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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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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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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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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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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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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