Solving societal problems on a global scale requires the collection and processing of ideas and methods from diverse sets of international experts. As the number and diversity of human experts increase, so does the likelihood that elements in this collective knowledge can be combined and refined to discover novel and better solutions. However, it is difficult to identify, combine, and refine complementary information in an increasingly large and diverse knowledge base. This paper argues that artificial intelligence (AI) can play a crucial role in this process. An evolutionary AI framework, termed RHEA, fills this role by distilling knowledge from diverse models created by human experts into equivalent neural networks, which are then recombined and refined in a population-based search. The framework was implemented in a formal synthetic domain, demonstrating that it is transparent and systematic. It was then applied to the results of the XPRIZE Pandemic Response Challenge, in which over 100 teams of experts across 23 countries submitted models based on diverse methodologies to predict COVID-19 cases and suggest non-pharmaceutical intervention policies for 235 nations, states, and regions across the globe. Building upon this expert knowledge, by recombining and refining the 169 resulting policy suggestion models, RHEA discovered a broader and more effective set of policies than either AI or human experts alone, as evaluated based on real-world data. The results thus suggest that AI can play a crucial role in realizing the potential of human expertise in global problem-solving.

翻译：在全球范围内解决社会问题，需要收集并处理来自国际多元化专家群体的观点与方法。随着人类专家的数量与多样性不断增加，将这些集体知识中的要素进行组合与优化以发现新颖且更优解决方案的可能性也随之提高。然而，在一个日益庞大且多元的知识库中识别、组合并优化互补信息是困难的。本文认为人工智能（AI）可在此过程中发挥关键作用。一种名为RHEA的进化AI框架通过将人类专家创建的多样化模型中的知识提炼为等效的神经网络来填补这一角色，随后这些网络在基于群体的搜索中被重组与优化。该框架在一个形式化的合成领域中得到实现，证明了其透明性与系统性。随后，该框架被应用于XPRIZE大流行应对挑战的结果中——该挑战有来自23个国家的超过100支专家团队参与，提交了基于多元方法论的模型，旨在预测全球235个国家、州及地区的COVID-19病例，并提出非药物干预政策。基于这些专业知识，通过对由此产生的169个政策建议模型进行重组与优化，RHEA发现了一组比单独使用AI或人类专家更广泛且更有效的政策集合，此评估基于真实世界数据。因此，研究结果表明，AI可在实现人类专业知识于全球问题解决中的潜力方面发挥关键作用。