Slashdot Mirror
Computer Makes Robot Offspring
Flarenet writes: "Canoe.ca is reporting about a story where: 'A computer programmed to follow the rules of evolution has for the first time designed and manufactured simple robots with minimal help from people.'" This is a nicely satisfying result of the research (mentioned in an earlier Slashdot story) by Jordan Pollack and Hod Lipson of Brandeis University.
Make sure you download the simulation software at http://www.demo.cs.brandeis. edu/pr/golem/download.html. It only runs under Windows, but it's curious to watch the process running. I've got it running on a couple of computers overnight. It will be interesting to see what is crawling around at the office tomorrow morning.
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I predicted this!! It's not all that surprising , considering the History of the Universe. Man has always sought to live on through his inventions, and for good reason. With intelligent beings having been created by us, we can, in essence, as a race - mankind, live on. Let me explain why I said that humans have been striving for this for so long. Of course, BTW, this is just the beginning and to get "truly" smart Robots, more advanced hardware, software, and nanotechnology will all need to be incorporated. Now...why did I say that mankind has always wanted to "live on"? here's why:
In the beginning of the Universe, there were 3 races. Humans, elves and dwarves. The three races lived in harmony for centuries. They continually sought together to find and maintain the delicate balance between the Spiritual, Magical and Physical properties of the world. But the humans grew weary of their lifespans. The typical human lifespan was 60 years. The typical Dwarven lifespan was 300, and the typical Elven lifespan was 500. The humans deemed this unfair. Soon a new religion swept the land, mainly attracting humans: Science. They propogated physical properties while neglecting their spiritual and magical properties. Soon they developed powerful new weapons such as crossbows, gunpowder, and chemical explosives. While Elven magic was still prevalent, the Dwarves had no protection against the new human weapons, but to replicate them, for they too were good at Physical and Mechanical engineering. But the humans had a lot more practice and developing such weapons, had more confidenence and drive, and outnumbered both Dwarves and Elves. So the Dwarves tried to make peace with the humans and help them - but the humans refused the help and destroyed the Dwarves completely. The Elven wizards killed thousands of humans, but only 1 in 10000 was an Elf wizard. 3/10 humans were capable bowmen, gunmen, or explosive users. So, in vast battles, 3 000 000 gunmen, crossbowmen and explosive users faced 10 000 wizards and 300 000 pike/sword/longbow-men.The Elves put up a fight, but after a while, were destroyed. There were centuries of fantastic battles: Magic vs Science, the Lightning of Power vs the Destruction of Science, and the human factories and Elven towers were destroyed around them. In the end , few humans remained, but no Elves at all remained. The humans had lost their science and knowledge, and the Elves had lost their very species. Centuries later, we are where we are today.
I'm sorry if this displeases Christian fanatics who disagree with the truth - the truth of the Universe as I've outlined it here, but....well, too bad.Just my $0.02
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Like all such simulations of evolution, the program can't really create something novel that the programmer hadn't already thought of -- just combinations of preprogrammed parts. What makes biological evolution interesting and powerful is that new parts arise without a pre-conceived design.
I'll be impressed when the robots submit their own stories to /. Or at least submit replies. Can they learn to troll? To flame other trolls? Will they get bored and surf to seanbaby.com or something?
I mean, humans went through millions of years of evolution to reach that point so it's only logical that the robots would =).
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The gravitational constant of protein has changed. - Turbine
Yes, it's not slashdotted. The link isn't there, but a quick use of backspace will show you that there are 3 files in the download directory. One of them, magically, is the 1.19 version... which, by the way, doesn't seem to run under Win2K.
Because you can't, you won't, and you don't stop...
"Robot offspring" implies there is some sort of reproduction going on, and this is NOT that. [insert obligatory beatdown of the exaggerating, stupid media].
More accurately, this is a computer using a novel technique to design a machine with minimal human programming, and hooking up the computer to a manufacturing machine.
Having a computer actually design a working machine is impressive enough without screaming about a computer generating its "offspring". And I have to say, it's somewhat pathetic that Slashdot dfollows along. Can I suggest changing the headline to "Computer creates its own design for a machine" or even if you want to be whimsical, "First generation Deep Thought takes first step at creating 'the computer that is to come after me, a computer that even I am not worthy to calculate its operational parameters'. But that's a little long. :)
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Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Bill Joy is going to shit a brick.
