For the experiment, the researchers used “transmission chains,” where they created a sequence of problems to be solved and participants could observe the previous solution (and copy it) before solving it themselves. Two chains were created: one with only humans, and a hybrid human-algorithm one where algorithms followed humans but didn't know if the previous player was a human or algorithm.

The task to solve was to find "an optimal sequence of moves" to navigate a network of six nodes and receive awards with each move.