# Can Collective Intelligence Take Over Individual Minds by Alex Sandy Pentland > “What would it be like to be part of a distributed intelligence but still with an individual consciousness? Well for starters, you might expect to see the collective mind 'take over' from time to time, directly guiding the individual minds. In humans, the behavior of angry mobs and frightened crowds seem to qualify as examples of a 'collective mind' in action, with non-linguistic channels of communication usurping the individual capacity for rational behavior.” > **— Alex "Sandy" Pentland**, *2005 Edge Annual Question, response passage* ## Sources and Context - **Original Edge response:** [Computer Scientist, MIT Media Laboratory — Alex "Sandy" Pentland](https://www.edge.org/response-detail/11251) — a verbatim passage from Alex "Sandy" Pentland's 2005 Annual Question response, expressing the author's position at the time. The linked response supplies its surrounding context. - **Local archival entry:** [[research/Edge 2005 Full Quotation Curation|Edge 2005 Full Quotation Curation]] (EDGE2005-051). ## Related Articles and Collections - **Collection:** [[collections/Edge|Edge]] - **Collection:** [[collections/Machine Succession|Machine Succession]] - **Article:** [[articles/Cyber-Physical Lessons from Imperial Beekeeping|Cyber-Physical Lessons from Imperial Beekeeping]] - **Article:** [[articles/The Last Migration Will Not Be Human|The Last Migration Will Not Be Human]] - **Article:** [[articles/The End of the Anthropocentric Era|The End of the Anthropocentric Era]] ## Related Topics - [[wiki/Collective Intelligence|Collective Intelligence]] ## Share on Social Media ``` “What would it be like to be part of a distributed intelligence but still with an individual consciousness? Well for starters, you might expect to see the collective mind 'take over' from time to time, directly guiding the individual minds. In humans, the behavior of angry mobs and frightened crowds seem to qualify as examples of a 'collective mind' in action, with non-linguistic channels of communication usurping the individual capacity for rational behavior.” — Alex "Sandy" Pentland, 2005 Edge Annual Question https://bryantmcgill.com/simple-reminders-alex-pentland-collective-intelligence-take-over-individual ```