Crowd computing is a form of distributed work where tasks that are hard for computers to do, are handled by large numbers of humans distributed across the internet. It is an overarching term encompassing tools that enable idea sharing, non-hierarchical decision making and utilization of "

cognitive surplus ''Cognitive Surplus: How Technology Makes Consumers into Collaborators'' is a 2010 non-fiction book by Clay Shirky, originally published in with the subtitle "Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age". The book is an indirect sequel to Shirk ...

" - the ability of the world’s population to collaborate on large, sometimes global projects. Crowd computing combines elements of

crowdsourcing Crowdsourcing involves a large group of dispersed participants contributing or producing goods or services—including ideas, votes, micro-tasks, and finances—for payment or as volunteers. Contemporary crowdsourcing often involves digita ...

automation Automation describes a wide range of technologies that reduce human intervention in processes, namely by predetermining decision criteria, subprocess relationships, and related actions, as well as embodying those predeterminations in machines ...

distributed computing A distributed system is a system whose components are located on different networked computers, which communicate and coordinate their actions by passing messages to one another from any system. Distributed computing is a field of computer sci ...

, and

machine learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of inquiry devoted to understanding and building methods that 'learn', that is, methods that leverage data to improve performance on some set of tasks. It is seen as a part of artificial intelligence. Machine ...

. Prof. Rob Miller of MIT further defines crowd computing as “harnessing the power of people out in the web to do tasks that are hard for individual users or computers to do alone. Like cloud computing, crowd computing offers elastic, on-demand human resources that can drive new applications and new ways of thinking about technology.”

History

The practice predates the internet. At the end of the 18th century, the British Royal Astronomers distributed spreadsheets by mail, asking the crowd to help them create maps of the stars and the seas. In the United States during the 1930s, when the government employed hundreds of “human computers” to work on the WPA and the Manhattan Project. Popper, Ben (17 April 2012). "Crowd computing taps artificial intelligence to revolutionize the power of our collective brains". Venture Beat. Retrieved 8 June 2012 The modern day microchip made using large crowds for mechanical computation less attractive in the second half of the twentieth century. However, as the volume of data online grew, it became clear to companies like Amazon and Google that there were some things humans were simply better at doing than machines.Popper, Ben (17 April 2012). "Crowd computing taps artificial intelligence to revolutionize the power of our collective brains". Venture Beat. Retrieved 8 June 2012.

History

See also

References

Further reading