Bees are one of nature’s most capable navigators, experts say
Scientists in South Yorkshire are looking to harness the power of bee brains to improve artificial intelligence (AI) systems and devices.
Scientists at the University of Sheffield say bees have brains the size of a sesame seed and are thought to excel at making quick decisions.
Experts have investigated how bees decide which flowers to search for nectar.
Research leader Dr Hadi Maboudi said the aim was to develop a skilled machine that “can think like a bee.”
In this study, researchers trained 20 bees to recognize five different colored flowers. Blue flowers contained sugar syrup, green flowers sometimes contained bitter tonic water, and the rest of the colors contained glucose.
They then placed the bees in a custom garden filled with flowers filled with only distilled water and observed how the bees behaved.
Experiments show that they target flowers that appear to have food to build their hives and arrive there in an average of 0.6 seconds, just as quickly as they avoid flowers that appear to have no food.
“What we’ve done in this study reveals the underlying mechanisms that drive these amazing decision-making abilities,” said Dr Maboudi, from the University of Sheffield’s Department of Computer Science, who collaborated with researchers at Macquarie University in Sydney. It is to be done, ”he said.
“We can use these to design better, more robust and risk-averse robots and autonomous machines that can think like bees – some of nature’s most efficient navigators. It is now.”
Scientists say the study will allow developers to apply the results to improve AI-powered products.
