This months PLoS Biology contains a review article by Floreano and Keller on studies that explore evolution using robots. It is an interesting read.
Evolution of Adaptive Behaviour in Robots by Means of Darwinian Selection
Darwin suggested that adaptation and complexity could evolve by natural selection acting successively on numerous small, heritable modifications. But is this enough? Here, we describe selected studies of experimental evolution with robots to illustrate how the process of natural selection can lead to the evolution of complex traits such as adaptive behaviours. Just a few hundred generations of selection are sufficient to allow robots to evolve collision-free movement, homing, sophisticated predator versus prey strategies, coadaptation of brains and bodies, cooperation, and even altruism. In all cases this occurred via selection in robots controlled by a simple neural network, which mutated randomly.
Neat stuff! Just finishing a section on NS in my Intro. Bio class and can now add “Robotic Selection” to the menu of evidences for selection.
Number five… is alive…
But the mutations weren’t really random, at least not in some esoteric sense that I can’t define. I’m sure the results were front loaded and smuggled in somehow by some really good intelligent programmer. We just need to see the original code to figure out how they did it. I mean, nothing new can ever really evolve by random changes, right? I mean, if that could occur in robots then it could also occur in nature and that would mean that evolution is true and that is against my religion. SO now you can’t teach this in science class without violating my religiosity, right?
For those who’d like to chew on philosophical questions:
Do these robots exhibit free will? How is it different/similar to human/animal free will?
(My knowledge on philosophy is fuzzy, so I can’t answer these questions coherently.)
Reminds me of this scene from Dark Star.
Floreano has been doing a lot of work on genetic algorithms and robotics. Nolfi is another name in the field that’s worth looking into, since he goes a step further (he gets rid of representation inside his robot’s ‘brains’ - they accomplish complex behaviour without actually ‘thinking’, so to speak).
The two worked together to write one of the best books on the subject, which may interest some readers here. (Full disclosure: My thesis work heavily cites Nolfi.)
These robots consist of parts that resemble intricate machines. And we know all machines have a machinist!
Remove a motor driver, and the whole actuator system becomes non-functional by definition. There’s no way these machines can simply evolve by random mutation!
The chances of a tornado blowing through a junkyard and assembling one of these robots really, really teeny! Therefore, they must have been designed! Therefore, WE must have been designed!
I’ve just discovered the Theory of Intelligent Roboticists!
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There is no such thing as free will, thus any appeal to that concept will automatically fail.
The creator is not always going to be greater than the created, especially if the created can improve itself. My parents created me, but I would not say they are superior to me.
(Preamble: I am a trained biologist, I absolutely accept evolution as fact, and I scorn “ID”.) Just a caveat here. From the paper:
This is not ‘natural selection’; it is ‘artificial selection’. The results are truly astonishing, but until researchers test a system which considers only survival, reproduction and competition for limiting resources, and does not require the intervention of a human … er … designer, ‘evolution by natural selection’ has not been tested.
The title should have been “But it is Still of the Robot KIND!”
Would you like to explain the difference?
Is the increase in grain size in food crops since farming began “natural” or “artificial” selection?
Is the decrease in adult cod size due to smaller adults surviving by passing though nets “natural” or “artificial” selection?
Would this be true for a hunted species where the fishing method intelligently targeted large individuals?
Pot fisherman return undersized lobsters to the sea with the intention of allowing them to mature and breed. But this selection is on size, not sexual maturity, so there must be some unplanned selection pressure tending to make lobsters become smaller. Would this unplanned outcome be “natural” or “artificial” selection?
There is a very large experiment called “The Natural World” which shows evolution happens. A lab experiment can show that a mechanism to allow replication with mutation then selection can produce better solutions under specific circumstances. Any claim to accurately model the “The Natural World” in its entirety with “only survival, reproduction and competition for limiting resources” is doomed to failure from the start if all selection pressures have to be defined in advance.
This depends on the definition of “free will”. Some define “free will” as “the apparent human ability to make choices that are not externally determined.” Using this definition only humans might possess free will (but perhaps they don’t).
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If I’ve understood the paper correctly, the difference is that in the robot study, the robots were evolving toward set goals (implicit in the fitness functions used to determine which robot genomes were passed on to the next generation). No such predetermined goals exist in the biosphere as a whole.
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In a trivial sense, we are a natural part of the robot’s environment, acting like a predator by eliminating some robots using some internal criteria (in this case, feeding our careers rather than our bodies). So it is natural selection in that all the actors in this drama are natural.
But in a historical sense you’re right; Darwin contrasted natural selection to dog breeding because he wanted to make the point that the world without people could make the same changes people could make.
IANA robot researcher. It seems to me a conceptually easy thing to do to allow the non-human environment to have a say on the goals (i.e. fitness measures). However, IMO this type of addition is both needless and counter-productive at this stage. Needless because we already generally know that non-human species act as selecting agents and how they do so, so we can model them using human action and be fairly confident in the results. Second, its counter-productive because the population of robots in these experiments is pretty small (three experiments, 80 each), which means random fluctuations in the behavior of any non-human selector you introduce are going to have an unnaturally large impact on the selection process. Your suggestion wouldn’t add greater fidelity to the experiment, it would just trade “unnaturally over-determination” for “unnaturally higher randomness.”
