4 ms·

One of these days I'm going to write up a blog post about releasing millions of ants into a scale model of London and allowing them to figure out the most effic

One of these days I'm going to write up a blog post about releasing millions of ants into a scale model of London and allowing them to figure out the most efficient traffic routes for us.

short_sells_poo 2y ago
I posit they'll find out that living inside London is terrible and they'll all move to the location that'd be Surrey. Turning that area terrible in turn.
- theoreticalmal 2y ago
  What are you implying about the current residents of Surrey?
pjc50 2y ago
They'd take the tube.
- SideburnsOfDoom 2y ago
  So just like the pigeons then. https://www.mylondon.news/news/nostalgia/london-underground-how-intelligent-pigeons-22098914 https://www.mylondon.news/news/nostalgia/london-underground-...
aqme28 2y ago
They've used slime molds for that. https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/feb/18/slime-mould-rail-road-transport-routes https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/feb/18/slime-mould-r...
- snakeyjake 2y ago
  That and the Tokyo train network slime mold experiments have always irrationally angered me. They haven't found the most efficient paths, for humans in the real world, at all. They've found short-ISH paths that are efficient for a slime mold attempting to conserve energy. Just look at the god damned photo! What the hell is wrong with people? Do they honestly believe that building an interstate highway along the actual, literal, spine of the Rocky Mountains, practically from peak-to-peak along the most mountainous and difficult terrain in North America, is "efficient"? Slime molds are not intelligent. Slime molds cannot make decisions. Slime molds do not hold any insight into the human condition, especially when it comes to engineering. Slime molds are simple biological machines who have been selected over billions, yes billions, of years to grow in the most sustainable way possible. And don't get me started on the Tokyo railway one. Only the highest of the most stoned biology students could look at that picture and say, "this resembles what humans built". It's like looking at a cartoon rendering of a stereotypical Saguaro cactus and saying, "this looks like a man holding his arms up just put a cowboy hat on him and call him Tex".
fastasucan 2y ago
No reason to release the ants, just code just make a model and solve it with Ant Colony Optimization Algortihm https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant_colony_optimization_algorithms https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant_colony_optimization_algo...
gruez 2y ago
I never got the point of "experiments" like these. Is there any reason to think that "releasing millions of ants" is going to be more efficient than using semiconductors that can perform tens of billions of calculations per second? It's not even that ants are smart. For instance you can emulate a flood fill algorithm with a bucket of water, but it's pretty clear that bucket of water doesn't have any intelligence.
- bjord 2y ago
  either way, the ants are more fun

One of these days I'm going to write up a blog post about releasing millions of ants into a scale model of London and allowing them to figure out the most efficient traffic routes for us.

short_sells_poo 2y ago

I posit they'll find out that living inside London is terrible and they'll all move to the location that'd be Surrey. Turning that area terrible in turn.

theoreticalmal 2y ago
What are you implying about the current residents of Surrey?

pjc50 2y ago

They'd take the tube.

SideburnsOfDoom 2y ago
So just like the pigeons then. https://www.mylondon.news/news/nostalgia/london-underground-how-intelligent-pigeons-22098914 https://www.mylondon.news/news/nostalgia/london-underground-...

aqme28 2y ago

They've used slime molds for that. https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/feb/18/slime-mould-rail-road-transport-routes https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/feb/18/slime-mould-r...

snakeyjake 2y ago
That and the Tokyo train network slime mold experiments have always irrationally angered me. They haven't found the most efficient paths, for humans in the real world, at all. They've found short-ISH paths that are efficient for a slime mold attempting to conserve energy. Just look at the god damned photo! What the hell is wrong with people? Do they honestly believe that building an interstate highway along the actual, literal, spine of the Rocky Mountains, practically from peak-to-peak along the most mountainous and difficult terrain in North America, is "efficient"? Slime molds are not intelligent. Slime molds cannot make decisions. Slime molds do not hold any insight into the human condition, especially when it comes to engineering. Slime molds are simple biological machines who have been selected over billions, yes billions, of years to grow in the most sustainable way possible. And don't get me started on the Tokyo railway one. Only the highest of the most stoned biology students could look at that picture and say, "this resembles what humans built". It's like looking at a cartoon rendering of a stereotypical Saguaro cactus and saying, "this looks like a man holding his arms up just put a cowboy hat on him and call him Tex".

fastasucan 2y ago

No reason to release the ants, just code just make a model and solve it with Ant Colony Optimization Algortihm https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant_colony_optimization_algorithms https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant_colony_optimization_algo...

gruez 2y ago

I never got the point of "experiments" like these. Is there any reason to think that "releasing millions of ants" is going to be more efficient than using semiconductors that can perform tens of billions of calculations per second? It's not even that ants are smart. For instance you can emulate a flood fill algorithm with a bucket of water, but it's pretty clear that bucket of water doesn't have any intelligence.

bjord 2y ago
either way, the ants are more fun