Collective intelligence is the ability of groups to solve problems and make decisions more effectively than their individual members can. The phenomenon appears across the natural world. We see it when shoals of fish decide as a group which direction to travel, and in the elaborate mound systems built by ants through the decentralized activity of thousands of individuals. In humans, collective intelligence is exhibited in the accumulation of knowledge transmitted across generations, and in procedures such as majority voting, used to decide questions for a group. This theme issue brings together scholars from multiple disciplines to explore the evolutionary origins of collective intelligence, its role in contemporary societies, and how emerging technologies may reshape it in the future.

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• Papers