Competition for $40,000 studies how social networks can accurately aggregate information
In a competition designed to assess how information can be gathered and validated by groups, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency(DARPA) offered a $40,000 cash prize for the first team to accurately report the location of 10 red weather balloons scattered across the continental U.S.
The Wall Street Journal provides insight into the inspiration behind the competition:
Peter Lee, director of Darpa’s transformational convergence technology office, which focuses on tech and social trends, said that by giving participants an incentive, like the prize money, the contest tests how people organize themselves and how they validate information.
“Relatively little is known about how those networks respond when trust is a factor,” he said.
The value of the contest, however, is serious business. The lessons learned from it could help Darpa understand how a social network can be used by foreign enemies to gain information, or how fast-breaking information can best be organized on the battlefield.
The competition was successfully completed in less than 9 hours by a team from MIT. DARPA will interview teams in the coming weeks to uncover how they self-organized and validated information. You can read more in The Wall Street Journal.
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