Condorcet and Robot Cockroaches

Condorcet came up with a theorem about juries and how, if a group of people share their knowledge on a topic, they will come to a better decision than the average of the decisions each would make as an individual.  Of course as soon as this sounds great, they start coming out with limitations:  group-think can reduce the value of decision-making.  If, like the Republicans insist on doing, one large sub-group all decides to think the same, then the overall decision loses power.  There are other problems, groups may tend to make correct choices if there is an objectively correct choice, and if the group has some level of knowledge, and if all members of the group participate, but otherwise it’s likely that the group will not only make a wrong choice, they are more likely to stick to it.

But the real problem is that some powerful alien force can introduce robots.  This article explains how scientists model Condorcet’s theorem among animal communities. But they don’t just watch the animals, they create convincing robots which infiltrate the bug communities and convince them to do something self-destructive:

José Halloy of the Free University of Brussels used robotic cockroaches to subvert the behaviour of living cockroaches and control their decision-making process. In his experiment, reported in an earlier issue of Science, the artificial bugs were introduced to the real ones and soon became sufficiently socially integrated that they were perceived as equals. By manipulating the robots, which were in the minority, he was able to persuade the cockroaches to choose an inappropriate shelter—even one which they had rejected before being infiltrated by machines.

Just imagine if some other power tried to do the same thing with us?  They could send robots into our world, disguised as humans, and convince us to make self-destructive choices, such as ignoring global warming, invading Iraq, and giving away our civil rights.  That would make a good story, wouldn’t it?