Massively open online classes (MOOCs) are the single most important technological development of the millennium so far.

In the online conversation, Professor Malone addresses a very important question that comes up when first considering a brand new concept like collective intelligence.

“Why are we doing all this work?” 

“There are at least three answers. The first is, as scientists, we want to understand how the world works, and in particular, how the world of groups of people and computers work together. How human societies and human networks work. Second, we want to help businesses, governments and other kinds of organizations know how to work better themselves. How can we create more intelligent organizations, more intelligent businesses, more intelligent governments, more intelligent societies?”

“Third, in a way, we are trying to understand how our whole world and society is evolving in a way that I think is making us more collectively intelligent. You could say that the Internet is one way of greatly accelerating the connections among different people and computers on our planet. As all the people and computers on our planet get more and more closely connected, it's becoming increasingly useful to think of all the people and computers on the planet as a kind of global brain.” 

“Our future as a species may depend on our ability to use our global collective intelligence to make choices that are not just smart, but also wise.”