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Army ants use collective intelligence to build bridges

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Re: Army ants use collective intelligence to build bridges

#31

Post by wodenokoto »

ttt11199907 wrote: post #26
wodenokoto wrote: post #25

So a brain is "just" a bunch of neurons communicating, and while no single neuron is intelligent, the whole is intelligent. And ants exhibit somewhat intelligent behaviour as a whole, while none of them are themselves something we consider intelligent. I think this is super interesting and we can go completely off the rails taking this to its logical extremes. Like, the entire planet earth is an intelligence that ari…

Conscious/consciousness. I like the thought experiment though!

I was just proud I spelled conscience correctly.

Re: Army ants use collective intelligence to build bridges

#32

Post by KwanEsq »

wodenokoto wrote: post #25

So a brain is "just" a bunch of neurons communicating, and while no single neuron is intelligent, the whole is intelligent. And ants exhibit somewhat intelligent behaviour as a whole, while none of them are themselves something we consider intelligent. I think this is super interesting and we can go completely off the rails taking this to its logical extremes. Like, the entire planet earth is an intelligence that ari…

I think you'd enjoy Alastair Reynolds' sci-fi stories, particularly the short story "Glacial" in the "Galactic North" collection.

Re: Army ants use collective intelligence to build bridges

#35

Post by throwaway60703 »

thatjoeoverthr wrote: post #15
cratermoon wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't autonomous vehicles use swarm intelligence? Why are the companies trying to make a sufficiently advanced AI for each car, isolated from others, instead of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swarm_robotics ?

The car will go on the road with cars, people and animals outside of its control. Either it copes or somebody dies. Simple as

Also bicycles, motorbikes, e-scooters, trams, trains, runaway objects...

I always thought that the city itself could be part of the swarm system. Roadside sensors could broadcast information to all relevant participants - such as "emergency vehicle incoming, move to the right lane, vehicles ID 123, 456 and 789 stop immediately" or "danger - static object at 45th km", or even "slow down/speed up to 60 km/h to optimize traffic flow".

Re: Army ants use collective intelligence to build bridges

#36

Post by cratermoon »

throwaway60703 wrote: post #35
thatjoeoverthr wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The car will go on the road with cars, people and animals outside of its control. Either it copes or somebody dies. Simple as

Also bicycles, motorbikes, e-scooters, trams, trains, runaway objects... I always thought that the city itself could be part of the swarm system. Roadside sensors could broadcast information to all relevant participants - such as "emergency vehicle incoming, move to the right lane, vehicles ID 123, 456 and 789 stop immediately" or "danger - static object at 45th km", or even "slow down/speed up to 60 km/h to optimize…

In the science fiction of my youth, where roads or similar systems existed, there were cases where the infrastructure was part of the autonomous vehicle system. It was often car-exclusive, never mentioning pedestrians, mobility devices, or anything that wasn't motorized, but it was an interesting bit of speculation.

Re: Army ants use collective intelligence to build bridges

#37

Post by cratermoon »

thatjoeoverthr wrote: post #15
cratermoon wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't autonomous vehicles use swarm intelligence? Why are the companies trying to make a sufficiently advanced AI for each car, isolated from others, instead of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swarm_robotics ?

The car will go on the road with cars, people and animals outside of its control. Either it copes or somebody dies. Simple as

> Either it copes or somebody dies

In what way does introducing swarm intelligence preclude coping?

Re: Army ants use collective intelligence to build bridges

#38

Post by AllegedAlec »

yamrzou wrote: post #34
AllegedAlec wrote: post #33

ctrl-f "Hofstadter" => 0 results I'm disappointed.

Could you elaborate?

If you're talking about collective intelligence, particularly about intelligence emerging from the colaboration of simple entities working together to form larger structures that feed back on the simple entities, you're awfully close to Hofstadter's Strange Loops.

Re: Army ants use collective intelligence to build bridges

#39

Post by sco1 »

SeanAnderson wrote: post #8

If you find this cool, you might find some other ant behaviors cool! I tried compiling the best I could find here - https://www.reddit.com/r/anterestingasfuck I'm also trying to program a digital ant farm: https://ant.care/ (code: https://github.com/MeoMix/symbiants/ ) I really want to figure out how to have ants form bridges/towers to navigate gaps. It's on the roadmap for long-term goals, but there's a lot more to…

My favorite ant behavior is that many tree-dwelling species will actively glide back towards the trunk if they're dislodged so they're less likely to depart the tree entirely. There's a few papers on the topic, this article has some videos :) https://insider.si.edu/2011/06/lofty-experiments-with-glidin...

I didn't see it when I searched, so apologies if I overlooked it.

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