Diversity Trumps Ability

Lu Hong and Scott Page in their paper "Groups of diverse problem solvers can outperform groups of high-ability problem solvers" asked the question:


"Can a functionally diverse group whose members have less ability outperform a group of people with high ability who may themselves be diverse?"


Or, put in another context, can direct democracy outperform a political elite?

They answer yes, but their conclusions are nuanced and aimed mainly at diversity in problem solving organisations rather than whole democracies.

"even if we were to accept the claim that IQ tests, Scholastic Aptitude Test scores, and college grades predict individual problem-solving ability, they may not be as important in determining a person's potential contribution as a problem solver as would be measures of how differently that person thinks."
 
Yet, it seems to me that our political elite are fairly homogenous and highly susceptible to group think in a way that the wider population aren't.

Hong and Page also comment on communication, understanding and learning:

".... Problem solvers with nearly identical perspectives but diverse heuristics should communicate with one another easily. But problem solvers with diverse perspectives may have trouble understanding solutions identified by other agents. Firms then may want to hire people with similar perspectives yet maintain a diversity of heuristics. In this way, the firm can exploit diversity while minimizing communication costs. Finally, our model also does not allow problem solvers to learn. Learning could be modeled as the acquisition of new perspectives and heuristics. Clearly, in a learning model, problem solvers would have incentives to acquire diverse perspectives and heuristics"

Interactive Democracy offers a structured way for any voter to contribute proposals and debate outcomes, helping to solve some of the communication problems highlighted by Hong and Page by categorising debating points as positive, negative and interesting, and ranking them by votes of approval or disapproval. But Hong and Page's final point is perhaps my favourite argument for Interactive Democracy: that debate is a type of education with its own merit, and there's every chance that populations will get better at doing it.

This post was inspired by this blog:

http://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbling/2014/10/diversity-trumps-ability.html

Complexity Theory and Diversity

In Adapt, Tim Harford writes
"...an alternative perspective comes from complexity theorists Lu Hong and Scott Page. Their decision-makers are simple automatons inside a computer, undaunted by social pressure. Yet when Hong and Page run simulations in which their silicon agents are programmed to search for solutions, they find that a group of the very smartest agents isn't as successful as a more diverse group of dumber agents. Even though 'different' often means 'wrong'... Both  because of the conformity effect Asch discovered, and because of the basic usefulness of hearing more ideas, better decisions emerge from a diverse group."
Diversity is a central part of Interactive Democracy.

Randomness Could Improve Democracy

Dr Alessandro Pluchino won an igNobel prize (for achievements that first make people laugh, then make them think) for his work that suggested that adding some randomly selected representatives could improve the performance of a Parliament. Though his mathematical model is necessarily simplistic and his assumptions open to criticism, the idea ties in with the notion that an increased diversity of views can enhance a debate. Similarly, The Wisdom of Crowds argues that amalgamating discrete and diverse views improves forecasting and judgment.
Professor Lyn Carson of the Centre for Citizenship and Public Policy at the University of Western Sydney says random selection can improve deliberation, as well as representativeness, in democracy. She says, even representatives who don't know much have an important role to play. "They'll be asking really naive questions or playing the devil's advocate.... It's all fodder for deliberation."
Interactive Democracy offers an alternative route to combining diverse views but could also utilise random selection of some representatives. However, they would need the confidence to cope with political life.

There's more detail in the short ABC article, here.

Truth and Diversity

While there may be diversity in values, in ways of thinking and in creativity, what about truth?
Experiences may be diverse, each person experiencing a direct truth in their own circumstances, which could usefully inform their ballot decision, but there's a danger that untruths will contaminate Interactive Democracy, leading to bad outcomes. As an example, I recently heard on BBC Radio2 the old urban myth that a swan can break your arm! So, my question is How do we improve the truth of information in the public domain?
Firstly we need a definition: Truth is a statement based on substantial evidence. Predictions and opinions are not within its scope.
But who decides what is substantial evidence? I think we need civic systems that weed out falsehood and clarify truth, and I propose two systems: Parliament controlled Offices (e.g. the Office of National Statistics) and Public Inquiries; and a Truth Complaints Commission. The latter would allow anyone to complain about untrue statements in public life, much like the Advertising Complaints Commission and with similar powers of enforcement. The former isn't too dissimilar to what we have today, staffed by public servants who face dismissal if they fail in their duty.

Cultural Diversity

Cultural diversity may be an important aspect in improving the decision making of direct models of democracy. The corollary is that conformist societies may not benefit from direct democracy to the same degree.
According to Surowiecki the four key criteria for wise crowds are:

1. Diversity of opinion based on private information
2. Independence from the opinions of others
3. Decentralised knowledge
4. Aggregation - a mechanism for turning individual judgements into collective decisions

Interactive Democracy does some of this, but the degree of private information, independence and decentralised knowledge is effected by the extent of the public debate. If the debate is broken into separate discussions, perhaps fostered within diverse communities, informed from separate sources, whether by personal experience or diverse media, ID is more likely to be a success. Nevertheless, it will always be more diverse than a Parliamentary, representative system.

Problem Solving With Diversity

In "We Think", Charles Leadbetter considers combining people with different thinking tools/skills to help solve problems. He writes "The larger the group and the more diverse perspectives are involved, the greater the benefits from combining them. Take five people, each with a different skill. That gives ten possible pairings of skills. Add a sixth person with a different skill. That gives not 12 pairs but another five possible pairings... A group with 20 different tools at its disposal has 190 possible pairs of tools and more than 1000 combinations of three tools. A group with 13 tools has almost as many tools - 87% - as a group with 15 tools. Not much of a gap. But if a task requires combining four tools it is a different story. The group with 15 tools has 1365 possible combinations of four tools. The group with 13 tools has 715, or about 52%. Groups with larger sets of diverse tools and skills are at an advantage if they can combine effectively to take on complex tasks."
This concept of creativity through diversity could be a key advantage of Interactive Democracy, which seeks to integrate the thoughts, opinions and values of millions of people.