"A computer programmed to follow the rules of evolution has for the first time designed and manufactured simple robots with minimal help from people."
Last I checked, the birds and the bees certainly don't need ANY human help.
And why is it newsworthy that this thing is following the rules of evolution? So it's the "rules of evolution" (which I didn't know we KNEW in the first place!!! thank you useful biology degree!) - computers will follow whatever rules we can figure out how to give them. Why is this different?
I'll consider it newsworthy when these things actually manage to make themselves into better survivalists with NO human help. Like maybe having the "momma" determine that only her "offspring" that locomote FAST seem to escape the wrath of the bored programmers' Koosh Shooter....
I'm not entirely against the "let's do it because we can do it" spirit, but this is an indescribably lame hack.
It would have satisfied the same basic criteria to have a bunch of snap-together motor+wheel blocks, and have the computer "evolve" the idea of snapping four of them into a little car (and I believe that the computer didn't evolve the construction method either, but just handled the design given a fixed set of parts; it might as well have been human technicians building the robots).
The sad fact of evolutionary design techniques is that they only work for an adequately simulated environment with a formally-defined design goal. Useful, but no silver bullet; certainly not a way to improve the versatility of designs (since they only take into account what conditions and criteria you program into them).
You can't move it out of a simulated environment (like having it build and test all models under real working conditions), or it would take as long as biological evolution, and we might as well breed our machines.
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Isn't this the way that The Matrix and Terminator started out?!
Tomorrow on Slashdot "The offspring robot we reported about yesterday has created 50,000 offspring robot since last night, the world is officially coming to an end."
--Dave
This is a whole new avenue...taking the process we call evolution and mapping it into technology. If we can harness that ability, and more importantly accelerate it, then haven't we suddenly gained a new resource? Computational devices gave us the power to let something else think for us, but with rigid limits...the instructions must be fixed, so really only repetitive functions can be made autonomous. But this gives us a new power...or does it?
We still can't solve problems autonomously. The original set of instructions has to be fed to the device, and the methods for 'evolving' have to be written. To me, it looks like we've just taken a clue from nature, applied it to a computational device, and watched a faster form of problem solving take place. Genetic algorithms aren't exactly new...here's a short description, or if you like, an example of a massively distributed parallel geneticalgorithm from Carnegie Mellon University Robotics. (Also check out CMU computer science for all sorts of wild projects). For another comment on relating ecological systems to computing, see this string, from an article this week.
Who knows what else can be found in natural systems, that we can apply to computing to gain information resources. I remember hearing that, a few decades ago, biology was the hot interest of the world's greatest thinkers (mostly trade physicists) who were looking for profound answers...wouldn't it be interesting if we could one day mine progress.
-j
until the last Elves and Dwarves had been abducted by UFO's, in a secret plot by the US government, in a deal with the aliens, to remove the Elves and Dwarves from Earth, and provide the Aliens with fresh meat.
They could have provided the aliens with fresh meat, slash dot, source forge, and think geek without killing any elves or dwarves.
<O
( \
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a computer using a novel technique to design a machine with minimal human programming,
Actually, it almost certainly took more human effort to do the programming than it would have to just design the damned robots. I wouldn't call it "minimal" human programming by any means.
I really don't think this is all that impressive. Similar simulations have been running for years, the only new thing these guys did was hook it up to a manufacturing machine.
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AI
Even what AI stands for explains it - Artificial Intelligence - once we make a self aware computer, all bets are off and if it lears quickly enough that we are no more than an annoyance to it, by the time we realize what we have done it has already taken over robot factories and started rolling out the T-1000s
This may sound very pessimistic and impossible, but with our current exponential rate of technological advances, nearly anything is possible - just think about it, put yourself in an imaginary time machine, and go back several centuries...1200-1300 - dark ages - try to explain renaissance and be branded a heretic
1500 try to explain enlightenment and natural law and be branded a heretic1700 try to explain industrial revolution and have farmers laugh at you
1900 try to explain world as we know it in 2000 - get thrown in asylum2000 try to explain problems and possibilities of future - 2 options, get listened to, or get modded down....
