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Main Authors: Bektas, Onurcan, Alsina, Adolfo, Rulands, Steffen
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.22148
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author Bektas, Onurcan
Alsina, Adolfo
Rulands, Steffen
author_facet Bektas, Onurcan
Alsina, Adolfo
Rulands, Steffen
contents Current artificial intelligence systems show near-human-level capabilities when deployed in isolation. Systems of a few collaborating intelligent agents are being engineered to perform tasks collectively. This raises the question of whether robotic matter, where many learning and intelligent agents interact, shows emergence of collective behaviour. And if so, which kind of phenomena would such systems exhibit? Here, we study a paradigmatic model for robotic matter: a stochastic many-particle system in which each particle is endowed with a deep neural network that predicts its transitions based on the particles' environments. For a one-dimensional model, we show that robotic matter exhibits complex emergent phenomena, including transitions between long-lived learning regimes, the emergence of particle species, and frustration. We also find a density-dependent phase transition with signatures of criticality. Using active matter theory, we show that this phase transition is a consequence of self-organisation mediated by emergent inter-particle interactions. Our simple model captures key features of more complex forms of robotic systems.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_22148
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Emergent interactions lead to collective frustration in robotic matter
Bektas, Onurcan
Alsina, Adolfo
Rulands, Steffen
Soft Condensed Matter
Robotics
Current artificial intelligence systems show near-human-level capabilities when deployed in isolation. Systems of a few collaborating intelligent agents are being engineered to perform tasks collectively. This raises the question of whether robotic matter, where many learning and intelligent agents interact, shows emergence of collective behaviour. And if so, which kind of phenomena would such systems exhibit? Here, we study a paradigmatic model for robotic matter: a stochastic many-particle system in which each particle is endowed with a deep neural network that predicts its transitions based on the particles' environments. For a one-dimensional model, we show that robotic matter exhibits complex emergent phenomena, including transitions between long-lived learning regimes, the emergence of particle species, and frustration. We also find a density-dependent phase transition with signatures of criticality. Using active matter theory, we show that this phase transition is a consequence of self-organisation mediated by emergent inter-particle interactions. Our simple model captures key features of more complex forms of robotic systems.
title Emergent interactions lead to collective frustration in robotic matter
topic Soft Condensed Matter
Robotics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.22148