[FRIAM] collective sheepishness

[Roger Critchlow]

Hmm, not apparently users of arxiv.org either.

Here are the raw videos of sheep in pastures, might be good bedtime
watching?  https://zenodo.org/record/6905807

In my experience, swarms are following the mouse, or chasing a randomly
fleeing agent, or just wandering around randomly, or following some
gradient of pheromone left by Guerin.  I honestly never thought sheep went
anywhere on purpose unless being herded.  But according to Wikipedia they
have dominance hierarchies in the flock and score as only slightly less
intelligent than pigs.

There are reports of a flock learning to cross a cattle guard by rolling
over the grid on their backs, though it may be a shaggy dog story.  It
sounds like a trick some bored kids on holiday might teach a flock.

I don't know how crowd leader selection goes.  It sounds like the
presumption was that the dominant sheep had the job until it got fired.
But this research suggests that sheep aren't so dogmatic.  In fact, you can
almost hear Graeber saying:  "see, even sheep aren't that attached to
dominance hierarchies"

-- rec --

On Mon, Nov 21, 2022 at 12:56 PM Steve Smith <sasmyth at swcp.com> wrote:

> Roger -
>
> From hackernews
> https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-022-01769-8
> corrected link from comments to
> "Sheep flocks alternate their leader and achieve collective intelligence"
> The secret sauce of american democracy.
>
> -- rec --
>
> I wasn't able to read the (paywall) article, but was intrigued by the
> abstract's implications.
>
> The following concluding statement felt a little *projective*
>
> *Our analysis suggests that it is possible to conceive intermittent
> collective strategies that take advantage of both hierarchical and
> democratic organizational schemes.*
>
> But I assume the terms of question (democratic/hierarchical) are shortcuts
> for more subtle/complex concepts that they elaborate in the article.
>
> I'm not a close follower of Swarm literature but I assume there is already
> precedent for thinking about "leader election" (to defer to the democracy
> analogy)... maybe you or someone else has more insight into what they are
> saying here and how it fits into the larger body of study?
>
> - Steve
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