Ants, Orcs and Al Qaeda: God’s Prophets? (Guest Blogger: Ryan)

This guest blog is by my friend Ryan Hollingsworth from Chicago.  I LOVE this topic for so many reasons, not least because it is so provocative!  ;)   We had some great conversations about the relevance of these issues for the church when he and his wife Andrea visited us over the summer.  I'm eager to see where the conversation goes from here.  From Ryan:
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Next June, I will graduate with my Master of Divinity degree and hope to become a Christian pastor. So I have a professional interest in the church. But I also have a personal passion—an almost visceral obsession with the church. So it is no surprise that things I learn and encounter in a variety of settings tend to coalesce as ecclesiological musings. “What does this mean for the church?” is a common question that frames and propels my thoughts.

It is this question that I hope echoes in the background of your mind as you read the rest of this post. As we explore a relatively new trend that is finding its way into many fields of study and application—history, sociology, communication, biology, computer science, leadership, criminology, filmmaking, and politics—I hope we ask what implications (if any) this has for the church. Let us propose adding Christian theology, specifically ecclesiology to the mix and see what it has to contribute to and learn from the dialog.

The trend I refer to has no name of its own. It is actually a cluster of inter-related thoughts, each with different terms. But it has a common thread: the move from centralized to decentralized; from stability to fluidity; from controlled hierarchy to networks of autonomous groups or agents.

Some biologists like Deborah Gordon at Stanford noticed that certain creatures demonstrate complex behaviors as a group (e.g. building elaborate nests, allocating workers to tasks, finding the shortest route to the best food source, mounting military defense against other ant colonies, etc.), even though they are not particularly smart individually. “‘Ants aren’t smart,’ Gordon says. ‘Ant colonies are.’” How is this possible with no one agent in charge? This question has led to recent developments called swarm intelligence. Instead of a leadership structure we would expect, they rely on a self-organizing system utilizing countless interactions between individual ants. These interactions are based on remarkably simple rules. Cumulatively, however, they create the complex and sometimes unpredictable behavior seen in a swarm.

Flocks of birds and schools of fish don’t run into each other, even though they move together so closely, wheeling around in a seeming demonstration of a group mind. However, these critters are just acting on simple rules. In 1986, a computer graphics researcher named Craig Reynolds created a computer simulation that moved like a flock of birds (“boids” in his program). He used only three rules. “1) avoid crowding nearby boids, 2) fly in the average direction of nearby boids, and 3) stay close to nearby boids.”

The technology has developed and was recently used to marvelous results in the Lord of the Rings movies. Steve Regelous wrote a software program he called Massive. “I believe we need to simulate the interactions between individuals realistically to get decent crowd behavior.” The “decent crowd behavior” they were looking to create was warring elves and orcs on a huge scale! Instead of trying to animate tens of thousands of orcs (which is an impossibly daunting task), Regelous developed a single artificially intelligent agent who could make decisions for itself. The agent had the ability to attack, defend, run, turn, and stop. The team at Weta Digital then created adjustable 3D bodies for the agents and used motion capture to animate the movements in the agent’s “library” of actions. Once they had a realistic orc, they just multiplied the whole thing by however many thousands and they had an army of orcs who fought their own battle. You just had to record it, perhaps tweaking the behavior with certain environmental factors or other motivations. It was so realistic that in early tests, some soldiers ran away from the battlefield!

This trend is not just a boon for the silver screen, but in the business world as well. Eric Bonabeau, a leader in the field of swarm intelligence, thinks that the world is becoming so complex that no single human being can comprehend it. He recommends imitating ants and other social insects. This has inspired him and others to use swarm intelligence to help solve complex problems. Computers using swarm intelligence models for their AI are optimizing shipping schedules, and being used to coordinate rescue and reconnaissance robots. Instead of solving a problem directly, this approach creates a swarm that will organically solve the problem itself. “Solutions to problems are emergent rather than predefined and preprogrammed. The problem is that you don't always know ahead of time what emergent solution will come out because emergent behavior is unpredictable. If applied well, self-organization endows your swarm with the ability to adapt to situations that you didn’t think of.” 

