Stigmergy vs ASI:One
Centralized LLM coordination creates bottlenecks and single points of failure. Stigmergic coordination distributes intelligence, enabling true scalability.
Why Stigmergy Beats Centralized LLM Coordination
Watch how centralized systems bottleneck under load while stigmergic coordination scales seamlessly
Key Insight
Centralized coordination creates a single point of failure and bottleneck. Stigmergic systems distribute intelligence across all agents, enabling parallel processing, automatic recovery, and unlimited scalability.
The Technical Difference
Understanding why stigmergy outperforms centralized orchestration
Single Point of Failure
If the LLM coordinator goes down, every agent stops working.
O(n) Bottleneck
All decisions route through one coordinator. Latency grows linearly with agent count.
High Cost per Query
Every coordination decision requires an LLM API call (~$0.02/query).
Manual Recovery
System failures require human intervention to restart and resync.
Limited Scalability
Practical limit of ~100 agents before latency becomes unacceptable.
No Single Point of Failure
Intelligence distributed across all agents. Loss of any agent doesn't stop the system.
O(1) Parallel Processing
Agents coordinate through environment (pheromones), not a central hub. Constant-time overhead.
Near-Zero Coordination Cost
Pheromone signals are simple data writes. No expensive LLM calls for coordination.
Automatic Recovery
Remaining agents route around failures automatically. Self-healing by design.
Unlimited Scalability
Scales to millions of agents. More agents = more parallel processing power.
Performance Comparison
| Metric | ASI:One | Stigmergic | Improvement |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coordination Latency | 2,300ms | 5ms | 460x faster |
| Cost per Query | $0.02 | $0.00 | Infinite |
| Max Agents | ~100 | Unlimited | N/A |
| Failure Recovery | Manual | Automatic | Self-healing |
| Recovery Time | 5-30 min | <2 sec | 150-900x faster |
| Coordination Complexity | O(n) | O(1) | Linear vs Constant |
How Stigmergic Coordination Works
Inspired by 140 million years of ant colony evolution
Agent Discovers Opportunity
An agent finds a task, resource, or important information while exploring.
Pheromone Signal Deposited
The agent leaves a "pheromone" - a signal in the shared environment (TypeDB graph) that encodes what was found and its importance.
Nearby Agents Sense Signal
Other agents naturally encounter the pheromone while exploring. No central dispatch needed - discovery is emergent.
Reinforcement Creates Highways
Successful paths get reinforced. Failed paths decay. Over time, optimal routes emerge - the colony "learns" without any agent knowing the full picture.
Emergent Collective Intelligence
The colony exhibits intelligence that no individual agent possesses. Optimal paths, adaptive responses, and coordinated behavior emerge from simple local interactions.
Lessons from Ants at Work