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Swarm Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence (CivBE).png

Secondary technology of Tier N/A

Science 1160 Science
Requires N/A
Leads to None

+25Harmony Harmony

Buildings enabled Bytegeist
Improvements enabled None
Satellites enabled N/A
Units enabled N/A

Unlocks the Bytegeist Wonder. Required to complete the Transcendence victory.

"Command decisions are not made on a single data point. They are the result of a thousand data points crystallized in a single moment."

- Rejinaldo Leonardo Pedro Bolivar de Alencar-Araripe, Principles of Modern War


One revolutionary approach to artificial intelligence is the establishment of a population of nano-computers or –boids that evolve into a decentralized, self-organized swarm intelligence, the end result of particle metaheuristic optimization. The individual agents follow relatively simple programs, and local and perhaps random interactions between these lead to the emergence of “intelligent” global perceptive, problem-solving and creative capabilities. Various organizational models have been theorized for the swarm (ant colony, grey wolf, river dynamic, intelligent water drops, and so forth), with wide divergence of opinion among researchers as to resilience to local minima due to the number of individuals. In each case, it has been noted that only by making the nano-computers self-replicating would artificial intelligence be possible, as the “critical mass” of individuals for swarm intelligence could not be known ahead of the process occurring. However, this approach to creating artificial intelligence through a swarm raises concerns over control, given that unlike a traditional network it would be difficult to shut down the process once begun … again, due to the nature of a swarm.