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The world of social insects is filled with ideas for tackling resource tradeoffs of this sort. These are usually not signs of "collective intelligence", as much
by cortesi 11y ago
The world of social insects is filled with ideas for tackling resource tradeoffs of this sort. These are usually not signs of "collective intelligence", as much as they are a manifestation of good algorithm design, honed by aeons of evolution. In fact, we've successfully pinched and applied quite a few social insect resource tradeoff algorithms in computer science.
It's a marvel that we can actually understand these biological algorithms well enough to code them up. I wrote about an example of this in a blog post about EO Wilson's "Superorganisms" a while ago (http://corte.si/posts/books/superorganism/index.html http://corte.si/posts/books/superorganism/index.html). Bee hives need to find the right balance between foragers out in the field, and nectar producers staying home to work in the hive. They have an elegant way of doing this, that works even when each bee can only rely on local knowledge - that is, each bee makes a decision about what it can see around itself, without any global integrative intelligence required. The algorithm goes like this (see the blog post for more detail):
1 - Not enough nectar collectors in the field? If yes, and you also have immediate knowledge of a producing flower patch, perform the waggle dance.
2 - Is the flower patch rich or the weather fine or the day early or does the colony need substantially more food? Perform the dance with appropriately greater vivacity and persistence.
3 - Not enough active foragers to send into the field? Perform the shaking maneuver.
4 - Not enough nectar processors in the hive to handle the nectar inflow? Perform the tremble dance.
A variant of this algorithm, directly inspired by bees, has been used to balance resource allocation in server farms:
http://www2.isye.gatech.edu/~ctovey/publications/papers/bee.oct19.2004.masi2.pdf http://www2.isye.gatech.edu/~ctovey/publications/papers/bee....
- robotresearcher 11y ago> not signs of "collective intelligence", as much as they are a manifestation of good algorithm design, honed by aeons of evolution. What is intelligence, if not that?
- cortesi 11y agoIntelligence is the wrong word in this case. These are complicated emergent behaviours that arise from extremely simple rules applied locally and iteratively by each individual. There's no planning, forethought, or central driving will at play here. If this is intelligence, then so is bone growth, which follows a similarly simple algorithm, is also honed by evolution, and is also inspiring real-world applications, e.g.: http://www.engineering.com/DesignSoftware/DesignSoftwareArticles/ArticleID/10279/Conceptual-Design-Inspired-by-Bone-Growth.aspx http://www.engineering.com/DesignSoftware/DesignSoftwareArti... https://www.fastcodesign.com/1671102/a-3-d-printed-house-that-grows-like-human-bone https://www.fastcodesign.com/1671102/a-3-d-printed-house-tha...
- papaf 11y agoThere's no planning, forethought, or central driving will at play here. Do there have to be these things to show intelligence? Simple markets without central planning absolutely destroy central planning in terms of efficiency: http://www.realussr.com/ussr/queues/ http://www.realussr.com/ussr/queues/ Maybe the intelligent, planning, ants were overtaken by the unintelligent ants :-)
- meric 11y agoThe same could be said for neurons.
- vixen99 11y agoProbably best not to circumscribe 'intelligence' even if the ant example is as you suggest. What is planning, forethought or central driving? Braitenberg nailed this back in 1986 in his book Vehicles in which he describes simple toys showing 'increasing intricate if not always successful or civilized behaviour'. See chapters (vehicles) on 'Foresight', 'Egotism' and 'Optimism'. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braitenberg_vehicle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braitenberg_vehicle
- mannykannot 11y agoYour immune system is a manifestation of good algorithm design, honed by aeons of evolution. It does not follow that it is intelligent.
- robotresearcher 11y agoThat's true but not relevant. Flip-flops are a manifestation of human design honed by millennia of design evolution. Tennis balls are a manifestation of human design honed by millennia of design evolution. It does not follow that flip-flops are tennis balls. But both statements above are still true, and their lack of equivalent properties is not an argument against their common history.
- mannykannot 11y agoThough my post is consistent with your last paragraph, I see what you mean. My intent was to clarify that the common history is not an argument for the ants' behavior being considered intelligent, but you can rightly say that you never made that claim. Cortesi's larger point, that complex behavior can arise from a few simple and inflexible rules that do not deserve to be called intelligence, is not being contested.
- robotresearcher 11y agoCortesi seemed to me to be saying something different: that ant behaviour was not intelligent, but merely nice algorithms honed by evolution. Which implies that intelligent is not nice algorithms honed by evolution. And since evolution is the only mechanism widely agreed to have produced intelligence so far (if we ignore divine intervention), I can't agree with that.
- papaf 11y agoAnts can be though of as a super-organism. This makes them super interesting: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superorganism - http://news.wisc.edu/17398 - http://jn.nutrition.org/content/137/1/259S.short as much as they are a manifestation of good algorithm design Evolution can be thought of in this way: http://www.pnas.org/content/106/6/1869.abstract http://www.pnas.org/content/106/6/1869.abstract These are usually not signs of "collective intelligence" This is where I disagree. A collection of ants is >> one ant.