Hmmm… there’s a difference between ‘goals’ and ‘improving fitness’.
A fairly recent paper (I’ll try to remember the reference if anyone needs it or doesn’t know it already) subjected enzymes with a poor PCR enzyme to a fitness problem. The scientist reduced the availability of some raw materials (it’s really much more complex than this, but I don’t want to be accused of misrepresentation here).
Over 400 or so generations (about 72 hours), the enzymes had a number of mutations that improved their ability to extract the raw material. It was a 92 fold increase.
Now the purpose of the experiment was do develop an enzyme that was more effective at producing hydrogen gas. That was the ‘goal’ of the scientist. However, that goal was never set on the enzymes. They were subjected a ‘fitness’ problem in that only certain enzymes were allowed to reproduce (i.e. those with an increase in hydrogen production).
It may be artificial selection (which BTW is exactly the same as natural selection, just with something other than nature choosing what ‘fitness’ means), but it is still undirected evolution in that there is no specific goal, just a general improvement in the ‘fitness’ of the organism.
BTW: This same experiment showed how Behe’s irreducable structures can develop via evolution. The most efficient enzymes had a set of four mutations that resulted in the huge increase in hydrogen production. However, three of the mutations taken seperately resulted in decreases in production. Only when all four mutation were present did the highest hydrogen production occur.
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In so far as humans have free will, it’s just to (*incredibly* roughly) say that we’re acting rationally and making choices by our own immediate cognitive abilities. This is called compatibilism, and is an account of free will that allows for people to be held moral responsible despite determinism.
What most people think of when they say free will, known as libertarian free will, is a willed action that is neither determined nor random. Unfortunately, determined and random fill in all the possibilities.
If these robots were as emotionally and socially complex as humans then they would likely have just as much compatibilist free will as we’re able to have.
Lyin wrote:
“When are people going to drop the willful suspension of disbelief which Hero of Alexandria and Leonardo Da Vinci were able to exploit and trick people (like DS) into thinking they were seeing independent thought/will/action?”
I never said there was any independent thought/will/action. There are random changes acted on by selection that produce can adaptations over time. That is called evolution. It doesn’t matter that the changes are not really mutations in the biological sense. It doesn’t matter that the selection is artificial and not “natural” in the biological sense. This is clear evidence BY ANALOGY that the basic processes of random variation and selection have the ability to produce novel features. When are you going to drop the willful disbelief and admit that all of the evidence is consistent with evolution? When are going to admit that the evidence is clear that evolution actually occurred regardless of your preconceptions? When are you going to stop trying to exploit and trick people into denying the evidence?
Look dude, this is just microevolution. Everybody believes in that. What is your problem? Do you deny that random mutations occur? Do you deny that there is selection in nature? Do you deny that adaptations can occur without the intervention of an intelligent agent? If you deny these obvious realities should anyone care what you think?
Whenever anybody says “category error”, you can be sure the rest of the message is not worth reading.
The goal is simple. Live long enough to get laid.
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Could you argue that there is a “predetermined” goal in the biosphere: that of getting your genes into the next generation ?
What’s not predetermined is the method of ensuring they get there.
Genetic algorithms use evolutionary principles to evolve computer programs. They don’t look much like human designed programs.
PCR is used to evolve aptamers, RNA molecules that bind to a given target. A drug to treat a common cause of blindness was evolved this way, Macugen for macular degeneration.
While the IDists/creationists are attacking science, science is busy making a better world.
OgreMkV:
Please try to remember the reference. I would like to read the paper, but couldn’t fin it on my own.
Is this the link you wanted?
http://ti.arc.nasa.gov/projects/esg[…]/antenna.htm
PP
Why was my previous comment moved to the Bathroom Wall? (a first btw)
I believe your first post in this thread included three comments:
1) What a shame it was the djlactin felt the need to make his position clear
2) That Raven shouldn’t be angry because creationists (“these people,” not “creationism”) only challenge a few areas of science that don’t make much of a difference
3) A question about the paper.
Why on earth would you think that only your final point is a fair topic of discussion?
As to context … if a mainstream Democrat and a mainstream Republican each tell me “We need to reform the tax system,” knowing their affiliations provides me some insight into what they actually mean, since they use the same words to sum up very different approaches to policy. If you were to be kind enough to grace us with a clear statement of your position regarding evolution, I suspect it would most likely show either that (a) we’ve been rightly arguing with someone who is aligned with movements that, if successful, will undermine the foundations of modern science or (b) we’ve horribly misunderstood someone who is in fact our ally in the pursuit of mainstream science.
Or possibly that (c) your concern trolling has been exceptionally successful.
DS, do you only think in binary? Is there such a thing as a middle ground to you? Your second paragraph above screams “no” to both of these.
Fallacy of the Middle Ground
you are a waste of time.
Thank you, Ichthyic, for the barely relevant link. Also, you quoted my pre-corrected post.
Update