IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2206.02786.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

(Im)possibility of Collective Intelligence

Author

Listed:
  • Krikamol Muandet

Abstract

Modern applications of AI involve training and deploying machine learning models across heterogeneous and potentially massive environments. Emerging diversity of data not only brings about new possibilities to advance AI systems, but also restricts the extent to which information can be shared across environments due to pressing concerns such as privacy, security, and equity. Based on a novel characterization of learning algorithms as choice correspondences on a hypothesis space, this work provides a minimum requirement in terms of intuitive and reasonable axioms under which the only rational learning algorithm in heterogeneous environments is an empirical risk minimization (ERM) that unilaterally learns from a single environment without information sharing across environments. Our (im)possibility result underscores the fundamental trade-off that any algorithms will face in order to achieve Collective Intelligence (CI), i.e., the ability to learn across heterogeneous environments. Ultimately, collective learning in heterogeneous environments are inherently hard because, in critical areas of machine learning such as out-of-distribution generalization, federated/collaborative learning, algorithmic fairness, and multi-modal learning, it can be infeasible to make meaningful comparisons of model predictive performance across environments.

Suggested Citation

  • Krikamol Muandet, 2022. "(Im)possibility of Collective Intelligence," Papers 2206.02786, arXiv.org, revised May 2025.
  • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2206.02786
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2206.02786
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sen, Amartya, 1993. "Internal Consistency of Choice," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(3), pages 495-521, May.
    2. van Giffen, Benjamin & Herhausen, Dennis & Fahse, Tobias, 2022. "Overcoming the pitfalls and perils of algorithms: A classification of machine learning biases and mitigation methods," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 144(C), pages 93-106.
    3. Satterthwaite, Mark Allen, 1975. "Strategy-proofness and Arrow's conditions: Existence and correspondence theorems for voting procedures and social welfare functions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 187-217, April.
    4. Gibbard, Allan, 1973. "Manipulation of Voting Schemes: A General Result," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 41(4), pages 587-601, July.
    5. Ashesh Rambachan & Jon Kleinberg & Jens Ludwig & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2020. "An Economic Perspective on Algorithmic Fairness," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 110, pages 91-95, May.
    6. Amartya K. Sen, 1971. "Choice Functions and Revealed Preference," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 38(3), pages 307-317.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. John W. Patty & Elizabeth Maggie Penn, 2019. "A defense of Arrow’s independence of irrelevant alternatives," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 179(1), pages 145-164, April.
    2. Barbera, S. & Bossert, W. & Pattanaik, P.K., 2001. "Ranking Sets of Objects," Cahiers de recherche 2001-02, Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en économie quantitative, CIREQ.
    3. Federico Fioravanti & Iyad Rahwan & Fernando Abel Tohm'e, 2022. "Classes of Aggregation Rules for Ethical Decision Making in Automated Systems," Papers 2206.05160, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2023.
    4. Wesley H. Holliday & Eric Pacuit, 2023. "Split Cycle: a new Condorcet-consistent voting method independent of clones and immune to spoilers," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 197(1), pages 1-62, October.
    5. Ning Yu, 2015. "A quest for fundamental theorems of social choice," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 44(3), pages 533-548, March.
    6. Arlegi, Ricardo & Teschl, Miriam, 2022. "Pareto rationalizability by two single-peaked preferences," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 1-11.
    7. Felix Brandt & Patrick Lederer & René Romen, 2024. "Relaxed notions of Condorcet-consistency and efficiency for strategyproof social decision schemes," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 63(1), pages 19-55, August.
    8. Bock, Hans-Hermann & Day, William H. E. & McMorris, F. R., 1998. "Consensus rules for committee elections," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 219-232, May.
    9. Marco LiCalzi, 2022. "Bipartite choices," Decisions in Economics and Finance, Springer;Associazione per la Matematica, vol. 45(2), pages 551-568, December.
    10. John C. McCabe-Dansted & Arkadii Slinko, 2006. "Exploratory Analysis of Similarities Between Social Choice Rules," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 15(1), pages 77-107, January.
    11. James Schummer, 1999. "Almost-dominant Strategy Implementation," Discussion Papers 1278, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    12. Aleskerov, Fuad & Karabekyan, Daniel & Sanver, M. Remzi & Yakuba, Vyacheslav, 2012. "On the manipulability of voting rules: The case of 4 and 5 alternatives," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 67-73.
    13. Lirong Xia, 2020. "How Likely Are Large Elections Tied?," Papers 2011.03791, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2021.
    14. Dindar, Hayrullah & Lainé, Jean, 2017. "Manipulation of single-winner large elections by vote pairing," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 105-107.
    15. Brandt, Felix & Saile, Christian & Stricker, Christian, 2022. "Strategyproof social choice when preferences and outcomes may contain ties," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 202(C).
    16. Souvik Roy & Soumyarup Sadhukhan, 2019. "A characterization of random min–max domains and its applications," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 68(4), pages 887-906, November.
    17. Mizukami, Hideki & Saijo, Tatsuyoshi & Wakayama, Takuma, 2003. "Strategy-Proof Sharing," Working Papers 1170, California Institute of Technology, Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences.
    18. Bruno Frey, 2011. "Tullock challenges: happiness, revolutions, and democracy," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 148(3), pages 269-281, September.
    19. Donaldson, Jason & Piacentino, Giorgia & Malenko, Nadya, 2017. "Deadlock on the Board," CEPR Discussion Papers 12503, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    20. Takamiya, Koji, 2001. "Coalition strategy-proofness and monotonicity in Shapley-Scarf housing markets," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 201-213, March.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2206.02786. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.