The Swarmbots Are Coming

Roland Piquepaille writes "For its latest issue, Wired Magazine asked several experts to tell us how the convergence between technology and biology was transforming their respective fields, from transportation to art, and even redefining life as we know it. In this special report, Living Machines, you'll discover that the nonliving world is very much alive. This summary is focused on one of the seven articles, which talks about ant algorithms and swarmbots. "Typically, a swarm bot is a collection of simple robots (s-bots) that self-organize according to algorithms inspired by the bridge-building and task-allocation activities of ants." And ant algorithms are used today to solve human problems especially in distribution and logistics."

Ever read "Prey"

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a work of science fiction by Michael Criton (sp?) about this very thing.

It goes to show you

[ill_mango]

How computers can work together better than humans.

Human nature makes us think of the individual before society as a whole. We could probably accomplish a whole lot more if we were all mindless drones, doing what had to be done to finish our jobs.

Of course there would be no fun in that, so luckily we have swarmbots.

I am interested to see the applications of these bad boys in the future.

swarmbots and mars exploration

[avkillick]

I believe Swarmbots and related technology will have a place in future robotic missions to Mars that will precede human exploration. Spirit and Opportunity are independent explorers but future missions will (should) involve specialised rover that will cooperate with each other in mining, materials processing, construction, scientific analysis and exploration.

Why do ants get all the press?

[BigZaphod]

The cow [bigzaphod.org] has all sorts of natural patterns that could aid us. Or what about chickens? We wouldn't want to forget about the utility of pecking at problems until they go away, would we?

Categories and Organisms

[NixLuver]

None of this should surprise us. As time goes on we learn that our categorical views of the world are mere cognitive conveniences. The unit of life is the cell, not the organism - you have cells that can live outside your body, if provided with the proper oxygen and food. The fact that we see a person rather than a collection of single celled symbiotic organisms reflects the bias of our cognition, not some universally correct perception of the cosmos.

I think that we will find 'living systems' everywhere we look, once we overcome the bias of the pattern matchers in our heads that make us think that our biases are the laws of the Universe.

Re:Living? Hardly.

[drinkypoo]

It never ceases to amaze me how someone with a functioning brain can make the assumption that we're more than just a collection of algorithms and their end results.

Intelligence in machines

[tsa]

Often I hear people talking about their robots on TV, and they say that their robots are about as intelligent as a bee or wasp. But if I compare the behaviour of a bee or wasp or whatever insect to those footballing robots I see on TV I'm not so sure. For instance you have wasps that make a hole in the ground, fly away to find some insect larva, bring it to their hole, sedate the larva, lay an egg in it, put it in the hole and close the hole. To be able to do this it must have a general idea about what a hole in the ground is and how to make it. When it is born it cannot know exactly where to make the hole because it has to find a suitable place. So how does the wasp decide where to make the hole? And it must have a pretty good memory too, to be able to find the hole back after some flying around. If you compare this behaviour of a tiny wasp to the robots we have playing football or driving around on Mars (or vacuuming our living room for that matter) I think we still have a long long way to go. This is a very interesting subject and sometimes I envy people that are just now deciding what to study :-) I'm too old to start with this now.

Re:"PREY"...

[DR SoB]

This is very true. IMHO once the ants deal with Prey, even though they have not been programmed to in any way, that will be real AI. AI is the ability to make decisions without ever having dealt with the scenerio before. An ant creating a "city" for example, isn't AI at all, it's good programming, yes, but not AI. If you suddenly add Prey to the equation and the ants learn ways to deal with said prey (evolution people!) then THAT would be true AI, and I feel we are still MINIMUM 5 years from this point.. As for the authors you mentioned, I started reading Dan Brown, and now I'm a true follower. Every technology he writes about is true. Another great one I'd like to add is "The Cobra Event" by Richard Preston. The technology covered in this book is SCARY. You may have heard of his book "The Hot Zone", I'd recommend Cobra event as the technology is more true-to-life. It was written years ago with future predictions on technology, and if you watch CNN at ALL you would know that his technology has become a reality, Bio-terrorism at it's scariest..

Related Ant algorithm site

[llebegue]

If you want to see some cool demonstration of ant behavior algorithm check this web site Eurobios [eurobios.com]

Re:yeah yeah ....

[hoggoth]

> And why did they use humans? Why not breed cattle or some other beast, and kill all the humans?

Because they are smart enough to know they may have missed some key element in their own design (ie: an evolutionary dead end) and that some day in the far future they may need humans for some unforseen circumstance.
It's all about genetic diversity, baby.
Same reason we want to save the rainforest now.
Let's hope the machines do a better job saving us than we did with the rainforest.

Re:Wired != Strong Prediction Success

[Anonymous Coward]

> Woe to any futurologist or technologist that
> should find themselves prognosticating within the
> pages of Wired!

True, Wired has gone steadily downhill since Conde nast bought it years ago.

It's funny how technology trends come and go. Wasn't artificial life, networks and 'convergent' behaviour was all the rage back in the late early 90s? Steven Levy and others predicted we would soon evolve AI (even consciousness) using genetic algorithms.

Christopher Meyer is really a business consultant who is trying to promote his new book here. Half the trouble is the self proclaimed 'technologists' are not scientists and don't have any critical capacity to avoid them falling for their own hype.

Re:yeah yeah ....

[xmedar]

The machines cannot be randomly creative as humans are, while The Architect is able to organise logically the Oracle requires The One to be her randomness by proxy as she is not capable of it herself, this is emphasised many times, e.g.

a) Neo's boss is Mr Rhineheart a reference to Luke Rhineheart who wrote The Dice Man back in the 70s, a book about a man who makes all his choices randomly by throwing a dice.

b) when fighting Morpheus says adaptation is not Neos problem, as Neo is only adapting within the parameters of system and is not able to make the creative leap to outside the system

c) while eating there is a conversation where Mouse observes "To denigh our own impulses is to denigh the very thing that makes us human" again the machines cannot do this

d) when fighting Agent Smith Neo stops trying to unlock Agent Smiths grip and makes the leap to using the environment as part of his attack, a creative leap that Agent Smith cannot anticipate and is therefore beaten by.

e) the final creative leap is realising after his death and resurrection that he, The One, is always a part of the system and therefore defeats Smith by fully becoming him and destoying him from the inside.