Darwinian assembly lines.

July 22, 2003 5:59 PM

Darwinian assembly lines.
posted by monju_bosatsu (15 comments total)

Wow.
posted by dg at 6:17 PM on July 22, 2003

On a similar note, genetically 'grown' soccer softbots. In actual RoboCup competition they even defeated hand-coded opponents. Check the bottom of the page for screenshots of important evolutionary moments in the growth of the team.

I asked the developer of this software what the resulting source code looked like, and he said that he couldn't follow it or figure out how it functioned. Erie, yet cool.
posted by jsonic at 6:38 PM on July 22, 2003

The company's website offers an MPG video showing the figure "evolving" from flopping over and twitching to striding effortlessly across the floor. Beautifully creepy.
posted by pzarquon at 6:39 PM on July 22, 2003

Ooh! More video! This one (MPG) is the most disconcerting, showing the characters reacting to being hit, thrown, and dropped. Ow!
posted by pzarquon at 6:45 PM on July 22, 2003

Seems more Lamarckian than Darwinian.
posted by goethean at 7:33 PM on July 22, 2003

Reading that article made me feel old..
posted by shadow45 at 7:44 PM on July 22, 2003

oops, wrong thread. *whistles and walks on*
posted by shadow45 at 7:45 PM on July 22, 2003

That's probably true for some of the programming techniques, goethean. Genetic programming can be quite mechanistic, copying all the realities of gene exchange, crossing over, natural selection, reproductive fitness etc. Often, particularly in problems that don't aim to copy actual living species, programmers can take shortcuts, copying the idea of evolution rather than the natural mechanisms. For example, instead of rejecting the least fit and seeing who's still alive to breed (realistic), it might just take the "top five percent" of the programs and use them to "seed" the next generation.
posted by Jimbob at 7:48 PM on July 22, 2003

Now the step that remains is for a computer to be able to determine it's own desirable outcome to evolve towards. That's when they can start to take over the world.
posted by Wingy at 8:17 PM on July 22, 2003

i think they already did wingy, and we're just a simulation.
posted by folktrash at 10:27 PM on July 22, 2003

You know, that would make an interesting idea for a movie.
posted by Jimbob at 10:59 PM on July 22, 2003

So, folktrash, which stage of the evolutionary process are we at now?
posted by dg at 11:06 PM on July 22, 2003

I like how many of the videos are of the models being hit or blown up. Where are the videos of the models breakdancing? Or on a trampoline? Even the sports ones deal more with contact than the sport component.
posted by jmackin at 7:24 AM on July 23, 2003

I got the impression that it was being marketed to special-effects people, who'd be more interested in using it for things actors can't do (like get injured).
posted by Tlogmer at 3:36 PM on July 23, 2003

Perhaps because it is easier to program their reaction to a single, directional force than complex independent movement? Just guessing.
posted by dg at 3:36 PM on July 23, 2003