Evolutionary Robotics 30
schwit1 sends news that researchers from the University of Cambridge have developed robots that emulate natural selection. The "mother" robot designs and builds its "child" bots, and then tests them against particular criteria. The child bots that are the most successful have their traits carried on to the next generation. "For each robot child, there is a unique ‘genome’ made up of a combination of between one and five different genes, which contains all of the information about the child’s shape, construction and motor commands. As in nature, evolution in robots takes place through ‘mutation’, where components of one gene are modified or single genes are added or deleted, and ‘crossover’, where a new genome is formed by merging genes from two individuals." By the final generation, the fastest robots were able to perform their task twice as fast as the average robot in the first generation.
Cool (Score:1)
Give it a few million years and maybe we will see something!
Re: Evolution can work much faster than that. (Score:1)
Would you people please shut up about systemd already? You've had your fun.
Really? (Score:1)
Programmed for a purpose, the mother robot...
Re: Really? (Score:1)
Welcome (Score:1, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
Skynet becomes self aware 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th.
Mark your calendars.
Re: (Score:1)
Not really interesting until the grandchildren. (Score:4, Insightful)
This doesn't seem especially interesting if the "child" robots can't in turn produce and select their own children.
At that point, I guess it gets even less interesting, because the most "successful" mutation will be a simple one that causes the mother to select all her offspring.
Re: (Score:2)
the most "successful" mutation will be a simple one that causes the mother to select all her offspring.
No, the most successful mutation will be the one that causes a robot to kill its competitors.
Why don't they stick to simulations (Score:1)
Except for the coolness factor how is this different from a computer simulation? The robots can't replicate without humans involved. Why would you waste your time and build robots when more in depth studies can be done in software ( you don't have to mess around with hardware, if you need a new parameter, you don't have to build pieces for your robot)
Sort Of A Repeat (Score:3)
Meanwhile, Darwin is rolling in his grave (Score:1)
This is not natural selection at all.
Karl Sims: Evolved Virtual Creatures (Score:2)
Sorry but the first thing the robot must do (Score:2)
I didn't think Framsticks was all that new (Score:1)
I didn't think Framsticks was all that new