Polyworld: Using Evolution to Design Artificial Intelligence

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Google Tech Talks
November, 8 2007

ABSTRACT

This presentation is about a potential shortcut to artificial intelligence by trading mind-design for world-design using artificial evolution. Evolutionary algorithms are a pump for turning CPU cycles into brain designs. With exponentially increasing CPU cycles while our understanding of intelligence is almost a flat-line, the evolutionary route to AI is a centerpiece of most Kurzweilian singularity scenarios. This talk introduces the Polyworld artificial life simulator as well as results from our ongoing attempt to evolve artificial intelligence and further the Singularity.

Polyworld is the brain child of Apple Computer Distinguished Scientist Larry Yaeger, who remains the primary developer of Polyworld:



Speaker: Virgil Griffith
Virgil Griffith is a first year graduate student in Computation and Neural Systems at the California Institute of Technology. On weekdays he studies evolution, computational neuroscience, and artificial life. He did computer security work until his first year of university when his work got him sued for sedition and espionage. He then decided that security was probably not safest field to be in and he turned his life to science.

Channel: People & Blogs
Uploaded: November 13, 2007 at 4:12 am
Author: googletechtalks

Length: 01:06:38
Rating: 4.76
Views: 29076

Tags: google techtalks techtalk engedu talk talks googletechtalks education

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Video Comments:
HippiesRbad (August 29, 2008 at 12:50 am)
But i have to admit having a game like that where you can make a planet or even space and universe then create your own species and have them evolve and fight and develope technology and stuff meanwhile you being the gamer is kinda like God you can decide when it rains, snows, when meteors hit the planet, diseases, etc. Would be really cool.
HippiesRbad (August 29, 2008 at 12:14 am)
Jesus christ human beings are dumbfucks...We have this need to make artificial inteligence to be on athe human level...Being inteligent on the Human level sucks!! Look if we made a robot with human inteligence it would think itself superior to everyone then it would group together with others of its kind like early man did (i.e. whites, blacks, asians, etc) no matter what way you look at it the robots will fight the humans for dominance at least once...
pianoman8765 (August 28, 2008 at 7:29 pm)
i dont think we should be able to use polyworld. The creatures in Polyworld will Develop a human level intelligence. We should not be in control of these creatures, its not humane.
patchhacker (August 28, 2008 at 3:55 pm)
sorry about my comment before i stand corrected we can have a copy of poly world feel free to mark my first comment as spam
patchhacker (August 28, 2008 at 3:50 pm)
I sure do wish that all of us could have a copy of this program so that we could see what we could do with the program...
johnChapman (August 5, 2008 at 10:39 am)
I think that you're trying to apply a strong, philosophical definition of altruism (pure selflessness with no benefit) to determine whether a phenomenon is altrusistic or not. That's not really the sense in which biologists use the term. Note, before, that I said "no immediate payoff" - yes, there may ultimately be a benefit to the individual (as in the case of reciprocal grooming), but expending effort in such a way has a high exposure to risk; freeloaders can be groomed without ever...
ACIDPONG (August 1, 2008 at 8:04 pm)
DARK
johnChapman (July 31, 2008 at 10:51 am)
There are plenty of examples of altruistic behaviour in nature, i.e. where organisms do 'favours' for other organisms, at cost to themselves, with no immediate payoff. It's certainly a part of evolution, and a bloody interesting one at that!
leorana2 (August 3, 2008 at 3:15 pm)
Can you give such an example?
johnChapman (August 4, 2008 at 6:05 am)
Vampire bats regurgitating blood to feed others who didn't manage to feed themselves on a particular night, bird and monkey species who give out a cry to warn others of an approaching predator, attracting the predator to themselves, apes and birds that groom one another to remove parasites - all of these activities benefit one individual (the receiver) at cost to another (the one providing the 'favour').