Asking Better Questions -- The Art and Science of Forecasting: A mechanism for truer answers to high-stakes questions

Without the ability to estimate and benchmark AI capability advancements, organizations are left to respond to each change reactively, impeding their ability to build viable mid and long-term strategies. This paper explores the recent growth of forecasting, a political science tool that uses explicit assumptions and quantitative estimation that leads to improved prediction accuracy. Done at the collective level, forecasting can identify and verify talent, enable leaders to build better models of AI advancements and improve inputs into design policy. Successful approaches to forecasting and case studies are examined, revealing a subclass of "superforecasters" who outperform 98% of the population and whose insights will be most reliable. Finally, techniques behind successful forecasting are outlined, including Phillip Tetlock's "Ten Commandments." To adapt to a quickly changing technology landscape, designers and policymakers should consider forecasting as a first line of defense.

Augmented Collective Intelligence in Collaborative Ideation: Agenda and Challenges

AI systems may be better thought of as peers than as tools. This paper explores applications of augmented collective intelligence (ACI) beneficial to collaborative ideation. Design considerations are offered for an experiment that evaluates the performance of hybrid human- AI collectives. The investigation described combines humans and large language models (LLMs) to ideate on increasingly complex topics. A promising real-time collection tool called Polis is examined to facilitate ACI, including case studies from citizen engagement projects in Taiwan and Bowling Green, Kentucky. The authors discuss three challenges to consider when designing an ACI experiment: topic selection, participant selection, and evaluation of results. The paper concludes that researchers should address these challenges to conduct empirical studies of ACI in collaborative ideation.