
Lazy ants make themselves useful in unexpected ways - dnetesn
https://phys.org/news/2017-09-lazy-ants-unexpected-ways.html
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Dowwie
Fascinating! Ant colony load balancing ^_^

tldr: "... the colony responds to the loss of highly active workers by
replacing them with inactive ones"

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kyletyo
And all this is happening with a spec of dust sized brain for processing.
Meanwhile we need acres of datacenters, satellites in space and lasers on top
of car to stay on a road. We have obviously missed something.

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adrianN
If you're now thinking "Why don't we just use insects to control our robots?",
you're not alone:
[http://www.conceptlab.com/roachbot/](http://www.conceptlab.com/roachbot/)

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jv22222
That is very interesting. Worthy of it's own spot at the top of HN.

Thanks for posting.

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Jedd
Is this new information?

John Ralston-Saul wrote in The Doubter's Companion in 1994:

"Ants do nothing 71.5 per cent of the time. They are trying to think of what
can usefully be done next. And this in spite of their reputation—shared with
beavers and BEES — as hard-working role models for the human race.

"Most humans in positions of responsibility work more than 28.5 per cent of
the time. It could be argued that, being brighter than ants, we need less time
to think. This is a technically correct and reassuring argument. Yet a
comparison of the incidence of error among ants versus that among human beings
would not come out in our favour. We could counter that, by risking error,
human society — or at least human knowledge — has progressed, while that of
the ants remains stable. But if we are so bright, then why are we so eager to
spend as long as possible on the non-intellectual tasks which hard work
represents, while desperately economizing on the time spent thinking? An
outside observer, an ant for example, might wonder whether we are afraid of
our ability to think and more precisely of the self-doubt which it involves."

Unfortunately no citations relevant to this bit are forthcoming.

Searching backwards - for ants and 71% - finds a reference in sciencemag[1]
from 2015. This in turn leads to a paper[2] citing this same number. Mind,
both are some two decades after Saul's work was published.

[1] [http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/10/most-worker-ants-
are-...](http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/10/most-worker-ants-are-slackers)

[2]
[https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00265-015-1958-...](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00265-015-1958-1)

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ChuckMcM
I don't think the author was claiming to be the first to recognize this
situation, but as you've noted there is very little published work on it. A
lot of science is like this, in that there is an effect or behavior that
several people have noted over the years, but no one has sat down and tried to
analyze it.

In the case of Ralston-Saul, they speculated that the ants were 'thinking
about what to do next'. It is an interesting hypothesis, but untested. In the
paper the authors removed 20% of the idle ants and observed they were not
replaced. There was also no mention of the activities of the hive slowing
down. I think it would be a fair argument that if the ants were 'thinking'
then removing ants would slow down their execution. But given that it doesn't,
then the hypothesis that they are is probably incorrect.

So we have an observation and a hypothesis in 1994 but no science. Going back
and testing those observations helps us learn what is really going on and
"know" with more certainly what isn't.

So perhaps it would be better to call it new research on previously speculated
about behaviors.

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codeflo
Maybe part of it is energy efficiency. For humans, being idle doesn't save all
that many calories compared to how much we burn anyway to keep our body
temperature constant. That's probably different for ants, and thus, when
individual ants are not running around without purpose, the whole colony can
get by with less food.

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dood
Considering the colony as a superorganism, this could be primarily to serve
the purpose of redundancy/slack, so that losses or shocks can be continually
replaced/responded to, in order to maintain a systemic homeostasis. Though 40%
of individuals inactive does seem a large proportion, but perhaps they use
little energy.

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otakucode
I think that is a big part of it. There appears to be no consideration that
those "hard working" ants are not pure good for the colony. They're burning
significant energy. And if that energy is being burned in counter-productive
or non-productive ways, they are a net harm to the colony, not a benefit.

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zghst
I think this can apply widely across the animal kingdom. Only a certain amount
of workers can be effective once a level of productivity is achieved.
Operating at full capacity might not be possible or evolutionary effective in
this environment. Different colonies with more environmental pressures
probably have higher engagement/productivity.

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JulianWasTaken
Is there a recommended book on ant behavior? Have always been casually
interested, ever since reading about the bit of it mentioned in _Surely You
're Joking, Mr. Feynman_.

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michaelmachine
Ants at Work by Deborah Gordon is a really great book.

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INTPenis
So they're not lazy, they're just unemployed.

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iRobbery
_coughs_ "between jobs"

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loco5niner
So... ant teenagers?

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lazyant
ah anthropomorphizing animals, never disappoints

