Contemporary Artificial Intelligence

Chapter 1 0

Swa rm I ntellig e nce

Many species perform complex tasks when working as a group, even though

each member of the group seemingly exhibits little intelligence. For example,

an ant colony is quite effective at finding the shortest path bet ween its nest and

some source of food, while an individual ant has no abilit y to a ccomplish this

task. As another example, many of us have been fascinated watching a flock

of birds turn and maneuver as a single unit, while there is no apparent master

plan guiding their behavior. Schools of fish likewise move in unison. Swarm

intelligence is intelligent collective behavior that emerges when some group

of autonomous, ...