Is swarm intelligence the key to our future? An award-winning photograph of toad larvae hints at the links between nature and technology
Tadpole party wins top wildlife prize
Is swarm intelligence the key to our future? An award-winning photograph of toad larvae hints at the links between nature and technology
A falcon swoops down to pluck a butterfly from the sky. A baby macaque monkey sleeps in the arms of its mother.
These are some of the stunning award-winning images in this year's Natural History Museum wildlife photographer of the year competition.
The overall winner shows a swarm of western toad tadpoles in Cedar Lake, Canada.
The photograph is also a glimpse into one of nature's most vitalVery important. systems: the swarm. Swarms are groups of animals that seem to know how to act and move together, without a central, guiding intelligence.
Understanding swarms is transforming science. They can be applied to everything from traffic jams to infections and may help AI create complicated systems that run without human involvement.
But teaching machines to run without human control might be dangerous. If dronesDrones are aircraft flown with no humans on board. They are used for many different purposes. could operate without people, for example, they might cause terrible destruction.
Is swarm intelligence the key to our future?
Yes! Understanding animal swarms could allow us to create super-intelligent machines.
No! Group intelligence is a moral as well as a technical question. Armies of weapons operating without human control sound like a science fiction nightmare.
Keywords
Vital - Very important.
Drones - Drones are aircraft flown with no humans on board. They are used for many different purposes.
Tadpole party wins top wildlife prize
Glossary
Vital - Very important.
Drones - Drones are aircraft flown with no humans on board. They are used for many different purposes.