Is Swarm Leadership Important for the Robotics Revolution?

I had the great privilege yesterday of meeting Floris Koot, the Dutch exponent of Swarm Leadership, and the co-founder of the Knowmad school for "older students", aged 18-38. Whilst I had co-design, co-production, co-publication and co-learning firmly on my radar, I had not yet considered in detail how co-leadership could be a useful, perhaps even pragmatic focus for folk.

I was aware of the concept of flying geese, where leadership rotates as needed to achieve necessary tasks. But Floris explained a key example, going some steps further.

He had been asked to help organise a festival event, where he explained to "his team" the behaviours needed for swarm organisation and execution.

In brief: Help those who need it, eg carrying heavy items, be highly mindful, execute whatever job you see needs doing. And here is the beautiful situation he cites: "I was carrying some blankets to put them away. Someone stopped me to ask how something else needed to be done. I put the blankets down momentarily to explain. When I turned back, someone had already seized on them to get that job done and move us all onto the next one".

So, no specific roles, no specific jobs, just everyone pitching in doing what was needed.

Minimal planning, yet an excellent result. Floris also cites another example where he asked a dance troupe to perform an impromptu dance without any preparation. His guidance in overview that they be mindful of one another while they were performing. The results, says Floris, were spectacular. He hopes next time to be able to capture the phenomenon on video, so as to share it with others. And this thinking also mirrors CIA thinking on Complex Adaptive Structures. Where a structure is likely to experience high levels of change and volatility, to what extent does excessive effort planning and setting up supporting structures actually help or hinder the performance of that structure? How much value does management add, or detract? The traditional view of communities in favour of systems is that understanding a system, designing a system, monitoring a system, leads to predictable results. Good for manufacturing, good for service, good for science, or so it seems. But is it always necessary? Perhaps not, where human creativity, generosity and adaptability can be called upon. Are we still slavishly following the process oriented, production line ideas of nineteenth century "factory-ready" education, which indeed has led to the early levels of and incarnations of robotics we see?

And if we need to be thinking differently about the role humans can play, can we still find a role to play alongside the robotic servants we envisage in the near future?