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Crowd computing
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<h2 id="history">History</h2> <p>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. <a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:3" href="#fn:3"><sup>3</sup></a> </p><p>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.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:4" href="#fn:4"><sup>4</sup></a> </p> <h2 id="see-also">See also</h2> <ul><li><a href="/facts/Citizen_science/rAr1o0Y5">Citizen Science</a></li> <li><a href="/facts/Crowdsourcing/pIjlvb3E">Crowdsourcing</a></li> <li><a href="/facts/Decentralized_computing/oTp3d3XL">Decentralized computing</a></li> <li><a href="/facts/Distributed_computing/o5nyhqTF">Distributed computing</a></li></ul> <h2 id="further-reading">Further reading</h2> <ul><li>Brown, Eric J. and William A. Yarberry, Jr. (2009). The Effective CIO. Boca Raton: <a href="/facts/Taylor_and_Francis/tLDanRJg">Taylor & Francis</a>.</li> <li>Shirky, Clay. Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age (2010) - <a href="/facts/ISBN_(identifier)/15AdSPa9">ISBN</a> 978-1-59420-253-7</li> <li>Surowiecki, J. (2005). <a href="/facts/The_Wisdom_of_Crowds/MLpyzSnu">The Wisdom of Crowds</a>. New York: <a href="/facts/Random_House/NcR9r1F1">Random House</a>, Inc.</li></ul> <h2 id="references">References</h2> <ol> <li id="fn:1"><p>Shirky, Clay. TED Talk June 2010 http://www.ted.com/talks/clay_shirky_how_cognitive_surplus_will_change_the_world.html Archived 2014-02-26 at the Wayback Machine <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/clay_shirky_how_cognitive_surplus_will_change_the_world.html" target="_blank">http://www.ted.com/talks/clay_shirky_how_cognitive_surplus_will_change_the_world.html</a> <a href="#fnref:1" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:2"><p>Miller, Rob. Microsoft research talk, June 19, 2013; http://research.microsoft.com/apps/video/default.aspx?id=194501 <a href="http://research.microsoft.com/apps/video/default.aspx?id=194501" target="_blank">http://research.microsoft.com/apps/video/default.aspx?id=194501</a> <a href="#fnref:2" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:3"><p>Popper, Ben (17 April 2012). "Crowd computing taps artificial intelligence to revolutionize the power of our collective brains". Venture Beat. Retrieved 8 June 2012 <a href="#fnref:3" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:4"><p>Popper, Ben (17 April 2012). "Crowd computing taps artificial intelligence to revolutionize the power of our collective brains". Venture Beat. Retrieved 8 June 2012. <a href="#fnref:4" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> </ol>