In
the near future, we might have to be a little more careful about
swatting pesky bees while we’re trying to enjoy some time outdoors.
British researchers at the Universities of Sussex and Sheffield are developing a computer model of a bee’s brain that
they hope can help scientists better understand the brains of
more-complex animals, such as humans, and perhaps power artificial
intelligence systems for bee-like robots.
Called
“Green Brain,” the project is trying to advance the science of AI
beyond systems that just follow a predetermined set of rules, and into
an area where AI systems can actually act autonomously and respond to
sensory signals. The researchers are focusing on the parts of a bee’s
brain responsible for vision and sense of smell, and will expect the
system to be able to find the “source of particular odors or gases in
the same way that a bee can identify particular flowers,” among other
things.
Although
a very difficult mission to accomplish, the relatively narrow focus of
this project should make it easier to pull off than other AI efforts that focus on more-complex human brains.
Scientists have tried modeling human decision-making for decades, but
humans’ irrationality and seemingly random choices make it difficult to
do so outside of specific situations or controlled experiments.
The
Green Brain team suggests its AI system could be used to power robotic
bees that can help pollinate plants in the face of declining bees
populations worldwide, and also could be beneficial in search-and-rescue
missions. In order to carry out any of these tasks, researchers have to
design systems that are capable of adapting to the world around them.
Especially when acting as a research tool for understanding how bees
react to sensory stimuli in the manners they do, too strong a reliance
on fixed rules and instructions about how it should act might limit the
effectiveness of a robotic bee.
The researchers working on Green Brain think its work on AI might physically manifest itself in a project like RoboBees,
which is currently underway by a group at Harvard University. Aside
from pollination and search-and-rescue, the RoboBees team suggests its
robotic bees could be used for weather-mapping, traffic -monitoring and
even military surveillance. That project also focuses heavily on bees’
colony behavior to coordinate group decision-making and action.
Of
course, robotic bees are as much hardware as they are artificial
intelligence — how they consume and process data will affect how the
decisions they ultimately make — which is why various research projects
might want to combine their forces to some degree. Whereas Green Brain
has partnered with GPU manufacturer Nvidia to ensure fast modeling and
fast calculations within the bees’ brains, RoboBees is working on the
whole package. It’s building sensors, wings and everything else
necessary to make a robotic bee fly and sense the world like an actual
insect.
Feature image courtesy of Shutterstock user Andrej Vodolazhskyi.
