{"id":769,"date":"2008-01-11T23:40:24","date_gmt":"2008-01-11T23:40:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2008\/01\/11\/i-think-my-head-is-full-of-ants\/"},"modified":"2008-01-11T23:49:18","modified_gmt":"2008-01-11T23:49:18","slug":"i-think-my-head-is-full-of-ants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2008\/01\/11\/i-think-my-head-is-full-of-ants\/","title":{"rendered":"I think my head is full of ants"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!--cut and paste--><object classid=\"clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000\" codebase=\"http:\/\/download.macromedia.com\/pub\/shockwave\/cabs\/flash\/swflash.cab#version=8,0,0,0\" width=\"432\" height=\"285\" id=\"VE_Player\" align=\"middle\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/static.videoegg.com\/ted\/flash\/loader.swf\"><\/param><param NAME=\"FlashVars\" VALUE=\"bgColor=FFFFFF&#038;file=http:\/\/static.videoegg.com\/ted\/movies\/DEBORAHGORDON-2003_high.flv&#038;autoPlay=false&#038;fullscreenURL=http:\/\/static.videoegg.com\/ted\/flash\/fullscreen.html&#038;forcePlay=false&#038;logo=&#038;allowFullscreen=true\"><\/param><param name=\"quality\" value=\"high\"><\/param><param name=\"allowScriptAccess\" value=\"always\"><\/param><param name=\"bgcolor\" value=\"#FFFFFF\"><\/param><param name=\"scale\" value=\"noscale\"><\/param><param name=\"wmode\" value=\"window\"><\/param><\/object><\/p>\n<p>As many of my students can attest, I&#8217;ve always <em>loved<\/em> emergent behavior where you have a whole bunch of &#8220;stupid&#8221; agents working with simple rules, but the end result is amazingly complex and wondrous.  There are termites, for example, that by following simple rules (and with no &#8220;leader&#8221; in charge) manage to build large mounds with extraordinarily precise climate control in certain chambers where they farm special fungi.  If you held a gun to my head and told me to use dirt, sticks, and other bits lying around to build a chamber that would be nearly constant temperature day and night, winter and summer, I&#8217;d have to tell you to pull the trigger.  Yet these <em>insects<\/em>, with no blueprint or foreman, pull it off over and over again across thousands of years.  (Doesn&#8217;t evolution just <em>rock!<\/em>)<\/p>\n<p>No surprise, then, that I was smitten with this recent TED video (of a talk from four years ago) where Deborah Gordon talks about her research into how ants figure out how to allocate tasks (i.e., who does what when).<\/p>\n<p><!--\n(That said, it seems that her observation that older, larger colonies are more stable in the face of disturbances is presumably the result of simple statistics.  If their behavior is driven to a significant degree by their contacts with other members of the colony, a large colony will have more interactions and therefore less statistical noise.)\n--><\/p>\n<p>If you want to play with this sort of thing, I recommend both <a href=\"http:\/\/ccl.northwestern.edu\/netlogo\/\">NetLogo<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.spiderland.org\/\">Breve<\/a>, as well as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.spiderland.org\/screensaver\">this cool Breve-based screensaver<\/a>, which evolves walking creatures while you&#8217;re momentarily distracted from your random web surfing.  Both NetLogo and Breve can happily suck up <em>way<\/em> too much of your life (there are literally <em>days<\/em> to be spent playing with all the canned models in NetLogo), but it&#8217;s great fun, and working with tools like this can really help build your intuition for how complex systems of agents can work.<\/p>\n<p>Below the fold I list some of my favorite NetLogo simulations that I often use in demos.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The termite simulation.  This is probably my favorite because it&#8217;s easy to explain and has a cool and non-obvious outcome.  I would often set up a scenario (lots of little autonomous robots collecting ice or mineral deposits on Mars), and ask people to suggest a set of rules that they might use to get the set of robots to bring everything to a single location.  Then I explain the two simple rules this system uses, and show them the behavior.  They are usually interested and impressed.  (The Painted Desert demo is a nice extension of the earlier Termites model.)<\/li>\n<li>Wolf-Sheep predation.  This is probably my other favorite for demos.  I&#8217;d start it up (with the grass turned &#8220;on&#8221;) when there was some dead time and no one was around, and let it run for a long time in its stable state.  Then when someone would show up I&#8217;d explain the simulation while it&#8217;s still running and we&#8217;d talk about the fact that things were fairly stable. Then I&#8217;d ask them what they thought would happen if I turned the grass &#8220;off&#8221; (i.e., made it so there was an infinite amount of grass all the time).  Then we&#8217;d turn it off and watch the system crash, which tended to get people&#8217;s attention.  It&#8217;s also a nice example of how a small change can really throw off a dynamic system.<\/li>\n<li>Ants &#8211; People always like food foraging, and playing with the settings on the pheromones is a nice way of showing how small changes can really affect the behavior of the system.<\/li>\n<li>Bug Hunt Speed &#8211; A neat, simple demonstration of evolution at work.  And you can let the kids do the bug catching for you, which helps them get involved.<\/li>\n<li>AIDS and Virus &#8211; Both suggest how these ideas could be used in &#8220;real world&#8221; settings (such as public health policy).  You have to be careful how you interpret results from a model like that, but they can be great intuition builders.<\/li>\n<li>Fireflies &#8211; Simple rules leading to coordinated behavior without anyone &#8220;in charge&#8221;.<\/li>\n<li>Flocking is always fun, and one of the applications that people are the most familiar with (even if they don&#8217;t realize it).  Flocking algorithms like this are widely used in the film industry to provide lifelike behavior to large groups of computer generated individuals (birds, soldiers, insects).  Breve will also do some <em>very<\/em> cool flocking behavior in 3D.