Distributed knowledge

In multi-agent system research, distributed knowledge is all the knowledge that a community of agents possesses and might apply in solving a problem. Distributed knowledge is approximately what "a wise man knows" or what someone who has complete knowledge of what each member of the community knows knows. Distributed knowledge might also be called the aggregate knowledge of a community, as it represents all the knowledge that a community might bring to bear to solve a problem. Other related phrasings include cumulative knowledge, collective knowledge, pooled knowledge, or the wisdom of the crowd. Distributed knowledge is the union of all the knowledge of individuals in a community.

'Crowd-sourcing is the process of getting work or funding, usually online, from a crowd of people. The word Crowd-sourcing is a combination of Crowd & Outsourcing It is powered by new technologies and social media. Crowd-sourcing can take place on many different levels and across various industries. Crowd-sourcing can provide organizations with access to new ideas and solutions, optimization of tasks, and reduced costs. Millions of people, connected by the Internet, are contributing ideas and information to projects big and small. Crowd-sourcing, is helping to solve tricky problems and providing localized information with the right knowledge, contributing to the crowd.

There are many types of crowd-sourcing and we will be discussing distributed knowledge in detail.

'Distributed knowledge - The development of knowledge assets or information resources from a distributed pool of contributors. In the age of globalization and internet, gathering and distributing content such as "common knowledge"or "collective knowledge" is very important. In simple words it means knowledge that flows from one user for the other users. It is also referred to as "aggregate knowledge of the community" or "wisdom of the crowd". This basically means that "no one of us is smarter than all of us combined". An example of distributed knowledge - You don't always learn things by taking a class, you generally learn things by picking up stuff from the internet or watching others, this means you may learn things from many sources instead of just one source at a time.

Companies that use distributed knowledge are 'Google, Intel and Amazon. For one, it turns out that Google, Intel, and Amazon each survey their employees extensively to better understand and improve on their employees’ experience. Google uses surveys to improve engagement and management. The people who design Google’s workplace culture make full use of what we call Employee Powered Data. They’ve dedicated a hefty amount of resources—whether it be industrial organizational psychologists, behavioral economists, or statisticians—to continually have their pulse on the employee experience and discover improvements. What is Google’s staff doing to uncover these improvements? For one thing, they’re using surveys! Surveys run at several stages of the employee experience, each serving a unique purpose. Together with this, these companies are also planning to make surveys for customers to rate their products and recommendations for improvement.

Listed below are the advantages and disadvantages of distributed knowledge-

Advantages 1. It saves time and money Normally it costs a lot of money to share the information to everyone who works for you, especially when they are physically away. But when people come together, digitally, through the concept of distributed knowledge, the cost reduces significantly.

2. Build up customer contacts, collect data Distributed knowledge is also a marketing measure. Businesses collect valuable data from a valuable target group who they can also contact in the future. These projects of crowdsourcing create attention and this attention attracts a lot of protentional customers for the company building their customer contacts.

3. It offers higher probabilities of success To increase the chances of success for any business we need to ensures that you receive valuable input from the crowd. Digital crowdsourcing platforms like Wikipedia for example guarantees that people are able to work on any project from any place and at any time.

Disadvantages 1. Danger of manipulation Using these platforms increases the risk of the product being manipulated.It is possible that competitors can have a negative influence on your innovation project by giving false feedback. For example, if you use Facebook to ask for opinions on a certain product, this method is relatively easy to manipulate.

2. Danger of loss of image If the idea or product that you want to present to the crowd is not backed up by any proof, you risk a loss of image. crowdsourcing is not 100 percent predictable. You just can not hope that people will see the product exactly like you intend them to.

3. Danger of internal conflict Through a business perspective, the biggest problem occurs when it comes to implement the distributed knowledge. Nobody likes being told what to do in their field of work so there is a high chance of internal conflicts. People may feel threatened or insecure.

References

R. Fagin, J. Y. Halpern, Y. Moses, and M. Y. Vardi. Reasoning about Knowledge, The MIT Press, 1995. ISBN 0-262-56200-6

See also

References