Yesss I love this book! I also share a deep love for insects (including spiders) and I enjoy an author who is also ride or die for them.
Ants are very very chemical-focused and behave very precisely according to IF > THEN etc in the presence of different chemicals so I think it does work setting them up as logic gates in a computing system. You need to have enough ants, basically, and breed them to react to very specific chemical inputs, and then translate the chemical outputs. (It's an idea Terry Pratchett also played with a bit, with Hex, who also runs partly on an ant colony.)
I have to say, the last few chapters of this were an intensely stressful reading experience! I was so afraid that the humans would slaughter the spiders. I was just trusting very much that Adrian does not, in fact, tend to do downer endings...!
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Ants are very very chemical-focused and behave very precisely according to IF > THEN etc in the presence of different chemicals so I think it does work setting them up as logic gates in a computing system. You need to have enough ants, basically, and breed them to react to very specific chemical inputs, and then translate the chemical outputs. (It's an idea Terry Pratchett also played with a bit, with Hex, who also runs partly on an ant colony.)
I have to say, the last few chapters of this were an intensely stressful reading experience! I was so afraid that the humans would slaughter the spiders. I was just trusting very much that Adrian does not, in fact, tend to do downer endings...!