Slashdot Mirror
Self-Organizing Circuit Reinvents Radio
PortWineBoy writes "An evolutionary computer program that controls circuits connected to transistors is told to 'breed' an oscillator. Instead, it breeds a radio receiver which picks up oscillation produced by a nearby computer to achieve the desired result. It seems interesting to me but does it have any implications or applications? Any thoughts on how something like this could be used elsewhere?"
...evolution always cheats, though no doubt there are numerous experiments where that doesn't happen and no one think it's special...
That's because evolution knows no rules. Therefore, evolution does not cheat. It's sole task is to follow the path of least resistance.
Calm down, it's *only* ones and zeroes.
The article is sensationalist and irresponsible, as it talks of how the genetic algorithm "surprised the scientists", and how nobody knows how the circuit "figured out" one trace could act as an antenna.
The problem is that the non-tech-savvy of the world will read this and actually be made to believe these are thinking machines which are truly learning on their own. It conjures up images of a Matrix future.
I'm quite sure the scientists didn't find the results all that stunning. They ran random mutations and "evolved" an oscillator from the interconnections of 10 transistors. The algorithm of course *failed* to generate an oscillator, and instead cheated by picking up a nearby radiowave.
Nothing in the circuit "figured out" about antennas and radio waves - it was just random luck, much as any result in such an experiment is.
Some might argue with calling the cheating oscillator a failure. I disagree - I think it's a wonderful example of how far AI research has to go yet. What they wanted was an oscillator, presumably one that would work (were this a circuit designing machine in the real world) elsewhere outside the lab. The algorithm was too dumb to realize it's design won't be portable past the lab table.
I really don't think random mutation with selection is going to be the answer, if there's even an answer to be had. Computers are for automating, humans using them as tools are for innovating.
11*43+456^2
That's the neat part, though. The whole idea that evolution has a "goal" is wrong. The goal is to do what it takes to get more resources that the other things so you can make more of yourself. Anything to reach that goal is fair. That's what makes these algorithms so damn cool -- they work just like life. Do exactly what it takes to make it to the next level. The "problem" with the experiment was that there were ways to have the same end result that the researchers where testing for -- not looking for. The flaw is not the algorithms but the testing method.
The whole problem is the notion of "simple and straight-forward". In every case evolved systems seem to find their own solutions that seem to be complicated (from our point of view and rules), but if you look at it from a how-many-things-have-to-evolve point of view, their solutions are far simpler.
I've read this story before, and it fills me with a mixture of wonder and sadness. I'm amazed at how clever evolutionary processes can turn out to be; I'm disappointed by the fact that they often seem to be cleverer than we humans can figure out.
If the workings of a simple tone-differentiating circuit are beyond human understanding, what hope do we have of gaining a deep understanding of the human brain, the most complex machine in the universe? It makes me wonder if perhaps the secrets of our intelligence are too complex for that intelligence to grasp.
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.