Ant colonies are superorganisms. A swarm intelligence emerges from the collective, as though an individual ant is a single brain cell unable to perceive the whole. Ants build bridges, sacrifice themselves for sex, and wage war. Petite siblings put food in the mouths of soldiers, each relying on the colony to survive. Each ant is a piece in an intricate, problem-solving machine assembled from individuated parts.Swarms aren’t the sole province of ants. Slime molds, complex decision makers, are swarms without nervous systems. Naked mole rats, mammals the size of squirrels, are swarms too, their colonies acting together like ants, like slime molds. Roboticists use Swarm Intelligence as a model for AI and of consciousness.
Director of Sciences Janna Levin asks guests Professor Simon Garnier and Dr. Corrie Moreau: Are we an unwitting example of a swarm intelligence that has evolved an illusion of a coherent self? Hear the full conversation in the video above.
Subscribe to Pioneer Works:
...
More from the Science Studios: ...
The Pioneer Works Broadcast is supported in part by Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation initiative dedicated to engaging everyone with the process of science, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Program in Public Understanding of Science and Technology, bridging the two cultures of science and the arts.
Музыка
Фильмы
ТВ Шоу
Категории видео
