The Simple Algorithm That Ants Use to Build Bridges (2018)

https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-simple-algorithm-that-ants-use-to-build-bridges-20180226/

by silverkite • 2 years ago

120 37 2 years ago

Always found colony based insects but especially ants fascinating. Its as if the ant is not the organism but rather the colony is.

senthil_rajasek• 2 years ago

If you find Ants interesting you would probably like E.O. Wilson's works. That's all he did his entire life, study ants.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey_to_the_Ants

SeanAnderson2• 2 years ago

E.O. Wilson's published work was read by Will Wright, creator of SimCity / The Sims / SimAnt, and the material is what inspired him to create SimAnt :)

Will has also stated that the pheromone system designed for SimAnt was repurposed to be used in The Sims! Very interesting stuff if you ask me :)

withants• 2 years ago

Thank you. What a life!

jsenn• 2 years ago

Deborah Gordon (ant biologist) makes this argument in her book Ant Encounters. Because the ants in a colony are all sisters, the unit of reproduction is actually the colony rather than the individual ant. Great book!

kevinventullo• 2 years ago

The unit of reproduction, and thus the unit of Darwinian evolution!

wonderwonder3• 2 years ago

Thanks for the rec, just ordered it. Its part of a series on complex systems, pretty cool

EdwardCoffin2• 2 years ago

"A colony of ants is more than just an aggregate of insects that are living together. One ant is no ant." - E. O. Wilson

munificent• 2 years ago

An interesting follow-up thought is to what degree that is also true of humans and their tribes.

thowawatp302• 2 years ago

Have you extended that idea to the perspective of your cells and you, and thought up any major differences?

(Genuine question, the biggest difference I can think of is most of our cells are in permanent physical contact.)

wonderwonder3• 2 years ago

Actually yes, its an interesting thought. Not only are we a cooperative group of independent cells but those cells are fully replaced as we age so not even the original cells we start with. We are essentially walking cities of cells and somehow we gain consciousness. Pretty wild.

digging• 2 years ago

It's a pretty cool finding, but a shallow article and arguably clickbait.

... it’s very possible there’s more governing army ant behavior than two simple rules.

Then don't say otherwise in the title!

EdwardCoffin2• 2 years ago

I read the article. I think that though it is relatively short, it isn't shallow, and certainly isn't clickbait. They also point to the paper the article draws from if you want more.

> ... it’s very possible there’s more governing army ant behavior than two simple rules.
Then don't say otherwise in the title!

The title constrains the rules to those dictating bridge building, whereas the quoted caveat above is more general.

beerandt• 2 years ago

Yea they don't really define stampede, let alone the subsidence/ threshold to break-off.

That's not a simple rule.

Is it traffic, weight, vibrations? An absolute threshold for decrease, or just a rate drop?

Which made me think- maybe a second rule exists, but it probably isn't necessary from an 'algorithm works' standpoint.

If an ant starts marching again once it no longer has another on top of it- once the supply of ants starts to dwindle (too many tied up in bridge structure), the bridge will start to deconstruct itself on its own.

It's a status toggled by other elements having the same boolean column. If too many are 'busy' as bridges, that leaves too few to hold the toggle buttons of the remaining others.

It's not a bridge, it's a self-sorting, self-clearing traffic jam. You drive when you can.

Which as a civil engineer the traffic aspect is more interesting to me than the bridge aspect.

But probably would get fewer clicks.

notfed• 2 years ago

"Wow, this article totally reminds me of Stephen Wolfram's work! It's amazing how these ants are following simple rules to create such complex behaviors. This is exactly what Wolfram has been talking about for years with his idea of cellular automata and complexity theory. I remember reading about how he pioneered the whole idea that simple rules can lead to complex systems. It feels like everything in nature is just proving him right, from the patterns in seashells to how these ants behave. I bet if we looked deeper, we'd find that Wolfram's principles are at the core of so many natural processes. It's incredible to see his influence everywhere!"

I generated the above paragraph for satire reasons using ChatGPT.

all_these_years• 2 years ago

The second video seems to have some issues: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJUk5VDCKbQ

cen4• 2 years ago

Besides simple rules the other requirement is Altruism. Everyone in the colony takes care of the children of one queen.

