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. Polyw
orld is the brain child of Apple Computer Distinguished Scientist Larry Yaeger, who remains the primary developer of Polyworld: http://www.beanblossom.in.us/larryy/Polyworld.html Speaker: Virgil Griffith Virgil Griffith is a first year graduate student in Computation and Neural Systems at the Cali
fornia 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.

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Pertaining to one ... ( 1 month ago by rawrshutup)

Pertaining to one of the last questions asked during the presentation, I think that more interactions between each critter(introduction of pheromones etc) would more likely evolve a social structure rather than intelligence. For instance, critters would learn which other critters to exploit rather than exploiting their environment for tools and other actions that signify intelligence. Also,I wanted to know If each critter had a memory of sorts. I know it wasn't mentioned but it wasn't clarified.

On the off chance ... ( 1 month ago by leorana2)

On the off chance someone involved in the project reads this: I saw you mentioned 'altruism' in the last slide for stuff you plan on adding in the future to the model. Please keep in mind altruism is NOT a part of evolution! Do not confuse altruism with sacrificing oneself for the sake of one's own child. That is not altruism. The most correct representation of altruism in the model I can think of is a polygon throwing itself at another stronger polygon offering itself as free lunch.

*continued* ... ( 1 month ago by leorana2)

*continued* Altruism is a man made way of thinking pertaining to tell man the correct way of life. It is a philosophy, and a false one. I can not think of any examples for altruism in the living world, other than sacrificing oneself for one's own offsprings, which as I've said is NOT altruism.
Adding altruism to the model makes no more sense than adding poly-religion or poly-theory-of-race. If you can get your polygons to develop these yourself, go ahead. But artificially adding it in is wrong.

dammit! why does ... ( 1 month ago by Da5an4nThu9)

dammit! why does all of the google tech talk vids have to be so long!? over 1 hour!?? this seems interesting by the title and the thumbnail but too bad that i dont have an hour to watch this

HOly ... ( 1 month ago by marauder2142)

HOly CrARpariarroawr as, never knew vids cud be over 15 mins on youtube lol

There are plenty of ... ( 1 month ago by johnChapman)

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!

DARK ( 1 month ago by ACIDPONG)

DARK

Can you give such ... ( 1 month ago by leorana2)

Can you give such an example?

Vampire bats ... ( 1 month ago by johnChapman)

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').

Grooming benefits ... ( 1 month ago by leorana2)

Grooming benefits the animal performing the grooming. It raises it social status (mating), and makes it more likely it will get groomed by others (status). Shouting as a warning help save the group. The group has many advantages for the individual. This can be compared to a human enlisting the army to fight a war to protect his country. He doesn't do it in the name of sacrifice, he does it because he knows if his country will not be defended his way of life / family / freedom be destroyed.

Also I would argue ... ( 1 month ago by leorana2)

Also I would argue shouting doesn't necessarily put the animal at risk. It draws attention, sure. But the predator has likely already spotted the group, and if it will begin persue it will most likely go for the closest/youngest/lonely prey, not based on shouting or not.
As for vampire bats, I did a bit of reading and it seems like they do exhibit a form of altruism. However vampire bats in that case are the exception, not the rule.

I think that you're ... ( 1 month ago by johnChapman)

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...

yeah, it would be ... ( 4 weeks ago by joshig1983)

yeah, it would be nice if they had a video form of abstract or a 10 minute compressed form of what they want to say.

I sure do wish that ... ( 1 week ago by patchhacker)

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...

sorry about my ... ( 1 week ago by patchhacker)

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

i dont think we ... ( 1 week ago by pianoman8765)

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.

Jesus christ human ... ( 1 week ago by HippiesRbad)

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...

But i have to admit ... ( 1 week ago by HippiesRbad)

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.

thats simply ... ( 5 days ago by jabes88)

thats simply amazing. imagine sim city with this technology lol. nah thatd be cruel. i have a feeling that one day theres going to be a lot of contraversy with games that come out with this technology.

They already have ... ( 4 days ago by Dirtfire)

They already have something like that. It's called 'Spore'.

Spore? The game is ... ( 3 days ago by Kintem)

Spore? The game is a decent sim, but it is no where near Polyworld.
Everything in Spore is programmed. There's no real AI. They don't learn from their mistakes. It's simply a game. Polyworld, the "creatures" pass information onto the next generation. Strange things that were never intended were noticed after many many generations. Such as cannibalism. It's so muc
h more interesting and complex, even if not as visually pleasing as Spore.

But there's no real ... ( 3 days ago by Dirtfire)

But there's no real learning in Polyworld either, is there? It's "merely" creatures adapting to their environment over many generations using the principles of evolution. None of these creatures has yet evolved a brain that can learn from experience. At least I don't think so. They're like jellyfish. Very interesting simulation, tho.

But evolution ... ( 2 days ago by inthefade)

But evolution occurs. In spore you intelligently design your creatures, they do NOT evolve at all.

While interesting, ... ( 18 hours ago by tomakist)

While interesting, it will not be useful until you can "harvest" parts of the neural network. The visual subsystem would be useful, if it was 3D. However the self preservation that will evolve will just get in the way (I mean in the short term, way before the system rises up in revolt)

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