Most of us believe that we possess common sense; however, we find it challenging to articulate which of our beliefs are commonsensical or how “common” we think they are. Now, the CSSLab invites participants to measure their own level of common sense by taking a survey on a new platform, The common sense project.
Since its launch, the project has received significant media attention; it was recently featured in The Independent, The Guardian, and New Scientist, attracting over 100,000 visitors to the platform just this past week.
This initiative builds on Mark Whiting and Duncan Watts’ paper, A framework for quantifying individual and collective common sense, published earlier this year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In that paper, about 2,000 raters were given a range of claims and asked if they agreed with the claim and whether they thought others also agreed with it. The claims are derived from a wide range of sources, including media, non-fiction literature, and statements generated by both humans and AI.
The new platform was designed by Whiting and Watts, along with Amirhossein Nakhaei and Josh Nguyen, to open participation to the general public. Participants can visit the website and obtain a score for their own common sense by performing the same tasks as the raters described in the publication.
Be a part of this new research by participating in the survey at The common sense project
AUTHORS
DELPHINE GARDINER
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Communications Specialist