  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.
