Welcome to the Swarm
The text explores online swarms as decentralized networks of individuals and algorithms acting collectively, highlighting their coordination, lifecycle, and contrasts with other online formations like communities and organizations.
summerofprotocols.comFor an answer, consider a hive of bees. Bees are remarkably efficient at finding food. According to Thomas Seeley, author of The Wisdom of the Hive, a typical bee colony can search six or more kilometers from the hive, and if there is a flower patch within two kilometers of the hive, the bees have a better-than-half chance of finding it. How do the
... See moreThe behavior of each bee in a colony is governed by a simple set of rules that, through interactions with the environment and the other bees, leads to an end that was no part of any individual bee’s intention, allowing the colony as a whole to thrive—as if by an invisible wing. Put another way, bees are relatively dumb. Beehives are remarkably smar
... See moreStigmergy is the name for the way complex activities or structures can emerge without any kind of central planning and control. In this case, individual ants leave traces in the environment that coordinate, trigger, and channel further behavior by other ants.