9: Bees

Bees Are Astonishingly Good at Making Decisions—and This Computer Model Explains How That’s Possible The only other animals known to beat the speed-accuracy tradeoff are humans and primates. ...... How then can a bee, with its tiny yet remarkable brain, be performing on a par with primates? ....... Our model is plausible for how bees are such effective and fast decision makers. What’s more, it gives us a template for how we might build systems—such as autonomous robots for exploration or mining—with these features. .

All Animal Intelligence Was Shaped by Just Five Leaps in Brain Evolution . Insects have recurrent brains. The brilliance of bees—their ability to quickly learn different types of art, to recognize abstract concepts, and to navigate to goal locations—is all enabled by their recurrent brains......... These networks of recurrent systems are why birds are so good at learning complex sequences in songs; why birds, rats, and dogs are great at learning what, where, and when things happen; and why monkeys can learn new ways to manipulate objects to solve problems and make rudimentary tools. ......... The human brain is reflective, and this capability has enabled our imagination, our thought processes, and our rich mental lives. It also opened the door for the use of symbolic language, which expanded our minds even further as it helped us communicate and coordinate so efficiently with each other. ....... Our story describes five fundamentally different types of brain. One is not better than another, each is just different. ......... We might like to claim we are the smartest animal, and depending how you measure it, perhaps we are. But a bee can do things a human simply cannot. .......... Our intelligence demands an extended childhood, in which we can’t even walk for a year; a bee is fully functional from the moment its wings dry as it emerges from its cell. A bee can learn to navigate for kilometers around its hive with less than 20 minutes of flight time; I still get lost walking home from the train. ....... And a jellyfish or a worm might not be Einstein, but they can tolerate a level of damage that would kill or paralyze a mammal. ....... Different types of brains suit animals to different lifestyles, and support different types of animal minds. These five transitions help us make sense of our place among the stunning diversity of animal intelligences.