Artificial intelligence is taking off. Virtual assistants, computer chips, cameras and software packages are increasingly taking advantage of machine learning to create pseudo-intelligent, versatile problem-solvers. But some of the most profound insights about intelligence come from an unlikely source: slime moulds.
The Remarkable Slime Mould
Physarum polycephalum doesn't have a brain. It doesn't have neurons. It's a single-celled organism that spreads across surfaces looking for food. And yet, when scientists placed food sources at locations corresponding to Tokyo's train stations, the slime mould created a network almost identical to Tokyo's actual rail system.
This wasn't a fluke. The slime mould has been shown to solve mazes, optimise supply chains, and find the shortest paths between multiple points—problems that computers require sophisticated algorithms to tackle.
- •Requires explicit programming
- •Sequential processing
- •Energy intensive
- •Brittle to unexpected inputs
- ◆Emergent behaviour from simple rules
- ◆Massively parallel processing
- ◆Extremely energy efficient
- ◆Adaptive and robust
What This Means for AI
The lesson from slime moulds isn't that we should replace computers with fungi. It's that intelligence can emerge from simple systems following simple rules—and that our current approach to AI, which focuses on ever-larger neural networks and ever-more compute power, might not be the only path forward.
Nature has been optimising intelligent systems for billions of years. The slime mould represents millions of years of evolutionary refinement. We've been building AI for decades. Perhaps we should spend more time learning from biology.
Practical Applications
Researchers are already applying slime mould-inspired algorithms to real problems: network design, urban planning, supply chain optimisation. These bio-inspired approaches often find solutions that traditional algorithms miss.
At Kablamo, we're fascinated by these unconventional approaches to intelligence. The best solutions often come from looking at problems through unexpected lenses. Sometimes that lens is a brainless organism on a petri dish.
"Intelligence isn't about having a brain—it's about solving problems."
The Bigger Picture
The slime mould reminds us that intelligence is a spectrum, not a binary. It emerges in many forms, through many mechanisms. As we build artificial intelligence, we should remember that we're not creating something unprecedented—we're joining a long tradition of intelligent systems that nature has been refining for eons.
The question isn't just "how do we make AI smarter?" It's "what can nature teach us about intelligence that we haven't yet learned?"