Polyworld: Using Evolution to Design Artificial Intelligence

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:

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 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.

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• google
• techtalks
• techtalk
• engedu
• talk
• talks
• googletechtalks
• education

[MueX]

Good lord, this kid should have smoked a joint instead of snorting a line of cocaine before his presentation.

[TheReasonWhyGuy]

@WrAth2110 and his mac needs some fixing ;P

[mangodoor408]

He Needs A PC!!

[jerrykroezen]

very good: use liquid crystal technology for self improving computers! let the hardware evolve!!!

[jerrykroezen]

Very good!!! Carl Sims best student!



[GaryGeckDotCom]

We need to push this research as far as possible...we'll never have real AI I'll predict, but some useful things will come of it...calling these thing "alive" because they follow an inadequate definition of life is not being very honest, they are cool toys though...that's all i got.

[RegularSmith]

Can everyone stop being babies. The kid is obviously very excited about his work and has a fixed time schedule to adhere to. People are such bitc*** these days.

[shashankgogoi]

Since the digital world presented here is information being fed over and over again, let's assume the physical world too is the same for a higher intelligent programmer. Now the two systems follow the same Darwinian principle. But can there be an exactly opposite system? Neural network not according to our understanding of biology but assuming we are elements too of a larger organism unlike the parallel reality concept. It'll b hard to define what has life and what doesn't. Ths may be pseudo sc.

[shashankgogoi]

This might sound pseudo scientific but I would still like to get the point across and it might be more generalistic than just AI. The critters are information feeding on information to producte other pieces of information. It is a copy paste of the Big Bang (intial information) and the after effects. Not following on those lines can there be a system where there is no competition but co-existence if the initial information (you) is manipulated? Play God and create a competition less environment.

[stereotomyalan]

@MueX all drugs give different ideas... because they provide variation... umm.. making any sense?

[96pieterr]

If it is possible to re program Polyworld with gpu cycles instead of cpu cycles the evolution can go a lot faster because gpu are a lot faster in linear processing than cpu are. End when you look at rainbow calculations a gpu is really 200 times faster than a cpu: a passport like "23P#d3" can be hacked in 7 minutes with gpu processing and a cpu needs 23 hours to do the same linear calculation. I hope someone who can code gpu programs wants to look at it. Greets Pieter Schreurs

[plugalink]

so, ok, moving on, so alright, ok eh um err. see that ok will see that, um alright so, just really he, so um ok,