Researchers developed a versatile remote gaming interface that allowed external experts as well as hundreds of citizen scientists all over the world through multiplayer collaboration and in real time to optimize a quantum gas experiment in a lab at Aarhus University. Surprisingly, both teams quickly used the interface to dramatically improve upon the previous best solutions established after months of careful experimental optimization. Comparing domain experts, algorithms and citizen scientists is a first step towards unravelling how humans solve complex, natural science problems.

In a future characterized by algorithms with ever increasing computational power, it becomes essential to understand the difference between human and machine intelligence. This will enable the development of hybrid-intelligence interfaces that optimally exploit the best of both worlds. By making complex research challenges available for contribution by the general public, citizen science does exactly this.

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