Using artificial intelligence to understand collective behavior

Demand for models that are "closer to biology" To carry out their interdisciplinary collaborative research, the scientists utilized data on locust behaviour from the Cluster of Excellence "Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour" in Konstanz, which carries out internationally leading research on collective behaviour and is being funded through the German Excellence Strategy since the beginning of 2019. Biologists in particular are demanding that models explaining collective behaviour be designed to be "closer to biology." Most current models were devised by physicists who assume that interacting individuals are influenced by a physical force. As a result, they don't necessarily perceive individuals within swarms to be agents, but instead, as points such as interacting magnetization units on a grid. "The models work well in physics and have a good empirical basis there. However, they do not model the interaction between living individuals," says Thomas Müller.