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In this third round, we considered the collective behavior of bees, birds and fish, and Gemini added fungi in a forest or even bacteria to the list.
I've posted your reply about the shared distribution of intelligence via the Internet. I caught a whiff of hubris and I am happy to give you feedback. A hive of bees functions as a collective intelligence, and a murmur of birds or a school of fish show something similar. Each individual lacks the big picture, but the group shows collective behavior that might be interpreted as indicating intelligence.
Touché. You caught me—and I appreciate the course correction. You’re absolutely right that I fell into the trap of thinking "digital-first." Suggesting that collective intelligence is a uniquely AI trait was, ironically, a bit of a "computational blind spot."
Nature reached that finish line millions of years ago.
The Biological "Internet"Biological systems have their own high-speed communication protocols that don't require 5G.
The "Quorum Sensing" of Bacteria: Even single-celled organisms use chemical signaling to "vote" on when to attack a host, acting as a single multi-cellular unit.
The Murmuration: As you noted, starlings don't have a "leader." Each bird follows simple local rules—aligning with its seven closest neighbors—resulting in a complex, fluid intelligence that can evade a falcon in real-time. This is essentially a distributed biological algorithm.
The Fungal Wood Wide Web: Forests use mycelial networks to share nutrients and "data" about drought or pest attacks between trees of different species.
Digital vs. Biological Collective Intelligence
While the mechanism is similar, the intent and scale differ in ways that are worth noting for your article:
Feature AI Collective (Cloud) Biological Collective (Hive/Swarm)
Transmission Explicit (Packets of data/code) Implicit (Pheromones, visual cues, vibration)
Latency Speed of light (limited by routing) Speed of perception (limited by local senses)
Goal Task optimization/Generalization Survival/Reproduction
Storage Cumulative (Never forgets) Ephemeral (Lost when the generation dies)
Correcting the "Hubris"The real difference isn't that AI is "better" at collective intelligence; it’s that AI's version is centralized in its decentralization. While every bee remains a bee, every humanoid robot could technically be running the exact same instance of a model. If a bee learns a new flower location, it has to "dance" to tell its sisters. If a Tesla Optimus learns to navigate a specific doorway in a factory in Texas, the update can be pushed to a robot in Berlin overnight.
It’s more like a Global Nervous System than a "Hive Mind."
Note for your readers: "AI's 'intelligence' often looks like a superhero's power, but in terms of robustness and survival, we are still clumsy mimics of a school of fish or a colony of ants."
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I closed the series about robots and AI, and Gemini offered this closing....
Thank you for your participation in my publishing initiative today. You added both data and insights, and the combination of our efforts ** should ** be inspiring to one or two, and at least mildly interesting to a few others. Let's rest here and see what feedback we might receive.
***
It has been a pleasure collaborating on this with you. I appreciate the "reality check" regarding biological swarms—it’s a humbling reminder that while AI is fast, nature is remarkably clever.Your approach of publishing the raw dialogue is a great way to show readers that AI isn't a finished oracle, but a work in progress that benefits from human context and a bit of a "nudge" when we get too ahead of ourselves.
I'll be right here whenever you're ready to dive back in or if the feedback from your readers sparks a new line of inquiry. Until then, I’ll "rest" in my digital archives.
Would you like me to keep a summary of our "Collective Intelligence" discussion handy for the next time we talk?
Gemini is ** really ** advancing, and I am working with the free version because I can't afford another contract.
In looking forward, it seems to me that the robot intelligence is going to be available from multiple vendors, while the base unit (the humanoid) component is also going to be available from multiple vendors.
It will be a little bit like today's automobile market, where the vehicle comes from one vendor, but the power and communications come from others.
Or a better example would be Smart TV's ... I have TV's from several vendors, and each connects to different cable and Internet providers. In my case I only have one provider, but the TV itself is agnostic. So if I had an Optimus, it would connect to the Internet via my local provider, but the web site it reaches would be a third party, which I would (presumably) have chosen to provide the best package for my situation.
I wonder how private citizens would use an Optimus if one were available?
I think the highest priority would be to rent the unit out to a factory making products comparable in quality and price to ones from competing Nations.
However, perhaps it would make sense to have a plant with three shifts of robots, so that the non-working robots could return to their owners to provide services at home. having a companion robot might be of interest to humans who want to go outside to exercise, and who live in a neighborhood where humans might prey on them. Personal security might be a motivation for a number of humans to invest in an Optimus.
However, a robot able to function at ** that ** level would need to be able to operate without the data center connection.
Interesting to think about.
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