. But maybe...

We present the initial discoveries from an investigation of massively collaborative problem solving (MCPS) assembled from two independent projects attempting to foster large scale distributed collaboration to solve complex problems, including those relevant to local and national security. Two preliminary investigations for a DARPA Small Business In...

We present key insights from two independent projects attempting to foster massive collaboration to solve complex problems. The teams designed frameworks for Massively Collaborative Problem Solving(MCPS) that encourage deep reasoning to emerge by combining small contributions from many distributed individuals. Instead of a linear approach to proble...