How effective can collective intelligence actually be?

The best examples of the success of collective intelligence are of course Wikipedia and Google. Large volumes of information are uploaded by various authors on these websites, eventually to form a collection of detailed information about almost every subject. It is assumed in the publishing industry today that books can only be written by a few authors at once. But Wikkipedia proves that this isn’t the case. Increasingly, the internet has become a platform for authors of all ages and backgrounds to contribute information to a website, which like any other book, is a collection of thoughts, ideas and theories.

One of the problems seen with regard to collective intelligence is that it often leads to a lot of difference in opinion about the information in question. Eventually, individuals in the collective disagree, and start to rock, metaphorically speaking the collective boat

Things get confrontational, and the information put forth is challenged, emotions escalate, and the process becomes alarmingly frigid as people contributing to the collective either are fed up with this disagreement or are infuriated that the credibility of their information has been questioned.

Food for thought:

This brings us to an important question, how can people and computers be connected in a way that the ultimate product of this act of amalgamation is one that acts more intelligently than even a group of individuals or computers have ever done before?