SWARMS: The Intelligence of the Masses DVD
Scientists have long operated under the principle that intelligent behavior must be directed by a centralized consciousness. This program examines evidence that the act of swarming creates an altogether different form of intelligence: decentralized awareness, consciousness with no center. The following facets of swarm intelligence are addressed: how individual actions within a flock of starlings create a large-scale system that controls itself and makes collective decisions; how local decisions within a colony of red harvester ants positively shape the aggregate well-being of the entire colony; the limited ability of a single fish to manipulate the movement of its school through bad decision-making; the application of swarm intelligence to robotics; and whether, or to what extent, crowds of people self-organize through the collective dynamics of swarm logic.
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