Check out this installation supported by the Welcome Trust.
People walking along Euston Road will encounter an unusually arresting reflection of themselves in a new light installation, ‘Reflex’, created by rAndom International.
The work inhabits the windows of the Wellcome Trust as though it were a living organism. Reacting to viewers, passers-by and traffic on Euston Road, ‘Reflex’ produces mesmerising flows of light, inviting a physical response to the building.
The installation’s swarming behaviour is based on an algorithm developed to emulate the collective decision making that we see in large groups of creatures such as birds or ants.
The work is constructed from hundreds of brass rods and thousands of LEDs arranged on small custom chips. Their movement is based on programmes that aim to simulate complex natural phenomena. ‘Reflex’ recreates “stigmergy”, whereby traces left by random actions stimulate further actions that build on one another, leading to the spontaneous emergence of apparently patterned activity. rAndom’s work allows for error, experimentation and unpredictability, and ‘Reflex’ encourages its viewers to see how they can influence the work.
May 8, 2011
Short URL collective intentionality, complex adaptive systems, computational intelligence, computer simulations, stigmergic, stigmergic cognition, stigmergy, swarm, swarm behavior, swarm intelligence
Here are some terrific stigmergic simulations by architectural student Yang Chenghan that I chanced across:
The first is a 3D simulation deploying 45-70 agents (source code)
The second a 2D simulation deploying 20-30 agents (source code)
Here are some great synthetic stigmergic stills Yang has created.
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March 10, 2011
Short URL collaboration, collective intentionality, complex adaptive systems, complexity, computational intelligence, distributed cognition, distributed knowledge, stigmergic, stigmergic cognition, stigmergy, swarm, swarm behavior, swarm intelligence, Yang Chenghan
Check out the latest themed issue of Swarm Intelligence. Here is the freely available introduction. Nice to see the term “cognition” used since I have been using the term in this regard for a few years.
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February 22, 2011
Short URL ants, cognitive science, cognitive systems, collective intentionality, computational intelligence, distributed cognition, distributed knowledge, extended cognitive systems, extended mind, externalism, neuron, neurophilosophy, philosophy of mind, philosophy of social science, stigmergic, stigmergic cognition, stigmergy, swarm, swarm behavior, swarm intelligence
Here’s a nice poster from Janet Marsden at Syracuse:
Abstract — Geospatial technologies in conjunction with wireless grids will offer a context for locating and coordinating team activities in such a way that the nature of each team member’s effort may be known and understood by other members. This constructed group knowledge enables teams to respond to unforeseen and emergent contingencies and act in concert through the active interpretation of shared artifacts alone without prior planning and coordination. Stigmergic or sematectonic coordination refers to how an individual behaves as part of a collaborative team engaged in a complex task, such as emergency response (i.e. where the task is of such complexity that a coordinated team effort is required to accomplish it). Human stigmergic coordination emerges on the basis of how tasks and goals are structured and understood between the members of the team. Geographically coded information, generated and shared dynamically, gives teams maps of each others’ activities, plus remotely sensed data. The major function of the geospatial technology repository and interface is to provide dynamic knowledge of group activities in real time. Environmental changes reveal new dependencies for adaptive collaboration as conditions on the ground evolve, enabling participants to track the evolution of each other’s work and mutually adjust to it in a timely manner.
Index Terms — geospatial technology, virtual collaboration, wireless grids, complex systems, situation management.
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February 17, 2011
Short URL complex adaptive systems, computational intelligence, distributed cognition, distributed knowledge, Janet Marsden, stigmergic, stigmergic cognition, stigmergy, swarm, swarm intelligence
The new issue of Swarm Intelligence is now available. The excerpt below from the editors’ introduction – they may not realise it, but it this is as Hayekian as one can get:
Swarm Cognition is a novel multidisciplinary approach that encompasses research in neurosciences, cognitive psychology, social ethology and swarm intelligence, with the aim of studying cognition as an emergent collective phenomenon in which perception, attention, decision making and other cognitive processes are brought forth by a multitude of elementary units tightly interacting among each other. Within the Swarm Cognition framework a broad view of cognition is adopted, so that its definition also includes the behaviour displayed in a distributed system like an ant colony. Indeed, an ant colony can display complex cognitive functions as a result of the interactions among the system components. The parallel with brain activities is straightforward. An ant is part of a colony, much as a neuron is part of a brain. An ant cannot do much in isolation, but a colony is a highly resilient adaptive system. Similarly, a neuron is individually able to only make limited interactions with other neurons, but the brain is capable of highly complex cognitive processes. In other words, both ants and neurons behave/act in perfect harmony with other conspecifics/cells to accomplish tasks that go beyond the capability of a single individual. Out of metaphor, Swarm Cognition aims at studying cognitive processes as the emergent result of the collective dynamics in a distributed system, be the system composed of autonomous agents like ants or basic control units like neurons.
Therefore, Swarm Cognition can be considered part of swarm intelligence, above all for those studies that recognise cognitive processes in the behaviour of distributed systems. In this respect, swarm intelligence can offer a wide range of tools and techniques to understand, study and implement complex behaviour in distributed systems. Swarm Cognition can broaden the perspective of swarm intelligence by applying such techniques to the study of cognitive behaviour, and by exploring the relationship of the behaviour of complex distributed systems with studies in neuro- and cognitive sciences, which are not commonly targeted in the context of swarm intelligence.
