Open Data and collective intelligence

Thanks to rising awareness for Open Data and to the work of communities, public bodies, journalists, data experts, developers and many more organisations and individuals, more and more large amounts of data are open for re-use. These achievements make it possible and vital to investigate how the impact of Open Data can be further improved. Emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence are increasingly named when it comes to a promising future of data re-use. Cristina Sarasua from the Digital Society Initiative of University of Zurich advocates for collective intelligence, a collaboration of machines and humans from different fields and backgrounds.

Machines are vital for the processing of Open Data. They are good in imitating human evaluation and repeat processes efficiently, however, there are lacking the ability to associate complex ideas, spot relevance or make creative interlinkages. By using collective intelligence, the skills of machines can be combined with human skills and the wisdom of the crowd. Thereby data can be found, corrected, expanded, linked interpreted, leading to new ways of re-use.

Read more about why we need collective intelligence or find content about Open Data and Artificial Intelligence on the European Data Portal.