Aniket (Niki) Kittur, a professor in Carnegie Mellon University’s Human-Computer Interaction Institute, discusses the concept of crowd-augmented cognition on the GeekWire Podcast. This involves humans working together with technology, particularly artificial intelligence, to enhance human intellect. Kittur’s research focuses on helping people make sense of overwhelming information online by combining human and machine strengths to better understand, make decisions, and be creative.
Kittur and his colleagues developed Skeema, a browser tab manager that assists users in organizing their work, projects, and ultimately their thoughts. The goal of Kittur’s research is to create a force in the world that can connect information back together, forming knowledge and enabling faster learning, innovation, and problem-solving. Skeema is just one step in this direction, allowing individuals to gather fragmented information in their browsers and make it useful for themselves.
Kittur’s work involves studying crowdsourcing movements such as Wikipedia and Mechanical Turk, exploring ways to combine the abilities of individuals and machines to achieve tasks beyond what they can do alone. He also collaborates with Toyota to help automotive designers be more creative using AI to find inspirations from different fields. For example, they are exploring how a crow’s flight patterns can inspire better mobility solutions. The goal is to unlock ideas that are difficult for humans to conceive and apply them to solve specific design problems.
Kittur discusses how the human brain is composed of various components that work together in different ways, suggesting that information processing at a larger scale can benefit from diverse characteristics. He mentions large language models (LLMs) as tools with unique features that can assist in achieving human goals. The combination of LLMs and human cognitive capabilities can lead to enhanced creativity, problem-solving, and decision-making in various contexts.
Overall, Kittur’s research delves into the synergy between human intellect and technology, particularly AI, to address the challenges of information overload in the digital age. By leveraging the strengths of both humans and machines, he aims to help individuals better navigate complex data, make more informed decisions, and foster creativity and innovation. Through projects like Skeema and collaborations with industry partners like Toyota, Kittur is exploring innovative ways to enhance human cognition and problem-solving capabilities using advanced technologies.
