Isomorphic Functionalities between Ant Colony and Ensemble Learning: Part II-On the Strength of Weak Learnability and the Boosting Paradigm

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Main Authors: Fokoué, Ernest, Babbitt, Gregory, Levental, Yuval
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Fokoué, Ernest
Babbitt, Gregory
Levental, Yuval
author_facet Fokoué, Ernest
Babbitt, Gregory
Levental, Yuval
contents In Part I of this series, we established a rigorous mathematical isomorphism between ant colony decision-making and random forest learning, demonstrating that variance reduction through decorrelation is a universal principle shared by biological and computational ensembles. Here we turn to the complementary mechanism: bias reduction through adaptive weighting. Just as boosting algorithms sequentially focus on difficult instances, ant colonies dynamically amplify successful foraging paths through pheromone-mediated recruitment. We prove that these processes are mathematically isomorphic, establishing that the fundamental theorem of weak learnability has a direct analog in colony decision-making. We develop a formal mapping between AdaBoost's adaptive reweighting and ant recruitment dynamics, show that the margin theory of boosting corresponds to the stability of quorum decisions, and demonstrate through comprehensive simulation that ant colonies implementing adaptive recruitment achieve the same bias-reduction benefits as boosting algorithms. This completes a unified theory of ensemble intelligence, revealing that both variance reduction (Part I) and bias reduction (Part II) are manifestations of the same underlying mathematical principles governing collective intelligence in biological and computational systems.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_00038
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Isomorphic Functionalities between Ant Colony and Ensemble Learning: Part II-On the Strength of Weak Learnability and the Boosting Paradigm
Fokoué, Ernest
Babbitt, Gregory
Levental, Yuval
Machine Learning
2020: 92B20 (Primary), 68T05, 60J20, 92D50 (Secondary)
In Part I of this series, we established a rigorous mathematical isomorphism between ant colony decision-making and random forest learning, demonstrating that variance reduction through decorrelation is a universal principle shared by biological and computational ensembles. Here we turn to the complementary mechanism: bias reduction through adaptive weighting. Just as boosting algorithms sequentially focus on difficult instances, ant colonies dynamically amplify successful foraging paths through pheromone-mediated recruitment. We prove that these processes are mathematically isomorphic, establishing that the fundamental theorem of weak learnability has a direct analog in colony decision-making. We develop a formal mapping between AdaBoost's adaptive reweighting and ant recruitment dynamics, show that the margin theory of boosting corresponds to the stability of quorum decisions, and demonstrate through comprehensive simulation that ant colonies implementing adaptive recruitment achieve the same bias-reduction benefits as boosting algorithms. This completes a unified theory of ensemble intelligence, revealing that both variance reduction (Part I) and bias reduction (Part II) are manifestations of the same underlying mathematical principles governing collective intelligence in biological and computational systems.
title Isomorphic Functionalities between Ant Colony and Ensemble Learning: Part II-On the Strength of Weak Learnability and the Boosting Paradigm
topic Machine Learning
2020: 92B20 (Primary), 68T05, 60J20, 92D50 (Secondary)
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.00038