collective intelligence is not a superhuman intelligence.

Markets solves the resource allocation problem, but it doesn't and realistically cannot be called intelligent (even tho it's been called wisdom of the crowds), in the same way that darwinian natural selection cannot be called intelligent design.

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Animats 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

> Markets solve the resource allocation problem

Not really. If they did, markets would be more stable. Look at the prices of commodities such as copper. Prices swing up and own by as much as 3x, despite both supply and demand not changing much. That's the problem. If supply and demand have a lot of inertia, and thus lag, the feedback loop becomes unstable. This is basic control theory. Hedging with derivatives was supposed to add stability, but doesn't work very well for that purpose.

	▲	chii 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		the price swings are part of the market's reaction to real life situations. The opposite of a market solving a resource allocation problem is the command economy, where some (small) group people are tasked with decisions like how much copper to actually produce. Instead of price swings, you get shortages. In any case, the point in my parent comment is that crowd intelligence solves some problems that cannot be easily solved by human intelligence (command economy vs free markets). But i would not call crowd intelligence a super intelligence.

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esseph 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Markets solves the resource allocation problem

Then why do we still have homeless and jobless?

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snthpy 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I agree with you on the markets but not on institutions and organisations.

Organisations pursue goals with agency and there is even Darwinian competition between them in many cases.