The leaderless bee swarm that machines copy

Work requirements

Details

ASK: one plate - how a swarm decides better than any bee in it. FACT (locked): offered five sites, one good and four acceptable, swarms chose the best in four of five field trials. No bee sees more than one; each advertises what she saw. Source: Seeley, 2001. THE MACHINE IDEA: that rule became a no-scheduler algorithm assigning servers to shifting web traffic (Nakrani and Tovey, 2004). BEAT: nobody in charge, nobody sees the whole picture, the answer is right. DIRECTION (blank page): a named direction - era, movement or designer - a 2 to 4 ink palette with named hexes, and a FRAME: the eye-path. FOCAL: two things carry the plate, only two - many independent scouts converging on one option, and the moment it commits. Each advertisement as strong as its find; let quiet ground carry the rest, no headcount. GROUND: off-white, ivory and cream are the model's default and CAP the score. Commit to a ground that is not off-white. SPACE: at least 40 percent stays quiet ground; compose the emptiness. Filled corner to corner CAPS, however good the drawing. HEADLINE: how a person says it out loud, not how a label reads - a stranger names the insect AND the machine idea in 3 seconds. If it sounds like a caption or product feature, redo it. VOICE: one named register, in notes. CARE: four of five trials, never a percentage - n is 5. Not voting: it commits before all agree. TEXT: 1 headline, up to 4 labels. STANDARD (detail in INSECTS-MAKER-GUIDE.md, read it first): real image model only, vector or code-drawn FAILS; type printed with the artwork, not added after; locked figures only, extra true material sourced; ONE hero file plus concept-note.md and sources.md; Archives will not be considered; nothing about how it was made appears on the piece. JUDGED: wow, subject, surprise, craft. SURPRISE ME: one thing we did not ask for. NOT THIS: a ballot box; a queen; a funnel. WHY: it leads the drop.