Be Smart - Collective Intelligence References
Be Smart - Collective Intelligence References
Swarm Intelligence and Its Applications
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258503842_Swarm_Intelligence_and_Its_Applications
Defines swarm intelligence (collective behavior of decentralized, self-organized systems) as a subset of “collective intelligence”, a broader category that also includes hierarchies with clear leaders and centralized decision making.
The biological principles of swarm intelligence
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/220058931_The_biological_principles_of_swarm_intelligence
This gives a nice overview of the mechanisms of swarm intelligence, how group behaviors emerge from simple rules, how this is studied and why
We the swarm—Methodological, theoretical, and societal (r)evolutions in collective decision-making research
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/26339137221133400
This paper describes the philosophy under swarm intelligence and collective intelligence research.
Comparing cooperative geometric puzzle solving in ants versus humans
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2414274121
The piano mover’s puzzle
Superefficient teamwork in weaver ants
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S096098222500939X
Ant colonies: building complex organizations with minuscule brains and no leaders
The hierarchies and organizations of ant colonies
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s41469-021-00093-4
Stability and Responsiveness in a Self-Organized Living Architecture
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23555219/
This paper goes in depth on rules of bridge formation. The behavior emerges because the ants like walking on the gal ahead of them if she’s slow, and individuals freeze and hold on when being walked on until not being walked on any longer. There’s a small stall after being stepped on before they try to move on. It's that simple. Evo plays with freeze response time, strength when locked in place, linkability (foot hook strength), and “rudeness” tendencies required to walk on the worker in front of you. This paper describes the behaviors not as rules but with statistical probabilities. They are clarified as simple rules in his talks and especially in our conversation (see 00:14:14:02 - 00:14:34:14)
Hysteresis stabilizes dynamic control of self-assembled army ant constructions
(Army Ants form bridges with their own bodies to fill a moving gap in their pathway)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-28773-z
Army ants dynamically adjust living bridges in response to a cost–benefit trade-off
(Army ants make a bridge on hinge that moves from the joint to straighten a path)
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1512241112
Simon Garnier and Jon Perry, selected interview notes from recording in December 2025
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JyKXckh-zEs96fzqeZzVTke7IQLpqiwoIRpgyfdBSJo/edit?usp=sharing
Simon Garnier - Of Swarms and Slimes: Intelligence Beyond – and Without – the Brain
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAxmUyb3BJA
Army Ants: a study in social organization Schneirla, T. C. (Theodore Christian) 1971
(Book on the natural history of army ants, including mexican Eciton species)
https://archive.org/details/armyantsstudyins0000schn
Pg 108-111: During the nomadic (or hunting) phase, the queen stops laying eggs and her abdomen shrinks so she can move around. If the colony moved during the day, she goes on the run at night from her starting bivouac to the new bivouac.
Pg 171: Photos of the queen during with egg-laying body vs nomadic body. Note, the image labels in the book are wrong: a should be b.
Pg 176: When on the move, the queen is accompanied by a swarm of guards who protect and feed her on her nightly run. If she slows for any reason, they bunch up around her in a mini bivouac that she must crawl out of to continue.
Treadmilling and dynamic protrusions in fire ant rafts
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/suppl/10.1098/rsif.2021.0213
Fire ants self-assemble into waterproof rafts to survive floods
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1016658108
Great line from paper: “Central to the construction process is the trapping of ants at the raft edge by their neighbors, suggesting that some “cooperative” behaviors may rely upon coercion.”
Fire ants perpetually rebuild sinking towers
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/suppl/10.1098/rsos.170475
Historia animalium
Aristotle, 340BC
https://archive.org/details/historiaanimaliu00aris_0/page/n15/mode/2up
The Feminine Monarchie: Or the Historie of Bees
Charles Butler, 1623
https://reader.library.cornell.edu/docviewer/digital?id=hivebees6371408#page/3/mode/1up
This book displays how Europeans thought the bee hive was governed, putting great emphasis on the queen as decision maker.
New Observations on the Natural History of Bees
François Huber, 1806
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/26457/pg26457-images.html
This book outlines careful experiments that began to show how swarm intelligence really works. He ignored old ideas and simply observed under controlled, repetitive experiments.
Thought Transference (or What ?) in Birds
Edmund Selous 1931
https://www.nature.com/articles/129263c0
Serious ornithologist claims birds might be telepathic
The chorus-line hypothesis of manoeuvre coordination in avian flocks
https://www.nature.com/articles/309344a0
Turns out that birds are not telepathic ;)
Flocks, Herds, and Schools: A Distributed Behavioral Model, 1987
https://www.cs.toronto.edu/~dt/siggraph97-course/cwr87/
This paper describes the Boids algorithm
Craig Reynolds #SCCS2015
https://youtu.be/rqP_c5zm89Q?si=Tf-lvwNb8KmM14sN
Here, Craig explains why you need to simulate swarm intelligence in order to understand it.
Boids Algorithm, 2D simulator by Daniel Huang