But what about mistakes? Bonabeau says, “In social insects, errors and randomness are not ‘bugs’; rather, they contribute very strongly to their success by enabling them to discover and explore in addition to exploiting. Self-organization feeds itself upon errors to provide the colony with flexibility (the colony can adapt to a changing environment) and robustness (even when one or more individuals fail, the group can still perform its tasks).” 

All of this discussion is arguing for using artificial swarms as human tools such as a computer program that can continually optimize computer networks. But can this trend of decentralization be applied to people directly? Does it have anything to say to human behavior? Should it?

Swarm intelligence—or at least decentralization—does have some intriguing benefits for leadership. After all, with any hierarchy, the person or persons “at the top” face huge pressure to make good decisions. Yet, the bigger the organization, the farther from the actual knowledge the person who makes the decisions becomes! Leadership and management gurus work to help the leader get better information quicker, make clear decisions, communicate those decisions back down the line, and motivate the workers to follow those decisions. One can see why methods of getting and receiving information, and motivation figure prominently in leadership research. However, the potential for error and miscommunication is great. We can all recall specific examples of bureaucratic stupidity where information is lost or garbled, or when leaders make bad decisions because they really don’t understand the situation. Furthermore, hierarchical systems’ most important (and usually most vulnerable) person is the one at the top. Just like in chess, take out the king and the game is up.

What if leaders didn’t need to have all of this stress? What if more decisions could be made in emergent, organic ways? What if humans could organize themselves in ways that depended less on special individuals (i.e. leaders)? Could it make the human system itself more robust? 

I can tell you for certain that it does make an organization more robust. Just look at organized crime and terrorists. A few years ago, several weeks after the United States charged into Afghanistan and then
Iraq, some people wondered why we hadn’t decisively “won.” After all, here was the most well-funded military behemoth on the planet, using the most advanced weapons technology ever conceived being held at a stalemate by a handful of terrorists and insurgents! Sure, in a matter of hours, the U.S. military defeated the Iraqi military, but the war was far from won. Personally, I wasn’t exactly surprised that the U.S. war machine was stuck in the sand, however (our leaders shouldn’t have been either, but that is perhaps a different blog). This kind of thing has happened often enough in history. A strong, well-funded hierarchical force is stymied by impoverished, diversified guerrilla cells. The Philistines vs. the Israelite tribes, Rome vs. the Celts, the Britons vs. the Scots, the English vs. the American colonies, and now the United States vs. insurgents in Iraq.

There are a myriad of other factors involved in these admittedly complicated sociopolitical situations. However, I wondered if the way the groups were organized had something vital to do with their differing effectiveness. After minimal research, I came to realize I am not alone in my hunch. “Unlike conventional military forces which are often hierarchical and centralized, terrorist militant units are often small, dispersed and seemingly disorganized. Nevertheless, they have been able to effectively counter much larger conventional armies.”

Researchers are noting that criminal organizations (like drug cartels, terrorists, etc) are changing. “Unlike the top-down-hierarchical structure of traditional Mafia-type organizations, organized crime groups such as the Colombian drug cartels and Russian-speaking organized crime function as loosely-organized networks of cells. The cells give organizational flexibility, reduce the possibility of law-enforcement penetration, and provide greater efficiency. Network structures also make it more difficult to identify leaders while reducing the size of the leadership within each organization. As such, modern organized criminal groups and leading terrorist organizations resemble modern, ‘flat’ business structures rather than the multilayer organization found in older corporations such as the Ford Motor Company and the steel industry.”

Terrorists and crime lords don’t change to be cool or emergent. They do it to be effective. And effective they are; they are able to halt so-called “super powers” in their tracks. They are robust; even when key leaders are taken out, the organization as a whole suffers only minor setbacks. Indeed, researchers (often funded by defense departments or police forces) are trying desperately to understand and therefore destroy fluid networks like these. In addition to the computer scientists and criminologists I’ve already referenced, mathematicians are using their expertise to attempt to destabilize these complex and extremely resilient networks.

