Swarmbots and Human Social Organization

Recently I saw two programs on the Science channel with information about swarmbots. In both programs, scientists were studying ants as a way to discover principles to apply to the collective functioning of swarmbots.

Ants constantly accomplish huge collective tasks, such as organizing their nests, yet they do so without any real means of communication, with no observable plan or rigidly assigned functions, with no way of perceiving the collective result of their individual actions, and with no leader.

A group of scientists in England have succeeded in making a "brood" of swarmbots that can accomplish a collective task under similar circumstances. The swarmbots are able to sort frisbees, collecting the white discs into a certain area or pattern and collecting the black discs into a certain area or pattern. (In addition to the above constraints, this task is accomplished without any onboard vision mechanism.)

How?

Interestingly, the scientists theorized that individual ants labor under a certain set of "rules," the result of which is the accomplishment of a huge collective task (and, I noticed, incidentally the effectuation of a regularized social order within the nest).

So the scientists mulled what type of rules might lead to the collective accomplishment of sorting frisbees. They came up with four and programmed the swarmbots accordingly.

The first rule was if you're moving forward and nothing stops you, keep on going.

The second rule was if you run into a large immovable object, such as a wall or another bot, make a random turn and then keep going (See Rule # 1).

The third and fourth rules had to do with picking up the frisbees. They were something like, if you pick up a white frisbee, take it a certain distance and drop it. And similarly do something objectively indeterminate if you pick up a black frisbee.

The swarmbots were then set to do their swarming according to these rules. After many hours, the frisbees were sorted and in their "correct" places. Moreover, this result was achieved even if not all the swarmbots functioned correctly or obeyed the rules. So long as the majority of bots did what they were supposed to do, the nest was as it should be and order reigned.

It occurred to me that this is a perfect illustration of how human social order is achieved and maintained. The majority of individuals obey a small set of simple rules, even though they cannot necessarily perceive how their individual act contributes to the collective result. Even if a percentage of individuals malfunction, or refuse to obey the rules, order still results so long as most individuals function in accordance with the rules.

Yes, there are people who break down or who insist upon banging their head against a dead-end. But so long as most people who hit an obstacle will turn around and try a different direction, and keep trying a different direction until they can move forward unimpeded, society as whole will move toward accomplishment of collective goals and social order.

It would be interesting to study the effect of majority obedience to a simple rule such as saying "please" when asking for something and saying "thank you" when receiving something. It's intuitive, in a gushy sort of way, that this would make social life better. But the ant-society-derived view of rules may explain this process in actuality.

And it may explain why "small" violations of what might be called the rules of our social contract---for example, rude talk and violent gestures in public---seemingly lead inexorably to some measure of breakdown in the larger social order.

IOW, it's one thing to observe that when most people obey the "rules" (whether the rule be one of law or one of custom or one of common decency and consideration in how to treat another human being), society is a more pleasant place for everyone. It's quite another to explain the actual mechanism by which this increased social order occurs.

Ants provide much insight for those researching robots. But I think they are a very apt subject for those studying human sociology as well.