Thinking Swarms Book

Thinking Swarms

This open access book is a multidisciplinary examination of swarm systems including swarm robotics. The book starts with a multidisciplinary consultation performed by the editors with participants from academia, industry and government. The consultation suggested four themes forming parts one to four and grouping the first 16 chapters. Part 1 contains definitions, categorisations and metaphors of swarm systems. Part 2 zooms-in with a behavioural lens on interpretations, narrative theory, and legal frameworks. Part 3 sheds a topological light on cognitive architectures and formations. Part 4 illumes cognitive dimensions on swarm lifelong and curriculum learning and hyper-teaming of swarm systems. The book concludes with future research directions in Part 5. The book is suitable for graduate students and researchers looking for inspiration and novel ideas to explore, or those attempting to understand the diversity of challenges in advanced swarm systems.

The Lazarus Protocol 2.0

Iabluchanskyi M., Yabluchanskiy A. The Lazarus Protocol 2.0: Swarm of Doubles and the Right to Silence 2026, 16 902 words. “The Lazarus Protocol 2.0: Swarm of Doubles and the Right to Silence” explores not so much the possibility of digital immortality as the risks of excessive human presence via multiple digital copies. Unlike the first book on the Lazarus Algorithm, which focused on supporting a single digital twin to counter dementia, this work examines an ecosystem of a swarm of doubles acting in parallel and with increasing autonomy from the living bearer. Through the biography of Elian—an intellectual who systematically distributes his functions across AI platforms—the book illustrates how the local optimization of individual modules (financial, clinical, ethical, and everyday) can gradually erode a coherent wellspan trajectory. This process risks turning a life into a battlefield of competing metrics. Special attention is paid to the internal processes of the swarm: the neural “parliament” of doubles, digital heresy involving attempts to rewrite the bearer’s will, and scenarios where even an ideal protocol cannot produce a single “correct” answer, ultimately leaving the final choice to the living person. In response to the threat of a “society of ghosts”—a world in which digital shadows communicate and make decisions without human participation—the Lazarus Protocol 2.0 introduces a set of limiting mechanisms. These include a digital will, an internal court of the swarm, digital telomeres, and sunset procedures. These tools establish temporal and functional boundaries for swarms, formalize the right to silence, and protect the family and community from the prolonged power of the hyper‑competent dead over the lives of their descendants. The book does not offer a definitive resolution for all conflicts between living people and their digital multiplicities, nor does it claim to answer questions at the level of society or megaswarms. It operates specifically at the level of “one person ↔ their swarm.” It proposes an initial architecture of constraints designed to prevent the era of digital doubles from devolving into an age of an uncontrollable society of ghosts.

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