Animal–robots collective intelligence

Abstract

In this paper we try to define – as ethologists – the easiest ways for creating such a synergy around a common project: mixed groups of interacting animals and robots. The following aspects are explored. (1) During this century, ethology has accumulated numerous results showing that animals' interactions could be rather simple signals and it is possible to interact with animals not only by mimicking their behaviors but also by making specially designed and often simple artifacts. (2) The theory of self-organization in animal societies shows that very simple, but numerous, interactions taking place between individuals may ensure complex performances and produce Collective Intelligence (CI) at the level of the group. This context is the most interesting to develop mixed animal–robots interactions. (3) An experiment using an artifact interacting within a CI system in the wild (gull flocks) is developed. (4) Cases of robots making CI on their own have been developed. (5) Considering (4) and (5), what are the expected difficulties to mix robots and animals in CI systems. (6) Why develop such mixed societies? The control of interactions between artificial systems and living organisms is a key aspect in the design of artificial systems, as well as in many agricultural, medical, scientific and technical fields. Such developments refer generally to human–robots interactions, leading to further complexity of the behavior and algorithms of robots. However, complex performances do not always require complex individual behavior and interesting developments may also refer to simpler interactions. As far as we know, experiments studying animal–robots interactions are rather anecdotal, with a naive point of view on animal behavior and are often published in non-scientific journals. However, we are very convinced that robotics has much to learn from ethology while robotics in turn may surely help ethology to explore animal behavior. In this paper we try to define – as ethologists – the easiest ways for creating such a synergy around a common project: mixed groups of interacting animals and robots.