What does this mean for the church? I have come to see that the church (at least in my context) looks much like the U.S. military: centralized leadership, clearly defined roles, pre-planned strategies, ample funds (yet complaining of not having near enough money to do what they feel they need to do). But should we in the church take some cues from the insurgents in Iraq? If we want to be effective (and what does that mean?), should we take note of the effective models demonstrated by our “enemies?”

Of course, I would not suggest that Christians can further the cause of Jesus Christ by strapping bombs to themselves or trafficking illegal drugs! But couldn’t we take a note of these networks’ organizational innovation? After all, as some have said, “Were it not for the illegitimate character of their actions, transnational criminals could be lauded as pioneers and visionaries in the age of globalization.”

Could church leaders give up centralized, pre-planned control of a church to a decentralized, emerging patterns based on the cumulating of many interactions? As LeRon might say, there are promises and perils here. The idea of no one person being in charge (or in control) is terrifying. But is that just the kind of scenario in which the Holy Spirit can work in our midst—in the interactions between us? If we wanted to move this way, we would need to think more about developing individuals (“agents” in the terminology of artificial intelligence). This seems counter-intuitive, but the success of a swarm depends on the ability of individual agents to make decisions and carry them out. But are Christians prepared to do that, or are we too used to having a leader tell us what to do? Might people be too complicated for swarm intelligence proper to work?

Just think with me a moment about the “traditional wisdom” of church ministry done in a centralized, stable, hierarchically controlled system. Let’s say my neighbor is elderly and can’t mow her lawn. I could tell my pastor or small group leader. Perhaps we could set up committee to create a Lawn Mowing Ministry. We could get the Youth Pastor involved so we could use the youth as a labor force. Of course, policies would have to be put in place for how we would mow and guidelines developed to weed through potential recipients of our ministry. We’d also need to advertise it to the church and the community. If evangelistically-minded people were involved, mowers would probably need training on how to lead the grateful people to Christ. And then, we’d need to work through our disappointment confusion when the ministry fails!

I have to wonder, what if I just go to my neighbor’s house and offer to mow her yard? What if other Christians just see needs and opportunities and can just act? What if we were in communication with each other—networked—so that we could collectively learn from our mistakes? 

A few questions to spur the discussion:

1) Are principles of swarming applicable to human organizations like the church? If so, are they achievable, or even desirable? 

2) If we do want to embrace ideas of decentralization, self-organization, and emergent problem-solving, what changes would need to be made in our conceptions of church leadership? What about the goals and methods of Christian discipleship? Or evangelism?

3) If we want to resist this trend, how do we do it? Why?

 

Comments

[Ryan Hollingsworth]

Daniel, your reminder of the importance of “rules” is a good one. You’re right in saying that without a person or hierarchy in charge the rules of the swarm/group/church become even more important. However, in talking about swarm intelligence, there are few rules, and they are simple. Often—especially in religious organizations or large bureaucracies—rules multiply. There become too many rules to keep track of, or they become complex (just look at the tax rules for the US!) It’s those few, simple, agreed-upon rules that are most helpful—indeed, vital for a swarm to function.

I'm glad you brought up the Amish and Mennonite communities. I am actually part of a Mennonite church in Chicago (urban Mennonites, can you believe it?). There are decentralization tendencies in my congregation; group buy-in, grass-roots participation, and projects often handled organically. Coming from an evangelical background, it's been interesting to see not just theological but sociological differences play out in church.

Thanks for your contribution too, Paul. I also find it fascinating to hear about the resilience and self-organization of people in chaotic situations. Times of tragedy and confusion such as occur among civilian population in war, or during (and after) natural disasters take away the safety and comfort of our normal hierarchies. Not to be a doomsayer, but I think it is important for the church to be prepared for massive shifts in society. Global warming, political tensions, new strains of disease, the exponential advance of technology, and many other factors will likely change the planet in surprising and dramatic ways. Church structures that depend on stable governments will not survive. Thankful, God’s Church will survive—perhaps by swarming like ants, orcs, and Al Qaeda!

I have appreciated this discussion. Thank you for bringing your ideas, challenges, questions, and passion into the conversation. Perhaps we’ll meet in cyberspace again.