Distributed knowledge: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 18:45, 28 December 2007

Latest revision as of 02:23, 3 June 2023

(43 intermediate revisions by 29 users not shown)

Line 1:

{{short description|All the knowledge that a community of agents possesses and might apply to solving a problem}}

'''Distributed knowledge''' is a term used in [[multi-agent system]] research that refers to all the knowledge that a community of agents possesses and might apply in solving a problem. Distributed knowledge is approximately what "a wise man knows" or what someone who has complete knowledge of what each member of the communities knows. Distributed knowledge might also be called the aggregate knowledge of a community, as it represents all the knowledge that a community might bring to bear to solve a problem.

{{Multiple issues|

{{onesource|date=March 2013}}

{{No footnotes|date=January 2020}}

}}

'''Distributed knowledge''' is a term used inIn [[multi-agent system]] research, that'''distributed refersknowledge''' tois all the knowledge that a community of agents possesses and might apply in solving a problem. Distributed knowledge is approximately what "a wise man knows", or what someone who has complete knowledge of what each member of the communitiescommunity knows knows. Distributed knowledge might also be called the aggregate knowledge of a community, as it represents all the knowledge that a community might bring to bear to solve a problem. Other related phrasings include cumulative knowledge, collective knowledge or pooled knowledge. Distributed knowledge is the union of all the knowledge of individuals in a community of agents.

Distributed knowledge differs from the concept of [[Wisdom of the crowd]], in that the latter is concerned with opinions, not knowledge.

In contrast, [[common knowledge]] of a community is what everyone in the community knows. Distributed knowledge is often confused with the term [[dispersed knowledge]] from economics. However, dispersed knowledge is information that is widely available, and hence more like common knowledge.

Wisdom of the crowd is the emergent opinion arising from multiple actors. It is not the union of all the knowledge of these actors, it does not necessarily include the contribution of all the actors, it does not refer to all the knowledge of these actors, and typically broadly includes opinions and guesswork.

Wisdom of the crowd is a concept useful in the context of social sciences, rather than in the more formal multi-agent systems or [[Knowledge-based systems]] research.

== Example ==

Distributed knowledge is related to the concept [[The Wisdom of the Crowds]].

The logicians Alice and Bob are sitting in their dark office wondering whether or not it is raining outside. Now, none of them actually knows, but Alice knows something about her friend Carol, namely that Carol wears her red coat [[only if]] it is raining. Bob does not know this, but he just saw Carol, and noticed that she was wearing her red coat. Even though none of them knows whether or not it is raining, it is ''distributed knowledge'' amongst them that it is raining. If either one of them tells the other what they know, it will be clear to the other that it is raining.

If we denote by <math>\varphi</math> that Carol wears a red coat and with <math>\varphi \Rightarrow \psi</math> that if Carol wears a red coat, it is raining, we have

==References==

: <math>(K_b\varphi \land K_a(\varphi \Rightarrow \psi)) \Rightarrow D_{a,b}\psi</math>

* R. Fagin, J. Y. Halpern, Y. Moses, and M. Y. Vardi. ''Reasoning about Knowledge'', The MIT Press, 1995. ISBN 0-262-56200-6

Directly translated: Bob knows that Carol wears a red coat and Alice knows that if Carol wears a red coat it is raining so together they know that it is raining.

Distributed knowledge is related to the concept [[The Wisdom of the Crowdscrowd]]. Distributed knowledge reflects the fact that "no one of us is smarter than all of us."

==See also==

* [[commonCommon knowledge]]

* [[dispersedDispersed knowledge]]

* [[interdisciplinaryDiscipline (specialism)]]

* [[interactionalKnowledge expertisetags]]

* [[Interactional expertise]]

* [[Crowdsourcing]]

* [[Collective problem solving]]

==References==

* R. Fagin, J. Y. Halpern, Y. Moses, and M. Y. Vardi. ''Reasoning about Knowledge'', The MIT Press, 1995. {{ISBN |0-262-56200-6}}

[[Category:Knowledge engineering]]