Of Ants and Robots 148
conJunk writes "The BBC has an interesting story about Ants and their leaderless collective behavior. It goes on to describe these cool little robots called U-bots. They have a super-simple instruction set and if you let them loose in a room full of frisbees it looks, to the casual observer, like intelligent and guided work." From the article: "Being small is going to be a problem. So how can you get a whole bunch of dumb small things doing something smart?"
....FP. (Score:2, Funny)
Re:....FP. (Score:2)
(ducking)
Neurons (Score:5, Insightful)
Same thing with these ants and these robots..
Re:Neurons (Score:2)
Building 'brains' is easier than training them it seems. In fact, you can do so with absolutely unskilled labour
Obligatory Ant Wars reference (Score:1, Interesting)
Ant Wars [ant-wars.com] has a java simulator so you can see your ant state machine in action (click on the play arrow) [ant-wars.com].
Re:Neurons (Score:2)
Re:Neurons (Score:2)
The insight is the realizability of potential through cooperation. Little components, when put together properly yield a myriad of
Re:Neurons (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Neurons (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Neurons (Score:2)
yeh but thats leaving a marker, like tieing a string to a tree, how u believe that equates to communication able to support the organization of ants to perform tasks seemingly together is beyond me
Isn't posting on /. "leaving a marker"? Would you claim that it isn't possible to communicate here? I would claim that it is, even in the face of noise (trolls, etc.), errors in the messages ("yeh", "u", etc.) and so forth. I think it's a pretty good analogy for what social insects do, and thus a reasonable
Information content of slashdot posts (Score:2)
I'd wager that the information content of a typical ant-trail is greater than that of the typical slashdot post. It may not seem like it to us, because we don't place as much value on things like "go left around this rock" as we do on things like "I soviet Russia the rocks go left around you!" but from an information-theory standpoint the ants have us beaten hands down.
--MarkusQ
Re:Neurons (Score:1)
Ants do actively communicate, and that's exactly how they get so efficient and have an intelligent global functioning.
The comparison with neurons was actually interesting. To me, it seems like what we could ultimately define as intelligence is the ability to communicate and act on the information that's exchanged.
Look out... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Look out... (Score:1)
Don't spray it in their general direction, think like a baseball player and your all set.
Re:Look out... (Score:1)
Re:Look out... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Look out... (Score:2)
Re:Look out... (Score:2)
doing something smart (Score:2)
"So how can you get a whole bunch of dumb small things doing something smart?"
Implement a moderation system!
Actually, wait, that hasn't worked...
You talking to me? (Score:3, Funny)
Humans manage, except for the smart part.
Um... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Um... (Score:2)
Re:Um... (Score:1, Insightful)
The reason this is good is as he was saying, its a lot cheaper to make 15 simple robots than to make a couple complex one, because the manufacturing cost per unit decreases with the amount of units c
Ob Simpsons (Score:4, Funny)
so.... (Score:3, Funny)
Isn't this a question for elementary school teachers?
Dammit! (Score:2, Funny)
If this wasn't a Saturday morning, I bet I could come up with a really good punchline for this.
Re:Dammit! (Score:1)
I for one welcome our U-Bot overlords (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I for one welcome our U-Bot overlords (Score:2, Funny)
Good example of emergent behavior (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Good example of emergent behavior (Score:5, Interesting)
Supplies low? Forage for food. Den flooding? Get the larvea out of the water. Territory being incroached by invaders? Attack.
Chemical trails might explain how ants know where to go, and roughly what they will do when they get there. It doesn't explain their ability to work out the logistics on the fly.
A great example of this are army ants. They actually build large, complex structures out of the bodies of their members. There are elaborate assembly and unassembly steps. Chemical markers to not explain how they do it.
Re:Good example of emergent behavior (Score:3, Informative)
Anywho, any examples of what you provided only reinforce the parent statement. Each ant knows very simple things it can do. When all of them do those things, they do so without a central commanding point. When thousands of such simple things are done in unison, a very complex behaviour emerges, such as building fortifications or harvesting food. The fact that t
Re:Good example of emergent behavior (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Good example of emergent behavior (Score:2)
I'm afraid you're unaware of just how much you can accomplish with chemical trails and other simple stimuli. This has been researched extensively. I suggest you read Swarm Intelligence: From Natural to Artificial Systems by Eric Bonbeau, Marco Dorigo, and Guy Theraulaz. It gives a very detailed and math-heavy analysis of actu
Squid... (Score:5, Informative)
There's a good article on their learning process here [stanford.edu].
Re:Squid... (Score:2, Funny)
And (Score:1)
And (Score:2)
Re:Squid... (Score:1)
http://naturalhistory.broaddaylight.com/nmnh/FAQ_
What this planet needs is longer-lived squid, who can learn to use tools.
