swarm computing

Terms from Artificial Intelligence: humans at the heart of algorithms

Swarm computing is based on analogies with social insects such as ants and bees. These insects behave in intelligent ways as a collective even though each individual insect is very simple. In swarm computing many simple individual agents are prodused which explore a spece, for example to find an optmal solution. They operate semi-independently with a level of simple communication that nudges their behaviour. For examaple, if an agent in the swarm has found a good solution it may retrace the intermediate states it took to get there labelling them as good, but with decaying strengh, thus mirroring phermone trails. Swarm computing is similar to {[ensemble method}}, but the latter are more about forming a diverse group of simple {[decsions making}} agents that together are used repeatedly to solve similar problems, wheres in swarm computing the agents are near identical and it usualy only the final result that matters.

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