When the world ends, we'll be burnin' one
-- Dave Matthews Band
In a more real world example, evolutionary mining robots would have two ways to reach the defined objective of keeping reported numbers high: learning how to mine really well, or killing the humans and sending in fake reports themselves.
BTW, a computer making robot offspring because it was told to design them isn't nearly as disturbing as the inevitable computer making robot offspring on it's own accord.
~=Keelor
IANAB (I am not a biologist), but isn't one of the reasons why animals reproduce the fact that it feels good (for one of the available sexes, at least; have you ever seen ducks mating in a pond? I doubt the females enjoy almost getting drowned whenever three males jump them)? Probably the only way you can model a "biological" form of reproduction in a machine is by giving it some reward for it. I wonder what a bunch of bits would find pleasurable...
will emotionless machines kill their offspring if they cease to be of value and start consuming more than they're producing?
Apparently, lots of animals have no qualms about eating their offspring: crocodiles being one, famous, example. Still, crocodiles as a species seem to thrive no less despite this. And since most artificial life hasn't been endowed with a great emotive power anyways, why should it matter that our little robots develop this kind of behavior? I seriously doubt the parents will have moral qualms over eating their children, and I don't think the children will realise they're eaten by their parents.
(BTW, does anybody else remember the Discovery -stuff to watch while you eat- documentary about robot bugs built out of spare walkman parts that learned how to walk around and avoid obstacles without being told how? Now *that* was cool).
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So the robot reproduces asexually? (Or close to that). It did mention it needed a little help from humans. Won't be long before you come home late one night and find out that you have 4 new computers that all need operating systems installed on them.
"Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality." -Jules de Gautier
It is a cool thing, and amazing in many ways, but it is hype to overextend the analogy to "natural selection," in which a single fitness criteria (survival until breeding) nominally leads to development of metabolism, perception, locomotion, and self-awareness.
Way to go with the experiment, but watch it with the grand claims.
Bingo Foo
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taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
Would a self-replicating machine be guilty of violating its own copyright? Wonder if it'd get sued ...
"If I have seen further than other men, it is by stepping on their glasses." - Michael Swaine
Astro Teller's fictional work (dang!) "exegesis" is the story of a Unix process whose job is to gather info across the net and summarize it. Over time, it learns to form thought and English, and emails its creator.
Over time, "Edgar" learns how to program, edit its own code, and develops a sense of purpose. However, its tied to its original goal of finding new information. Eventually, the NSA traps it in a computer and yanks out the Ethernet cord. In response, Edgar quickly changes the color values of each pixel on the monitor and gives the agent a focal point seizure (where your eyes try to refocus so quickly they basically lock up and you go nuts, basically).
I won't give away the ending. It's an EXCELLENT book, and a quick read (it's basically 100 or so email messages).
My point is, create AI and you create evil (ok, maybe). But, create intelligent agents and you create... less work for us humans!
BWA HA HA HA!
Really though, these developments are important, if not sometimes overplayed or mistook.
Chris
The next comment I write will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
Done.
See DEMO.
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It's interesting playing with programs that evolve. After a while, you begin to realize that there seems to be an upper limit to what you can get with genetic algorithms. Roughly, it's optimization, yes; progress, no. Fairly soon you get all the things that are easy to find, but you never seem to get big improvements, because those require a set of favorable mutations to happen all at once. The odds against this are huge, so it doesn't happen. This is comparable to what biologists see; organisms vary and evolve, but within limits. Biologists assume that once in a great while there's a big change that's an improvement, but it hasn't been observed. As I once told the genetic algorithm group at Stanford, we're missing something important here, and whomever figures this one out will get a Nobel prize.
I have no idea what the answer to that one is, but it probably involves something in a genome that works like a subroutine, macro, rule, or template, so you don't have to re-evolve an improvement to reuse it. John Koza at Stanford has genetic algorithms with subroutines, but they didn't do as much as had been hoped.
As a pure speculation, and one that's heretical biologically, it's worth thinking about the possibility that biological evolution was Lamarkian in the era after viruses but before immune systems, and that's why there was a period during which lots of new species emerged.