And Then.. (Score:2)
Re:Squid... (Score:1)
ahhrrr squiddy, i wasn't mad at ye, i only wanted the gold in ye belly.
Here's an idea (Score:5, Interesting)
Not to put too fine a point on it, but human intelligence comes to mind as one possibility. (I'm assuming neurons count as "minimalist.")
Re:Here's an idea (Score:2)
Pheeew! I was envisioning hordes of football supporters and couldn't come up with a satisfactory explanation
Re:Here's an idea (Score:2, Insightful)
The U-Bots according to the article follow a few rules. However, while one rule contains 'drop item', NONE of the rules contain 'pick up item'. This means that either all N U-bots must have been carrying one item each (a total of N items) in the beginning, which means the place where items get dropped off highly depends on the initial configuration of the robots in the arena. Or, the article is flawed in describing the rules, because they are not sufficient to perform a 'discover, col
Re:Here's an idea (Score:3, Insightful)
Implementing real world solutions to simulated problems always brings up quite a number of "interesting" problems. Things you never thought would be obstacles turn out to be nightmares in the real world. And on the flip side. sometimes a quirky solution to a problem presents itself.
I was working with some friends recently in testing a cross compiler for a robotics platform. They had a simulator and their code worked just fine in it.
But in the real robo
Re:Here's an idea (Score:2)
Re:Here's an idea (Score:2)
Re:Here's an idea (Score:2)
Re:Here's an idea (Score:2)
http://www.math.utah.edu/~epalsson/
Someone had to say it .... (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Someone had to say it .... (Score:1)
Goes to show two minds are better than one (Score:1)
Turing Machines... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Turing Machines... (Score:2)
(1) A Turing machine must be designed to solve a particular problem. OK, so there are Universal Turing machines too. Fine. You still need to design an algorithm and find the encoding of a TM which implements it. This is a non-trivial task. (Just think about the complexity of the operations GCC attempts, and consider that C is strictly weaker than Turing machines).
(2) The Myrmidons, robotic or otherwise, are capable of only finitely ma
NanoBots (Score:2, Interesting)
Cheaper, more reliable, and more intelligent in numbers (so to speak.) It sounds like a good way to go about constructing complex organisms from nanoscale machines... Hmmm what does that sound like?
I'd like to see a simulation of this minimal intelligence on a large scale with, say, 2000 virtual U-Bots.
brain (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:brain (Score:2)
The same for spiders? (Score:5, Interesting)
Have anyone seen such a thing?
Dung beetles (was Re:The same for spiders?) (Score:4, Funny)
Autonomous Small Robot Behavior (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Autonomous Small Robot Behavior (Score:2)
People thought it was some sort of sophisticated artificial intelligences. I didn't have the heart to tell them how simple the working really where.
On that note, I would also like to bring to the attention of the slashdot community the immense body of work that's been done using "the game
stigmergy (Score:5, Interesting)
http://img126.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img126&image=3d
One of the top people in this field is Marco Dorigo over in Italy, and he has chaired many conferences on this subject, as well as published a few books. The best book he (along with 2 others) has published so far, imho, is "Swarm Intelligence"
isbn:0195131592
http://search.barnesandnoble.c
Ive read this one cover to cover, and its been a terrific jump start to apply various aspects of ant properties (search, TSP, emergent task switching, graph partitioning, etc)
Ant Bible (Score:1)
CC.
Rodney Brooks (Score:2, Interesting)
Cambrian Intelligence [amazon.com] is pretty good book that covers his techniques for AI in robotics. It's essentially a collection of eight early papers by Brooks.
An interesting corollory (Score:5, Interesting)
Just wanted to point out how stupid behavior and non-conformism at an individual level can often lead to a vibrant and healthy group and how it has been known to and exploited by computer scientists riding the Moore's law wave.....
It would be funny if... (Score:5, Funny)
Applied Taoism (Score:5, Interesting)
Human too are capable of working on a large, semi-understood goal with individual actors working out the details as they go. We've been doing it for eons. And we don't know why.
MIT Ants (Score:1)
Scary? (Score:4, Interesting)
I can't see what's so scary about it. Just because they can learn to perform a task (a hardwired one?) faster doesn't mean they'll start building foot-proof nests two weeks later, not to mention taking over the world. Yet another journalist has jumped the gun and rushed to greet "our new ant overlords" way too early :7
Re:Scary? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is fascinating stuff - but does anybody else think we're way behind the times? The fact that it's taken us THIS long to figure things like this (that are fairly trivial) is a little disheartening.
