Yesterday I was eating my dinner on my deck, when I felt something crawling on my leg. Fortunately it wasn't one of the spiders or wasps that frequent my apartment's deck. Instead it was a small ant. I brushed it off and continued my meal.
Later that evening I went out on my deck to straighten things up, and noticed a small clump of ants happily devouring a crumb of food I had accidentally dropped during my meal earlier.
A lot of people detest ants, and I can understand why. They have a knack for getting into just about anything, and they have beady little eyes. My apartment remains safe; the little intruders crawl up the concrete support posts, rummage around people's decks, and then leave. Fortunately we lack the more dangerous varieties of ants here in D.C., and so a little observation is easy.
I'm telling you about all this because ants are actually very similar to another creature we're very familiar with: humans. Not only that,
but they can Google.
Okay, so they can't actually use the computer. The most they can do is throw up while playing merry-go-round on the case fans, and get squished under the keys of the keyboard. Nonetheless, ants behave remarkably like Internet users, and they can show us a lot.
Superorganisms, such as ants, are colonies of many individuals who exist in a single community. Furthermore, superorganisms don't have leaders, per se. While some have queens, the level of direct instruction is incredibly small, or non-existent. When one considers the accomplishments of the colony, and the mechanics required to do such things, these little critters are really quite astounding.
One of these feats is the ability to find things, assess their value, and disseminate to the masses.
The ant crawling on my leg during dinner was likely a scout. For whatever reason, the little ant left her colony (all ants are females) and headed out in an arbitrary direction in search of things. Curiously, despite a lack of long-range communication, blog, or speech, the ant's discoveries will be utilized by the colony, and very quickly. How does it do this? How can one relatively isolated creature, among thousands, impart so much knowledge to others so effectively?
Ants are naturally inquisitive. They interact with their world by directly engaging in anything they find. To tell if something is edible, they eat it. To find out if something is dangerous, they touch it. Sound familiar? It should, because that's exactly the way most people explore the Internet. They see an interesting link, and they click it. They find a picture, sound, or bit of text that intrigues them, and they begin to explore. Using a mouse and keyboard, users "feeler" the web until they find what they want.
Identifying POI's is just one part of the game, though. Ants not only have to find things, but they communicate their findings to the colony, both to benefit the colony, and to gain assistance in their own challenges.
Each little ant does something very cool as it explores. It dots a chemical trail behind it as it searches. If the search proves unfruitful, the ant can retrace her steps, and soon the trail will fade away from lack of potency. However, if the ant finds something, she heads back to the colony trailing a strong, solid chemical trail behind her.
Other ants who are following the trails of others, detect her strong scent trail and know there's something possibly important along it. As they follow and also encounter that something, they too leave heavy trails as they return home. Eventually the trail becomes so strong that many ants abandon their wanderings and follow the chemical highway.
But here's something else. As the ants discover things, they do something remarkable. Not only do they return home leaving a trail behind them, but they take a piece of what they found with them. Once the ant encounters another, she shares what she's found with that ant, showing the worth of her discovery. The other ants see that this one has returned home, and it has found something tasty. Perhaps its trail is worth following...
We can associate with this activity quite easily. Users on the Internet often set out through the digital world, looking for something. As they feeler their way around the web, eventually they stumble upon something interesting. Without knowing their destination, users crawl around the web, looking for things that seem to be what they're looking for, and they click on it. If the page or object turns out to be something other than what they wanted, they might mark the page as interesting and move on, or simply move on. Soon, the links go dead, the history is lost, and all is forgotten. However, when something is found and it is correct, the magic begins.
After marking the site or capturing the object, users often rush to forums of communication; email, IM, chatrooms, their personal website, and blogs. They show what they have found to others. Here's a prime example:
A friend came to me with an email. He had recently discovered an online Flash game called
Desktop Tower Defense. In his email he left a link, and a screenshot.
Looking at the tasty screenshot morsel my fellow Internet user brought me, I followed his link and arrived at the DTD website.
To humans, the Internet is our forest, full of laborious climbs that lead to potential rewards, as well as dangers. We can't see the Internet as a whole, there is no six-foot-high view down upon the undergrowth, telling us what's ahead, or to go left instead of right to find the dropped candybar. But like ants, we have help.
When an ant leaves its nest, it encounters a variety of choices. Despite popular belief, ants have a surprising amount of free will. They are born with certain desires, but how they fulfill these desires and when, is entirely up to the individual. There are scents in the air, chemical trails on the ground, and as each ant passes another, it momentarily feelers its comrades; this not only affirms the social bond, but gives each the opportunity to inspect what the other has been doing. The ants have built their own search engine, and with it they can find anything, quickly and easily.
Ant search criteria may be very simple, but the results can be highly refined. Chemical trails and scents can tell an ant if the trail leads to food, another nest, or a foe, what kind of food or danger, and how many others have followed. Category, type, hitcount. Maybe the ant is searching for tree sap. She's likely to follow trails that not only indicate food, but smell of tree sap. The strength of the trail tells her whether this is a new find, or something a lot of ants are taking advantage of. As she ventures along, she'll encounter other ants along the trail, and sample what they have found. Two trails with similar qualities present a choice. Does the ant go left, or right? The trail with more users may indicate a good source of food, but the other trail may have a scent that indicates a more valuable source of food. Fresh sap verses week-old goo.
Many people appear to be visiting Slashdot, but more useful information may be at this other site made by an expert on a subject.
People use search engines as their feelers for the web. They type in what they are looking for, and the search engine returns a series of digital scent trails. The users see what kind of result each one is, and how many people have visited. They also see a small blurb about the trail, giving them a sample of the find. Unfortunately for humans, other web crawlers generally don't pass by their desks while they're surfing, handing off bits of their finds. Instead, humans must utilize a different form of passing communication. They do this with technologies such as forums, blogs, newsletters, and IM. From here they can see what's going on, and see what other people are doing.
Hey, these people are talking about
BILL-ant Robots. What's that?
Ants aren't devoid of these benefits. Although humans would like to think they invented the chatroom, sorry...these little ants have been doing it for well over 300-million years. That's a lot of backlog!
Ants often gather for no apparent reason, both inside and outside their nest. They are not drawn together by chemical trails or food, but instead by the urge to interact. They are, after all, social insects. They touch and feeler each other, sharing bits of found food, smells, and experiences. From here, individual ants can find out what is happening to the colony as a whole, and they can figure out what it is they want to do. For instance, an ant visiting an insect forum may discover that no one has found any food, and that crops (ant stomachs) are empty. This may spur other ants to go exploring for food. Or maybe the chatroom is too full; time to go find a new nest site. In another case, an ant who has detected a threat may go to the gathering, where others can smell and sense the agitation, stirring ants into action to protect the colony.
Whether we know it or not, humans play both the role of scout, and curious colony. When we search the web, we frequently are searching for what others have already found. We search for what satisfies our needs, follow the trails, and then we pass that knowledge on to others so they can find that satisfaction, too. Sometimes, we stumble upon something that we didn't know about, and in these cases we truly are the little scout, finding the dropped candybar. Pretty soon we have told all our friends, and they come to share the candybar. Then their friends, and their friend's friends, and then the news hits the colony and everyone knows about it.
So you may think you're alone, but when you're on the Internet you're actually part of a supercolony, following the trails laid down by others, while doing a little scouting of your own. Think about that the next time yer feelers fondle something new and interesting, and you go blog it. Where's your colony headed? I know where mine is headed...it's time for a candybar!
