Are We Missing the Point of AI? Lessons from Non-Neural Intelligence Systems

I’m sure most of you here have heard of the “Tokyo Slime Experiment”.

Here’s a breif summary:

In a 2010 experiment, researchers used slime mold, a brainless fungus, to model the Tokyo subway system. By placing food sources (oats) on a petri dish to represent cities, the slime mold grew a network of tubes connecting the food sources, which mirrored the layout of the actual Tokyo subway system. This demonstrated that even without a central brain, complex networks can emerge through decentralized processes.

What implications do non-neural intelligence systems such as slime molds, fungi, swarm intelligence, etc. have for how we define, design, and interact with AI models?

If some form of intelligence can emerge without neurons, what does that mean for the way we build and *interpret* AI?