The collective intelligence of the team in a Flight of Starlings: Swarm Intelligence

The collective intelligence of the team in a Flight of Starlings: Swarm Intelligence

For a certain period, at the beginning of the 2000s the concept of swarm intelligence, popular in the 1950s and 1960s, returned to fashion. It is inspired by a natural behavioral phenomenon very evident in the flocks of birds and in the flocks / schools of other terrestrial or aquatic animals and in swarms (bees, ants, etc.). From the coexistence in large groups, bottom-up, a widespread ability to act / react all together to external stimuli emerges and is so structured that it is recognized as a real form of ‘intelligence’.

With Paolo Chinetti we have always thought of the team as a group of people whose individualities contribute to collective behavior. The intelligence of the swarm evolves one step earlier (or after, according to your point of view!): The individual is diluted in the overall action of the large group. It seemed to us that this could be a good starting point for exploring an essential concept for the team: the team’s self-awareness and its collective emotional intelligence.

The intelligence of the swarm is an instinctive collective reaction, not necessarily guided by a leader, and which expresses the most basic form of adaptability of a group in the animal world. Giorgio Parisi, in his beautiful book ‘In un volo di storni’ tells us that ‘at the end of a long analysis of the data and delicate theoretical considerations, it was understood that the quantitative behavior of the swarm can be understood in great detail: birds follow simple rules and move according to the position of their neighbors. The information about a turn runs fast between one bird and another, like a very efficient word of mouth ‘.

Under the point of view of the swarm’s intelligence, the solution to a problem emerges as a result of the collective action of the swarm members, not as individual action. In a nutshell, collective action is achieved through three key principles:

· la comunicazione: gli sciami usano sia la comunicazione diretta che indiretta. Quella diretta: mentre gli umani usano il linguaggio, gli sciami usano il tatto, ad esempio il tocco delle antenne nel caso delle formiche. Quella indiretta: mentre e gli umani favoriscono il linguaggio del corpo e i gesti, gli sciami si affidano a lasciare “tracce” (chimiche, ormonali, ecc.) nell’ambiente per guidare il comportamento degli altri.

Queste forme di comunicazione facilitano il secondo principio dell’intelligenza dello sciame:

communication: swarms use both direct and indirect communication. The direct one: while humans use language, swarms use touch, for example the touch of the antennae in the case of ants. The indirect one: while humans favor body language and gestures, swarms rely on leaving “traces” (chemical, hormonal, etc.) in the environment to guide the behavior of others.
These forms of communication facilitate the second principle of swarm intelligence:
awareness, which is the collective’s ability to stay in tune with the surrounding environment.
Once the swarm focuses its environment, the third principle,
self-determination, is used to perform the work. Self-determination means, for the swarm, that, while each individual is working on a particular task, they are also dealing with potential system damage and are able to switch between tasks as needed, without having to adhere to strict hierarchies or to central control.

When combined, these three characteristics make swarm members interchangeable: an individual currently performing one task can replace another individual performing another task at any time.

And here is the fourth essential feature:

collective self-healing or self-healing behavior, which provides the swarm with the ability to cope with crisis and adapt to changes in the environment. When faced with the operational problem of a component, another takes over and supports it or replaces it.

The intelligence of the swarm has led to the development in nature of real super-organisms, social collectives of animals, where the division of labor is so specialized that individuals are unable to survive alone for long periods of time. but they always need to be part of the collective. Does it remind you of anything about us human beings? Ever thought of trying to survive alone in the woods?

• communication: swarms use both direct and indirect communication. The direct one: while humans use language, swarms use touch, for example the touch of the antennae in the case of ants. The indirect one: while humans favor body language and gestures, swarms rely on leaving “traces” (chemical, hormonal, etc.) in the environment to guide the behavior of others.

These forms of communication facilitate the second principle of swarm intelligence:

• awareness, which is the collective’s ability to stay in tune with the surrounding environment.

Once the swarm focuses its environment, the third principle,

• self-determination, is used to perform the work. Self-determination means, for the swarm, that, while each individual is working on a particular task, they are also dealing with potential system damage and are able to switch between tasks as needed, without having to adhere to strict hierarchies or to central control.

When combined, these three characteristics make swarm members interchangeable: an individual currently performing one task can replace another individual performing another task at any time.

And here is the fourth essential feature:

• collective self-healing or self-healing behavior, which provides the swarm with the ability to cope with crisis and adapt to changes in the environment. When faced with the operational problem of a component, another takes over and supports it or replaces it.

As human beings, our ‘markers’ are sounds, gestures, rituals, and, finally, language. Thanks to them we were able to socially organize ourselves into groups, which gave us a strategic advantage for survival as a species.

Swarm Intelligence presents us with the example of an instinctive generalized collective awareness, which emerges from the awareness of the single individual. In the case of the team, we can define it as the shared belief among all members that mutual interactions are guided (a) by the perception of one’s emotional and existential state and (b) by keeping focused on the events of the present.

Being dedicated to the common effort, being present, gathering information and making it flow. Like in a swarm… no, like in a team!