Cooperation
Humans are social creatures. One of the reasons humans were able to thrive in the past was the ability to set their differences aside and work together to achieve a common goal. What if robots were able to do the same? Would it result in an increase in performance of both robots?
Hide and seek
In the example on the right, the blue robots were tasked to hide from the red robot. The red robot was tasked with finding the blue robots. Every robot was able to move and lock the yellow objects. At first, the red robot was able to find the hiding robots easily. However, then the blue robots figured out that they were able to move and lock the yellow boxes. But one robot did not have the time to move both boxes. Therefore, they learned to work together and both move one box each. As you can see, the red robot was unable to enter the room, and therefore could not find the blue robots.
Patrolling robots
This is a real life example of two robots working together to patrol an area. An aerial robot is more capable of patrolling a wide open area while the ground robot is more suited for exploring more cluttered areas. The aerial robot can both explore the area separately and exchange information about the area to each other. For example, the aerial robot can map the planned patrol route from the sky and transfer this data to the ground robot. This way the ground robot is able to map a path which it can complete. Also, if there is an unexpected obstacle in front of the ground robot, the aerial robot will be able to help map a new route. This is very useful for dangerous areas like war zones or an area which was recently hit by a natural disaster.
What does cooperation tell us?
Sometimes it is significantly easier to complete a task by asking help and working together instead of doing it yourself. However, humans do not always choose the easiest solution. Pride and shame can stop someone from asking for help. Robots do not have this problem. They would gladly work together to achieve a common goal. Each robot can exploit each others strong and weak points and help each other overcome hurdles.
There are many examples in human history where instead of working together, people wanted to solve problems on their own. However, this is not always a bad thing. Think of the space race between America and the Soviet Union. Both countries pushed each other to have the best results to be the first to conquer a milestone. It makes you think though, what they would be able to accomplish if they worked together and shared their ideas.