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\t<div class=\"st-post-tags \">\n\tTags: <a href=\"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/tag\/agents\/\" title=\"agents\">agents<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/tag\/emergent-behavior\/\" title=\"emergent behavior\">emergent behavior<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/tag\/evolution\/\" title=\"evolution\">evolution<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/tag\/insects\/\" title=\"insects\">insects<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/tag\/public-health\/\" title=\"public health\">public health<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/tag\/research\/\" title=\"Research\">Research<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/tag\/science\/\" title=\"Science\">Science<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/tag\/video\/\" title=\"Video\">Video<\/a><br \/><\/div>\n\n\n\t<h4>Related posts<\/h4>\n\t<ul class=\"st-related-posts\">\n\t<li><a href=\"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2008\/02\/08\/decentralized-distributed-systems-evolutionary-computation-and-prisoners-dilemma\/\" title=\"Decentralized, distributed systems, evolutionary computation, and prisoner&#8217;s dilemma (8 Feb 08)\">Decentralized, distributed systems, evolutionary computation, and prisoner&#8217;s dilemma<\/a> (0)<\/li>\n\t<li><a href=\"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2008\/03\/06\/not-quite-a-wave\/\" title=\"Not quite a wave (6 Mar 08)\">Not quite a wave<\/a> (1)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As many of my students can attest, I&#8217;ve always loved emergent behavior where you have a whole bunch of &#8220;stupid&#8221; agents working with simple rules, but the end result is amazingly complex and wondrous. There are termites, for example, that by following simple rules (and with no &#8220;leader&#8221; in charge) manage to build large mounds &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2008\/01\/11\/i-think-my-head-is-full-of-ants\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;I think my head is full of ants&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0},"categories":[15,28],"tags":[209,208,66,79,53,864,866,876],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p90sy-cp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":791,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2008\/02\/08\/decentralized-distributed-systems-evolutionary-computation-and-prisoners-dilemma\/","url_meta":{"origin":769,"position":0},"title":"Decentralized, distributed systems, evolutionary computation, and prisoner&#8217;s dilemma","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"8 Feb 08","format":false,"excerpt":"Chris posted some cool questions on my earlier post about decentralized behavior in social insects: so what kinds of things do computer scientists do w\/this idea? is sort of what evolutionary computing is about? i picked up the evolution of cooperation recently (tit for tat wins prisoner\u2019s dilemma) you must\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Computing&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Computing","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/computing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":588,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2007\/06\/24\/evolving-buildable-lego-structures\/","url_meta":{"origin":769,"position":1},"title":"Evolving buildable Lego structures","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"24 Jun 07","format":false,"excerpt":"More cool work out of Jordan Pollack's lab at Brandeis. They've build a nice force simulator and design system for Legos called EvoCAD that lets you evolve Lego structures that satisfy various conditions. Pablo Funes, who recently finished his PhD, used this to evolve spans of over 2 meters, tree-like\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Computing&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Computing","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/computing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":548,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2007\/05\/01\/jocp-im-in-wired\/","url_meta":{"origin":769,"position":2},"title":"JOCP &#8211; I&#8217;m in Wired!","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"1 May 07","format":false,"excerpt":"OK - total ego post here; feel free to look the other way. But this photo got used in a blog post on Wired's web site! Not quite as cool as having it in the magazine, but still pretty darn spiffy :-). The piece in question briefly discusses two bills\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Environment&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Environment","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/science\/environment\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":824,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2008\/04\/01\/educations-an-investment-not-an-expense\/","url_meta":{"origin":769,"position":3},"title":"Education&#8217;s an investment, not an expense!","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"1 Apr 08","format":false,"excerpt":"Just did a pile o' dishes and listened to a SciAm podcast featuring the remarks of Robert Rosner (head of Argonne National Laboratory). The short version is that science (and, I would argue, education in general) is a matter of necessity plus vision. First, science is not a luxury, but\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Education&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Education","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/education\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1300,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2010\/06\/11\/incentives-and-cognitive-surplus\/","url_meta":{"origin":769,"position":4},"title":"Incentives and cognitive surplus","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"11 Jun 10","format":false,"excerpt":"Via TechDirt I found this very cool video on how our \"standard\" notions of incentives don't always work very well, especially when it comes to cognitive work. There's a ton of cool ideas in the video (and more in the TechDirt piece, including some cool links). The incentives in the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;economics&quot;","block_context":{"text":"economics","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/economics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":781,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2008\/01\/25\/wrapping-ones-head-around-the-data\/","url_meta":{"origin":769,"position":5},"title":"Wrapping one&#8217;s head around the data","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"25 Jan 08","format":false,"excerpt":"JOCP! It's been almost five days since I've posted anything here, and I have so much backed up in the queue... There's a major conference deadline (GECCO 2008) in a few days, and I'm struggling to finish up four different (and only loosely related) papers for submission. On top of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Computing&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Computing","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/computing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}