Learning Autonomic Robots

Daath writes "The 27th of March, Professor Noel Sharkey et al starts a colony of living robots. 15 predators and 6 prey. It's an experiment in artificial evolution out of the Creative Robotics Unit at Magna. Here's a quote: 'The Living Robots have one goal, to obtain enough energy to survive and breed. The prey find their food from light sensors within the arena, while the predators feed off prey by stalking and chasing them before sucking away their power.' Magna has two articles, 'Predator and Prey Robots set up home at Magna' and 'Ground breaking Robotics experiment previewed'. "

Comments

Learning autonomic nerds

[iangoldby]

'Drivelling Slashdotters' is a world-first experiment into artificial evolution - a culmination of four and a half years research by CmdrTaco and his team. The colony is divided into two species: Moderators and Posters. The Posters have one goal: to obtain enough karma to sound off about anything without being moderated into obscurity. Moderators feed off Posters by stalking down trolls, first posts, and anything vaguely factual, and sucking off score points.

In place of erudite discourse, the groundbreaking technology used in slashdot.org will be demonstrated to guests in a spectacular live-action show - complete with more-heat-than-light, flames, and random musings. Guests will witness Slashdotters in their natural environment, fighting for survival, learning and evolving as time goes on. Or not.

Each show will begin in darkness, and remain in darkness. Initially, a 'First Post' will appear. This simple creature is controlled by an 'artificial moron network', and it posts for no apparent reason.

Then a Moderator will appear. This is higher up the food chain than the Poster, and survives by feeding its ego off the Posters. The Moderator will immediately mod down the Poster. This is instinct, not reason.

And so the show goes on... and on...

(No offence intended...)