hivemind
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: /ˈhaɪv.maɪnd/
Forms: form: hiveminds
form: hive mind
Etymology: From hive + mind, originally applied to beehives. As a metaphor for collective intelligence popularized in Out of Control (1992) by Kevin Kelly.
Senses: examples: text: It traces the growth of homo gestalt with the uniting of six lovely outcasts of society who have psi powers and come together as a hive mind, thus creating a gestalt super-being.
ref: 2005, Michael Ashley, Transformations: The History of the Science Fiction Magazine 1950 to 1970, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, page 133:
text: Though now extinct, the rachni once threatened every species in Citadel space. Over 2000 years ago, explorers foolishly opened a mass relay to a previously-unknown system and encountered something never seen before or since: a species of spacefaring insects guided by a hive-mind intelligence.
ref: 2008, BioWare, Mass Effect, Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Rachni Codex entry:
text: We have the villainous Borg of Star Trek: a hive mind of individuals robbed of their individuality, communicating with each other not by touch or even speech but by omnipresent computer networks.
ref: 2011 February 15, Michael Chorost, “‘World Wide Mind’”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
topics: literature
media
publishing
science-fiction
synonyms: groupmind
glosses: A collection of minds somehow linked or unified, possibly as if by telepathy.
examples: text: The marvel of “hive mind” is that no one is in control, and yet an invisible hand governs, a hand that emerges from very dumb members.
ref: 1992, Kevin Kelly, Out of Control, Addison-Wesley, published 1994, →ISBN, page 12:
text: The hive mind should be thought of as a tool. Empowering the collective does not empower individuals — just the reverse is true.
ref: 2006 May 29, Jaron Lanier, “Digital Maoism: The Hazards of the New Online Collectivism”, in Edge:
text: In any case, culture and technology are increasingly reliant on the hive mind–and whatever its faults, Lanier's broadside helps us consider the consequences of this momentous development.
ref: 2006 December 10, Steven Johnson, “Digital Maoism”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
text: There are many places, of course, on the internet where a utopian ideal of "here comes everybody" prevails, where the anonymous hive mind is fantastically curious and productive.
ref: 2011 July 23, Tim Adams, “How the internet created an age of rage”, in The Observer:
text: It is not my metaphor–the notion of a hivemind, a group sort of consciousness and/or collective body of knowledge, has long been discussed in both academic settings and in common parlance.
ref: 2019, Sarah Rose Cavanagh, Hivemind, Orion, →ISBN:
text: Just as industrial society was imagined as a well-functioning machine, instrumentarian society is imagined as a human simulation of machine learning systems: a confluent hive mind in which each element learns and operates in concert with every other element.
ref: 2019, Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, →ISBN:
text: A national hive mind has come to life on an open source Facebook group where hundreds of strangers trade tips on making respirator masks with baby wipes and paper towels, […]
ref: 2020 March 30, Andrew Jacobs, Rachel Abrams, “Hive Mind of Makers Rises to Meet Pandemic”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
synonyms: swarm intelligence
glosses: Collective intelligence, especially when facilitated by communications technology.
examples: text: Lehman, AIG, Anglo-Irish, etc. were not cases of immortal hive-minds at work; they were cases of kleptocrats run wild.
ref: 2010 December 10, Paul Krugman, “Hive-minds and Kleptocrats”, in The Conscience of a Liberal:
synonyms: sheeple
glosses: A group of people who uncritically share beliefs or mindlessly follow orders.