Weizmann Institute (Israel): Ants Cooperate Smarter than Humans

Anyone who has dealt with ants in the kitchen knows that ants are highly social creatures. Humans are social creatures too. The question quickly arose as to who could cooperate better. Scientists at the Weizmann Institute (Israel) designed an experiment with surprising results.

Prof. Ofer Feinerman and his team at the Weizmann Institute of Science used this shared trait to conduct a fascinating evolutionary competition asking: Who will be better at manoeuvring a large load through a maze? The surprising results, being published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), shed new light on group decision-making, and on the pros and cons of cooperation versus going it alone.

The researchers created two sets of mazes that differed only in size, to match the dimensions of ants and humans, as well as groups of different sizes. Recruiting study participants was easier in the case of humans, who volunteered simply because they were asked to participate, and probably because they liked the idea of a competition. Ants, on the other hand, are far from competitive. They joined because they were misled into thinking that the heavy load was a juicy edible morsel they were transporting into their nest, explained the Weizmann Institute in its press release.

And the winner is the ANT. “Not only did groups of ants perform better than individual ants, but in some cases they did better than humans. Groups of ants acted together in a calculated and strategic manner, exhibiting collective memory that helped them persist in a particular direction of motion and avoid repeated mistakes. Humans, on the contrary, failed to significantly improve their performance when acting in groups. When communication between group members was restricted to resemble that of ants, their performance even dropped compared to that of individuals. They tended to opt for “greedy” solutions – which seemed attractive in the short term but were not beneficial in the long term – and, according to the researchers, opted for the lowest common denominator,” explained the Weizmann Institute in its press release.

A big lesson for Israeli drivers too. Better not to seek the greedy solution. Be smart, be fast, be an ant.

based on the press release of the Weizmann Institute. Selected as relevant/shortened/lectured by VonNaftali