Innovation in the Collective Brain at the Royal Navy workshop, Royal United Services Institute

I was invited to speak at the Royal Navy workshop, hosted by the Royal United Services Institute, UK’s leading defense and security think tank. 

I discussed the evolution of innovation through collective intelligence, drawing examples from history and archaeology. I also highlighted how modern societies can benefit from past civilizations’ collective intelligence to promote progress and innovation. The papers most relevant to this talk are:

  1. Muthukrishna, M. & Henrich, J. (2016). Innovation in the Collective Brain. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 371(1690).  [Telegraph] [Scientific American] [Video] [Evonomics] [LSE Business Review] [Summary Post] [Download] [Data] [Publisher]
  2. Schimmelpfennig, R., Razek, L., Schnell, E., & Muthukrishna, M. (2021). Paradox of Diversity in the Collective Brain. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. [Download] [Summary Post] [Publisher] [Twitter]
  3. Muthukrishna, M., Bell, A. V., Henrich, J., Curtin, C., Gedranovich, A., McInerney, J. & Thue, B. (2020). Beyond Western, Educated, Industrial, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) Psychology: Measuring and Mapping Scales of Cultural and Psychological Distance. Psychological Science, 31(6), 678-701. [Download] [Supplementary] [Code] [Summary Post] [Publisher] [Twitter]

It was an insightful exploration of the role of collective intelligence in human innovation in a defense context. My thanks to RUSI for inviting me and organizing the event.