I was watching an amazing flock of starlings the other day. While geese fly in impressive military formations, the crazy starlings move in a chaotic swarm. Clouds of hundreds or thousands of them sweep back and forth across the sky, appearing to move with one mind (as illustrated in this video clip). But they don’t have one mind. They are guided by many small bird brains. And this is what makes their apparent coordination so extraordinary.
Common starlings – introduced into the United States strangely enough in a misguided attempt to bring to America every species of bird mentioned in Shakespeare’s works – are rather dull and unremarkable upon close inspection. An article in an Australian government publication is even less flattering, calling them “one of the most invasive bird pests worldwide.” But, as a group in the air, they are unequaled in the beauty of their symphonic sweeps. We marvel to see six highly-trained Blue Angels run wing-to-wing in their Delta formation without crashing, the height of aviation by the world’s most intelligent creature. But to my mind, these small birds are as amazing.
So how do all these birds in this vast network get on the same page without any control towers or flight controllers? Studies of these birds have indicated that the actions of the birds can be described by a simple set of rules: alignment, separation, and cohesion. The birds move in the general direction of the birds in their vicinity, keep a certain separation from those around them, and demonstrate cohesion with their flock mates. In 1986, Craig Reynolds showed that computer birds programmed with a similar set of simple rules could exhibit flocking behavior. He called his virtual creatures “boids” and set them loose to soar back and forth across computer screens. The animation appears so life-like that it became the basis for the cinematic movement of a flock of penguins running down the streets of Gotham City in Tim Burton’s 1992 film Batman Returns.
Without rigid coordination, the networks of starlings stay together. We see similar flocks online, as humans organize themselves around simple platforms and rules. The question is what kind of rules and platforms lead to well functioning networks? How can independent actors be brought together? How do we transform common starlings – common employees, common customers, or common Internet users – into an uncommonly beautiful swarm?
- Robert Gunther
|
