“Soft control” increases the efficiency of crowdsourcing

Any modern city, where most people have a phone or smartphone, can be considered as a dense network of mobile terminals with cameras, microphones and GPS sensors. This network is capable of collecting huge amounts of useful information, however, those who want to use this information have to be only a passive observer. People decide for themselves where to go, at what moment to take the phone out of their pockets, where to send the camera and what to do with photos. Nevertheless, the analysis of a large number of photos laid out in open access on the Internet allows you to build impressive three-dimensional models of real-world objects.



Fabian Bustamante and John Rula of Northwestern University, USA, described a method of “ soft control ” of people through games and social networks. Thus, in the game “Ghost Hunter,” participants pursued ghosts inscribed in their surroundings with the help of augmented reality and could “shoot” them in certain places. At the time of the “shot” the smartphone sent a photo from the camera to the server.

Unlike ordinary games in augmented reality, ghosts were not located randomly, but in such a way that players took pictures of the places needed by the researchers. Students at Northwestern University who participated in the experiment were told only that they would participate in the testing of the game, but did not say that some of the ghosts were located at specially selected points.
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Experiment participants eagerly chased ghosts around the campus and scientists managed to collect many photographs of Charles Deering University Library from different angles - a much richer collection than can be found on Flickr, where the facade of the building is captured in almost all the photographs. PDF with the report of Bustamante and Rula can be downloaded here .

At first glance, “soft control” of people's behavior may seem frightening and immoral. But, if you think about it, a similar tactic has long and everywhere been applied to us without any smartphones. Carefully thought out display of goods in supermarkets, forcing us to buy more, coupons, promotions and, in general, the entire advertising and marketing machine is trying to control us, and not always “softly” and certainly not at all for academic interest.

At the same time, there is a huge gap between participation in crowdsourcing projects for material remuneration and for noble disinterested motives. There are not so many enthusiasts who work for the idea, and “hungry students” who are ready to do something useful for a penny. The majority of people are either too passive and uninterested, or not so in need of funds to participate in crowdsourcing. The method of “soft control” allows you to mobilize a potentially very wide audience. Naturally, subject to full transparency and acceptability of the goals of the organizers of this control.

The social component of “soft control” is already used quite widely - karma, badges and similar reasons to boast to friends. However, the pleasure must be delivered by the process itself, and not only its results in the form of titles and bonuses. Perhaps many crowdsourcing projects should think about including in the development team of specialists in the field of Game Development. Students in the experiment Bustamante eagerly caught ghosts, because they were stimulated by gambling excitement. A similar example is the game Phylo . This is a puzzle in which players select the best options for multiple alignment of DNA sequences. Players have already selected 350.000 sequences, in 70% of cases having shown a better result than the MULTIZ program, specially created for these purposes.