According to the celebrated Condorcet Jury Theorem, if we can dispose of a series of jurors who each have an independent, better than random accuracy regarding a binary issue, then the larger the group of jurors we take, the more accurate the group’s majority opinion on this issue will be. In the limit, the majority opinion will be fully reliable. This mathematical result has provided the starting point for a rich literature on the wisdom of crowds and democratic decision-making.
In practice however, opinions are not independent. Decision-makers are typically connected through networks of social influence, and before casting their opinion, they may deliberate collectively. When doing so, the shape of the network, the order in which they exchange information, the levels of trustworthiness attributed to them, and strategic considerations are crucial for the eventual outcome of the process. The aim of this workshop is to cast light on the role of these and other parameters in group deliberation, and their implications for group accuracy and democracy.
Programme*
9h45-10h00 Welcome
10h00-11h00 Kai Spiekermann, London School of Economics Deliberation and Wisdom of the Crowds
11h15-12h00 Maaike Los, University of Groningen
On the Graph Theory of Majority Illusions
12h15-13h00 Hein Duijf, Utrecht University
Voting and Social Networks
13h00-14h30 lunch break
14h30-15h15 Adrian Haret, University of Amsterdam
Deliberation as Evidence Disclosure: A Tale of Two Protocol Types
15h15-16h00 Ines Lindner, Free University of Amsterdam
Naïve Learning in Social Networks: Bots as a Singularity
16h15-17h15 Olivier Roy, University of Bayreuth
Anchoring as a Structural Bias of Deliberation
18h00- Workshop Dinner
*See here for the abstracts of the talks.
Participation is free of charge, but the available spots are limited. Please notify us before September 19th via vandeputte@esphil.eur.nl in case you would like to attend. Please put “participation: ENCODE workshop” in the subject of your email. A full programme, incl. abstracts and location will be announced in September.
- More information
The ENCODE workshops are organized bi-annually at the EIPE/ESPhil (Erasmus University of Rotterdam), as part of the NWO-funded ENCODE project (VI.Vidi.191.105).