Wikipedia: Stigmergy is a mechanism of indirect coordination between agents or actions. The principle is that the trace left in the environment by an action sti

Wikipedia: Stigmergy is a mechanism of indirect coordination between agents or actions. The principle is that the trace left in the environment by an action stimulates the performance of a next action, by the same or a different agent. I usually think of it as "communication through modification of the environment". And agent observes their environment, makes a decision about how to modify it, modifies it. The same or a different agent then does the same. Instead of a central authority dictating tasks, each agent knows the complete plan, and compares the current state to the plan to find the next step, then does it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant_colony_optimization_algorithms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant_colony_optimization_algori... is how I first learned about the idea, and remains a good introduction.