Evolving AGI via an Alife approach would be possible, but would likely take many orders of magnitude more resources than engineering AGI...
I worked on Alife years ago and became frustrated that the artificial biology and artificial chemistry one uses is never as fecund as the real thing.... We don't understand which aspects of bio and chem are really important for the evolution of complex structures. So, approaching AGI via Alife just replaces one complex set of confusions with another ;-) ... I think that releasing some well-engineered AGI systems in an Alife type environment, and letting them advance and evolve further, would be an awesome experiment, though ;) -- Ben G On Mon, Jul 26, 2010 at 11:23 PM, Linas Vepstas <[email protected]> wrote: > I saw the following post from Antonio Alberti, on the linked-in > discussion group: > >>ALife and AGI >> >>Dear group participants. >> >>The relation among AGI and ALife greatly interests me. However, too few >>recent works try to relate them. For exemple, many papers presented in AGI-09 >>(http://agi-conf.org/2009/) are about program learning algorithms (combining >>evolutionary learning and analytical learning). In AGI 2010, virtual pets >>have been presented by Ben Goertzel and are also another topic of this forum. >>There are other approaches in AGI that uses some digital evolutionary >>approach for AGI. For me it is a clear clue that both are related in some >>instance. >> >> >>By ALife I mean the life-as-it-could-be approach (not simulate, but to use >>digital environment to evolve digital organisms using digital evolution >>(faster than Natural one - see >>http://www.hplusmagazine.com/articles/science/stephen-hawking-%E2%80%9Chumans-have-entered-new-stage-evolution%E2%80%9D). >> >>So, I would like to propose some discussion topics regarding ALIfe and AGI: >> >>1) What is the role of Digital Evolution (and ALife) in the AGI context? >> >>2) Is it possible that some aspects of AGI could self-emerge from the digital >>evolution of intelligent autonomous agents? >> >>3) Is there any research group trying to converge both approaches? >> >>Best Regards, > > and my reply was below: > > For your question 3), I have no idea. For question 1) I can't say I've > ever heard of anyone talk about this. For question 2), I imagine the > answer is yes, although the boundaries between "what's Alife" and > "what's program learning" (for example) may be blurry. > > So, imagine, for example, a population of many different species of > "neurons" (or should I call them automata? or maybe I should call them > "virtual ants"?) Most of the individuals have only a few "friends" (a > narrow social circle) -- the "friendship" relationship can be viewed > as an "axon-dendrite" connection -- these friendships are semi-stable; > they evolve over time, and the type & quality of information exchanged > in a friendship also varies. Is a social network of friends able to > solve complex problems? The answer is seemingly yes, if the > individuals are digital models of neurons. (To carry analogy further: > different species of individuals would be analogous to different types > of neurons e.g. purkinje cells vs pyramid cells vs granular vs. motor > neurons. Individuals from one species may tend to be very gregarious, > while those from other species might be generally xenophobic. etc.) > > I have no clue if anyone has ever explored genetic algorithms or > related alife algos, factored together with the individuals being > involved in a social network (with actual information exchange between > friends). No clue as to how natural/artificial selection should work. > Do anti-social individuals have a possibly redeeming role w.r.t. the > organism as a whole? Do selection pressures on individuals (weak > individuals are cullled) destroy social networks? Do such networks > automatically evolve altruism, because a working social network with > weak, altruistically-supported individuals is better than a shredded, > dysfunctional social network consisting of only strong individuals? > Dunno. Seems like there could be many many interesting questions. > > I'd be curious about the answers to Antonio's questions ... > > --linas > > > ------------------------------------------- > agi > Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now > RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ > Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?&; > Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com > -- Ben Goertzel, PhD CEO, Novamente LLC and Biomind LLC CTO, Genescient Corp Vice Chairman, Humanity+ Advisor, Singularity University and Singularity Institute External Research Professor, Xiamen University, China [email protected] "I admit that two times two makes four is an excellent thing, but if we are to give everything its due, two times two makes five is sometimes a very charming thing too." -- Fyodor Dostoevsky ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=8660244-6e7fb59c Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