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January 22, 2011
Short URL collective intentionality, complex adaptive systems, complexity, computational intelligence, distributed cognition, distributed knowledge, hayek, network theory, networks, neuron, stigmergic, stigmergic cognition, stigmergy, swarm, swarm behavior, swarm intelligence
My collaborator Marge Doyle and I have set up a LinkedIn group for the many academic disciplines that now have an interest in stigmergy. Go to LinkedIn and search LinkedIn groups for “stigmergy.”
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November 30, 2010
Short URL cognitive closure, cognitive science, cognitive systems, collaboration, collective intentionality, complex adaptive systems, complexity, computational intelligence, computer simulations, cybernetics, emergence, epistemic systems, extended cognitive systems, externalism, feedback, situated cognition, social connectionism, social epistemology, spontaneous orders, stigmergic, stigmergic cognition, stigmergy, swarm, swarm behavior, swarm intelligence, systemsoriented social epistemology
Here is an interview conducted by Howard Rheingold, as he says motivated by Andy’s Natural-Born Cyborgs. Note Andy’s reference to stigmergic (swarm) behavior though he doesn’t actually use the term. (Via David Livingstone Smith and Mirko Farina).
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November 7, 2010
Short URL Andy Clark, artificial intelligence, Boundaries of the Mind, Bounds of Cognition, brain science, Chalmers, cognitive science, cognitive systems, consciousness, cybernetics, cyborgs, distributed cognition, distributed knowledge, evolutionary psychology, extended cognitive systems, extended mind, externalism, global brain, Howard Rheingold, natural-born cyborgs, philosophy of mind, philosophy of psychology, stigmergic, stigmergic cognition, stigmergy, swarm, swarm behavior, swarm intelligence, world wide web
The publisher of the relatively new journal Swarm Intelligence has made all content freely accessible. I’m not sure how long this offer is good for but it’s an opportunity to sample some of the best work being done in this field. Of course, the editorial board is a “Whose Who” of swarm theorists.
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October 20, 2010
Short URL active externalism, aggregation, ants, artificial intelligence, cognition, cognitive modeling, cognitive science, cognitive systems, collaboration, collaborative filtering, collective intentionality, complexity, computational intelligence, computational psychology, computer simulations, emergence, extended cognitive systems, extended mind, externalism, spontaneous orders, stigmergic, stigmergic cognition, stigmergy, swarm, swarm behavior, swarm intelligence
With today’s release of the film The Social Network some might be interested in a recent academic study published in Computers in Human Behavior.
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October 1, 2010
Short URL Amanda Nosko, constructivism, disclosure, Eileen Wooda, facebook, philosophy of social science, privacy, psychology, recommendation algorithm, Seija Molema, social cognition, social connectionism, social constructivism, social epistemology, social facts, social identity, social networking, social ontology, social psychology, spontaneous order, stigmergic, stigmergic cognition, stigmergy, swarm, swarm behavior, swarm intelligence, trust, truth
Stigmergy – the phenomenon of indirect communication mediated by modifications of the environment – was first conceptualized by zoologist Pierre-Paul Grasse in his ground-breaking work on termite colonies (Grasse 1959). It wasn’t until 1999 that Grasse’s work was brought to a wider audience by Eric Bonabeau et al (1999) in a special issue of Artificial Life. Since then interest in stigmergic systems has blossomed with researchers recognizing the application of Grasse’s insights to stock markets, economies, traffic patterns, supply logistics, computer networks, resource allocation, urban sprawl, and cultural memes. New forms of stigmergy have been exponentially expanded through the affordances of digital technology: Google’s recommendation algorithm, Amazon’s filtering algorithm, wiki, open source software, weblogs, and a whole range of “social media” are now deemed as essentially stigmergic.
Though the concept of stigmergy has typically been associated with ant- or swarm-like “agents” with minimal cognitive ability or with creatures of a somewhat higher cognitive capacity such as fish (schooling patterns) or birds (flocking patterns) or sheep (herding behavior), stigmergy offers a powerful tool to be deployed in the human domain. The editors of this special issue are thus looking for contributions that have human-human (social, organizational, and socio-technical) stigmergy as the main focus.
Proposals are invited from social scientists, social epistemologists, cognitive scientists, economists, group decision theorists, collective intentionality theorists, computational sociologists, network theorists, multi-agent modelers, and indeed researchers from any discipline that has social complexity and coordination as a core topic.
Papers that are theoretical, experimental, or computational in orientation are welcome. Please send proposals of no more than 300 words to lesliemarsh [at] gmail [dot] com with “Stigmergy/Cognitive Systems Research” in the subject line. The deadline for proposals is Nov 1, 2010.
All papers will be subject to double blind review by a least two referees and accepted papers will be published in a special issue of Cognitive Systems Research
Special Issue Editors
Margery Doyle
Senior Cognitive Research Scientist Air Force Research Lab
711 Human Performance Wing
L-3 Communications Link Simulation & Training
Leslie Marsh
Assistant Director
New England Institute of Cognitive Science and Evolutionary Behavior
References
Grasse, P. P. (1959). La reconstruction du nid et les coordinations interindividuelles chez Bellicositermes natalensis et Cubitermes sp. La theorie de la stigmergie: Essai d’interpretation du comportement des termites constructeurs. Insectes Sociaux, 6(1), 41–83.
Bonabeau, E. (Ed.) (1999). Stigmergy. Artificial Life, Vol. 5, No. 2: 95-202
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August 23, 2010
Short URL artificial intelligence, collaborative filtering, collective intentionality, complexity, computational intelligence, computational psychology, computer simulations, Eric Bonabeau, google, Margery Doyle, particle swarm optimization, Pierre-Paul Grasse, stigmergic, stigmergic cognition, stigmergy, swarm, swarm behavior, swarm intelligence