Can you imagine the chimp troupe doing any such thing? Siblings will kill each other and their kids rather than do that.

People think its related to Ants being haplodiploid.

Altruism in large social groups is something chimps haven't worked out yet. Which is why we have the MIL complex and war.

So if you are an algo engineer check out Haplodiploidy.

SeanAnderson2• 2 years ago

There are ant colonies with multiple queens :) But yes your general point still stands.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleometrosis

Nursie• 2 years ago

Everyone in the colony takes care of the children of one queen.

Depending on how you look at it, she is their prisoner and the only way they get to pass on a proportion of their genetic material is by looking after her kids that share some of it.

Alternatively you can look at them as little automata largely driven by pheromones.

Or you could see them as part of a larger pseudo-organism that doesn't really have individual wants and drives in the way we understand them.

Fascinating either way though.

daniel-s2• 2 years ago

This is really cynical.

You live in a society where almost everyone goes to work to produce something that they will not directly consume.

Humans figured out a way to organise everyone and get them to work cooperatively, it's the free market.

In fact, it couldn't work any other way. Suppose you had 100% altruism and everyone wanted to promote the "greater good". You wouldn't ever know how to direct people towards that greater good. You need prices to drive production.

M95D2• 2 years ago

I doubt that free market drives people toward "greater good". What is "greater good" anyway? Can you give some examples of "greater good" and how the free market achieved it?

BTW, no market is truly free, not unless it allows fakes, quack medicine, child labor, selling humans, or other horrors of the past.

amelius• 2 years ago

Ugh. The free market and the overconsumption that it promotes through advertisements will drive us to self destruction.

ordu• 2 years ago

Altruism in large social groups is something chimps haven't worked out yet. Which is why we have the MIL complex and war.

Ants also have wars. Some of them, I believe have MIL complex too: specially grown big ants with big... what is that they are using to kill others?

epolanski2• 2 years ago

Different colonies of the same species of ants are absolutely ruthless against each other.

nofollow• 2 years ago

Altruism in large social groups is something chimps haven't worked out yet

But their close relatives, the Bonobos, apparently have.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonobo#Behavior:

Primatologist Frans de Waal states bonobos are capable of altruism, compassion, empathy, kindness, patience, and sensitivity, and described "bonobo society" as a "gynecocracy".

epolanski2• 2 years ago

I don't buy it, in the sense that ants are among the species we can observe that most display any lack of real "reasoning", they're the closest things we can easily study that feel like algorithms.

A famous example is when they form circles and just die all following those in front of them.

In fact, ants are so basic, that when an ant dies it releases a specific hormone that tells other ants to kick it out of the nest. Scientist could prove it by putting some of it on very lively ants. It didn't matter that it was clearly alive and moving, as soon as it was inside the nest, other ants would group and kick it out.

I think empathy requires a level of emotional intelligence such a basic insect just does not have.

snapcaster• 2 years ago

It isn't altruism anymore than your neurons are being altruistic. People have a really mistaken idea about ants (specifically using terms like queen implying there is a hierarchy). Ant _colonies_ are intelligent creatures that learn, remember, negotiate, wage war. Ants themselves aren't intelligent, don't have a hierarchy, don't even really have a "self"

hoseja• 2 years ago

Yep ants really are quite degenerated individually, compared even to Wasps they evolved from. I have a persistent fear that this is the fate of humanity and that we're already halfway there.

ProllyInfamous• 2 years ago

Altruism

Ants and apes have entirely different genetic configurations (XY -vs- WO), and it is actually genetically favorable for workers to take care of just the queen's offspring (i.e. a worker ant/bee which raise its nieces passes on more genetic information [to the future generations] than taking care of its own offspring).

jayGlow• 2 years ago

there are actually some mammals that behave in a similar fashion. some mole rats are eusocial [1]. there is also a book name coalescent by stephan Baxter that explores this concept and how it could work in humans.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eusociality

xhevahir• 2 years ago

"Plant arithmetic" is another interesting phenomenon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_arithmetic?wprov=sfla1

The Simple Algorithm That Ants Use to Build Bridges (2018)

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