And I'm tired of seeing all this crap only used by researchers - when are we going to get some engineers to start using this stuff? Sure it's applied in phone networks, but who cares? We need more stuff like this in real life products we can BUY and fiddle with... we are so behind where we should be, it's sad.
Re:Scary? (Score:2)
Well, go here [isgec.org] this summer and help pitch in.
Godel, Escher, Bach (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Godel, Escher, Bach (Score:1)
Re:Godel, Escher, Bach (Score:1)
Put these little bots to use? (Score:1)
Phenomenal (Score:4, Informative)
Kelly's Out of Control, Stephenson's Diamond Age (Score:3, Informative)
Not just ants (Score:1)
Hey, isn't the democracy based on the same assumption - if you put together a bunch of dump small things, they will make a good choice?
Re:Not just ants (Score:2)
So, ah, how's that working out for you?
subjects suck. (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, I don't know. Ask the millions of dumb cells that make up your body. They seem to be doing a pretty good job.
Hmmm... food for thought (Score:2)
I can tell you how NOT to do it. Take a look at the U.S. congress, senate and pesidential cabinet and you'll see what happens when a bunch of dumb small things do something stupid on e adaily basis. ;P
Random Comments (Score:1)
"Myrmecology"? (Score:2, Insightful)
I think that this is a really important avenue of research but can't help wondering why exactly this project was funded.
Robotics is of course great fun and can certainly be inspiring but all this was presented (albeit indirectly by a superficial BBC report) as a valid study in terms of what the miniture robots can achieve.
It doesn't take the 'Milliard Gargantubrain' to work out that all this stuff is better and cheaper simulated on computers. Cellular Automata have in various incarnations been here
Re:"Myrmecology"? (Score:1)
I'm sure you're familiar enough with the engineering-to-manufacturing process to know that things don't always work out in the real world the way they do in the simulation. It is an old cliche, but it has some truth - at some point in any project you have to shoot the engineers and just bui
Re:"Myrmecology"? (Score:1)
turf (Score:2)
Isn't that essentially what sociology is about?
Smart Ants Have Smart Ant Babies (Score:1, Interesting)
Godlike Robots (Score:2)
Breve: a nice open source simulator (Score:1)
There's a decentralized simulator called Breve [spiderland.org] that includes a module called Gatherers that will demonstrate the behavior of the U-Bots. There's a few other canned demos, or you can write your own. Lots of eye candy.
Runs on Linux, OS X, and Windows.
AI community convenes, stale ideas emerge (Score:2)
As far as I'm concerned the question as to how ants know how to organize themselves is on the same order as the question, "how does bread know it should fall on the buttered side?", or "how do coin flips know they should be random?"
If our hearts begin to flutter and our imagination begins to soar at the sight of an anthill, it's depressing.
Re:AI community convenes, stale ideas emerge (Score:2)
Lucky for you, the researchers aren't asking that question. It's not "how do they know how to organize themselves?" but rather "how do they manage to organize even though they don't know how?"
And it may be terribly boring to you, but the study of emergent behavior has impor
Re:AI community convenes, stale ideas emerge (Score:2)
Unless it can predict the stock market and prevent traffic jams; not really.
The infrastructure of the Internet itself depends on decentralized decision-making.
Which is orthogonal to emergent behavior as such.
Thanks to this "terribly boring" stuff, your message was reliably transported from your computer, to slashdot, to everyone else's computers, without any ce
Re:AI community convenes, stale ideas emerge (Score:2)
"Predicting the stock market" is to economics what astrology is to astronomy. And genetic algorithms-- a classic example of emergent behavior-- have been used to control traffic flow.
Which is orthogonal to emergent behavior as such.
Exactly what does qualify as emergent behavior in your mind, then?
There is nothing emergent about a handful of purposefully crafted packets travelling over a purposefully built network arrivi
Re:AI community convenes, stale ideas emerge (Score:2)
It's a marketing term. As such it is intentionally vague and ambiguous. If pressed on the matter I would say emergent behavior covers any kind of non-trivial pattern that emerges in a non-obvious way from the application of a small set of simple rules.
And the Internet is far from a "purposefully built network." It's a chaotic conglomerate of individual computers which have been connected to other individual computers with no roadmap dicta
Another advantage to swarms - graceful degradation (Score:2, Interesting)
Collective Behavior Can also be Catastrophic (Score:3, Interesting)
So, until I had a VERY clear understanding of the of the behavoural limits of a "collective intelligence" system, I'd be careful of getting overly optimistic about where I could apply it.
I'd certainly test and study the living hell out of it before employing it in a situation where I could experience "mission critical failures".
Re:**Off topic comment** (Score:3, Funny)
Re:**Off topic comment** (Score:1)
Re:**Off topic comment** (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Prey (Score:1)