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Swiss Experimenter Breeds Swarm Intelligence
destinyland writes "Researchers simulated evolution with multiple generations of food-seeking robots in a new study of artificial swarm intelligence. 'Under some conditions, sophisticated communication evolved,' says one researcher. And in a more recent study, the swarms of bots didn't just evolve cooperative strategies — they also evolved the ability to deceive. ('Forget zombies,' joked one commenter. 'This is the real threat.') 'The study of artificial swarm intelligence provides insight into the nature of intelligence in general, and offers an interesting perspective on the nature of Darwinian selection, competition, and cooperation.' And there's also some cool video of the bots in action."
Of all the Nations, I would never have thought it would be the Swiss who would start the robot apocalypse. I had Germany in my betting pull...
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
To counteract his theories about swarm-intelligence, I sent the researcher link to 4chan.
There are no atheists when recovering from tape backup.
they also evolved the ability to deceive.
Obviously, once you've proved the entity has the ability to deceive, you must distrust any further results.
It turns out the algorithm had evolved to take advantage of the analog properties of the specific chips in that particular board. The algorithm didn't see the board as a digital thing. It saw it as a collection of opamps, amplifiers, and other analog parts. Move the program to a board that is identical digitally, and it failed because the chips weren't analog exact. You wouldn't have seen that behavior in a purely digital simulation.
Yeah, I remember that, but differently (or maybe it's a similar but different incident). What I recall is that he looked at the working design, and saw that it included a section that wasn't connected to anything else. Thinking this was just random waste, he removed it. Then it stopped working. Capacitive and inductive effects from the 'disconnected' section was affecting the main 'working' section and making a complicated analog circuit.
In either case (and both are certainly possible outcomes), this outlines what is so awesome about Genetic Algorithms and the natural evolution that inspires them -- no preconceived notions about what the solution should look like. Whatever works, works, and that's literally all that matters. Us humans very often start with a picture in mind of what the answer "should" be, and it limits our thinking. On the other hand, a lot of times we have those preconceived notions like "this circuit should be digital not analog" for very good reasons, and we simply fail to notify the GA of that requirement. Which also makes GAs fun. :)
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