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Robots 'Evolve' Altruism
sciencehabit writes "Computer simulations of tiny robots with rudimentary nervous systems show that, over hundreds of generations, these virtual machines evolve altruistic behaviors. They begin to share small disks — a stand-in for food — with each other so that their comrades' traits are passed on to the next generation. Experts say the study sheds light on why various animals — from bees to humans — help each other out, even when it hurts their own chances to reproduce."
Does this mean that robots are now more evolved than Randroids?
Yes. Apparently, a few thousand neurons is all that it takes to realize that your own chances of survival go up if you are a member of a group, and that being a member of a group is easier if the other members of the group think you contribute to the group.
Conclusion: Randians have less neurons than bees, and/or a less complex intelligence than these robots.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Why are the "quotes" around "evolve" rather than "altruism"? The robots did seem to evolve, but what they evolved was tribalism.
altruism and cooperation are investments without guarantee of return on investment. cooperation is not a bartering situation. nor does your effort to redefine trade to be a form of altruism do anything but prove you don't know a fucking thing about what you are talking about
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I'd like to see the source code and specs, constraints, etc. I've seen robots designed to evolve under certain constraints, that lead to very predictable and obvious traits based on those constraints. For example, if a robot had a goal to pass on its genes, and sharing food was the means to accomplish this, it isn't a surprise that's the result: It didn't evolve that response; it was designed to acheieve it! That's why I'd like to see the actual research. Till then I have to call bogus.
The robots/virtual robots didn't actually evolve altruism as such. I was hoping they were going to say the robots had discovered they ability to recognize weak kin and share food. Instead, the researchers taught the robots how to share, and also changed their optimization problem to "if we both have a decent amount of food, all of our genes will die, but if I give it all away, your genes might propagate." So they just solved the optimization problem they were taught, as opposed to figuring it out on their own.
Their description of the rudimentary nervous systems make the robots sound like they're related to Braitenberg Vehicles, which are otherwise pretty fascinating.
The genetic reward is proportionate to how much of one's genes the recipient shares. Thus altriustic behavior will (and should) drop off outside of children, of family, of relatives, of tribe, finally of all of humanity... however, it never reaches zero as long as the recipient is approximately inside our species.
And there is the confounding variable that because society rewards altriusm (for obvious reasons), individuals will invest in appearing to be altruistic, especially if they actually are not altruistic. Such behavior will overwhelm the very mild altruism that we are looking to observe between strangers. You need to track down some of those "subject is not aware he is being observed" experiments.
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE