Talk:Podcast
From PodcastWiki
How does computer architecture effect the evolution of artificial life?
User:Miriam notes:
Should that be "affect"?
Asking about how computers effect AL is to question how it is currently done, while affect is to wonder what limitations or advantages particular computer architectures bring to life simulations.
Both are very interesting questions. I suspect that the first will be useful for those wanting to discuss the merits of particular algorithms. The second has much wider implications. Are there architectures that are better suited to creating AL than standard desktop machines? Will massively parallel machines change things dramatically? Could the old analog computing architectures make a comeback for AL?
User:Barbalet notes:
My initial thinking was Effects although I see Affects may have some depth too.
Robotics and artificial life
User:Barbalet notes:
The distinction between robotics and hard artificial life appears to be blurred. I could be wrong. So the question seems to be could soft artificial life help hard artificial life/robotics? Maybe there is a deeper question I am missing.
User:Miriam notes:
At the moment most robots are little more than mechanisms (CD players, automatic teller machines, assembly line robots), but they are rapidly developing beyond that (the Mars rovers, Ants microbots at MIT AI Lab, locust) benefitting from, and becoming, artificial life. There is a synergy between life simulations carried out entirely on computer screens and robotics. Each teaches the other different things. Craig Reynolds' software boids have had an immense impact on many fields, and as robotics researcher Barbara Webb points out, robots can teach us unexpected things too.
User:Barbalet notes:
The MIT Ants are hard artificial life, aren't they? For my own reading we need to give some division on whether we are taking about hard artificial life helping robotics when hard artificial life IS robotics. I don't see a solid distinction between hard artificial life and robotics. When you say;
There is a synergy between life simulations carried out entirely on computer screens and robotics.
This is fundamentally;
There is a synergy between soft(ware) artificial life simulations and robotics (including hard(ware) artificial life).
User:Miriam notes:
Yep, the MIT Ants are examples of hard artificial life, but assembly line welder robots aren't. The class of robots is wider than the class of hard artificial life. In time I think assembly line robots may benefit from the advances brought by artificial life... then again, perhaps they won't. There may be situations where added capability works against the application. Take, for example, simple 5-function calculators. I expect they are probably at the upper limit of their usefulness now. Adding intelligence or life-like adaptability won't necessarily improve them. It is probably not a good thing for a 5-function calculator to try to second-guess what you want to do, or to switch the display to scientific notation rather than fixed-point, because it simply thinks that is best. Douglas Adams' doors with personality (in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy) are a wonderful, humorous example of how added functionality is not always better. Mostly though, robotics has a lot to gain from artificial life. Perhaps this question can be used to discuss in what ways robots can benefit from artificial life.
On the other hand it may be that the question is too obvious to be worth pursuing. And that's fair enough. :) In order to be useful, a question has to be interesting enough for people to want to discuss it. And there is already a nice suite of questions.
Virtual Reality and Avatars versus Virtual Worlds
User:Barbalet notes:
Virtual worlds seems to be in popular speech currently versus virtual reality and avatars. Although, again, I could be wrong.
