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4:10 · 797K views · Dec 6, 2008
Karl Sims's 1994 demonstration of evolved virtual creatures: block-bodied creatures whose bodies and controllers are evolved through selection, mutation and recombination to swim, walk and compete.
HN treats it as the classic reference for evolutionary simulation and genetic programming, an inspiration for many projects, with notes on evolution exploiting simulation bugs.
8 comments from Hacker News
Something like evolving virtual creatures would be a fun (although pretty ambitious) addition [1]. There's a processing 2D virutal creatures model called sticky feet [2] (source available) that perhaps could be ported to js pretty quickly. [1] this video [2] [LINK]
Also relevant is Karl Sims' Evolving Virtual Creatures: this video Not sure how they're connected, but I remember being obsessed with that paper and actually recreating it in 2D as a grad project.
It seems to me that there are several levels of misunderstanding here. And the most interesting part is when Suzuki asks "So, what is your goal?", and the engineer answers "Well, we would like to build a machine that can draw pictures like humans do.". This is certainly a commendable goal. Then we cut to another sequence, where Miyazaki is drawing, and reflecting: "I feel like we are nearing the end of times. We humans are losing faith in ourselves..." It may or may not be so, but this is an interesting point to discuss. I can certainly understand how it could feel like it, but you'd have to study the motive for wanting to "replace" humans by machines, or just have machine perform like humans. One key misunderstanding in this exchange, and foremost on the part of the journalists reporting it (damn dumb journalists!), is that "This is a presentation of an artificial intelligence model which learned certain movements." Obviously, they didn't teach it to move, they had a certain model of the body, and let the AI loose, trying to learn by itself how to move. This is a classical application of genetic programming. See how some of those creatures look "creepy" too: this video [LINK] [LINK] [LINK] They obtained some creepy result, added a creepy texture and made it into a quick & dirty demo for "animating zombies". Clearly, the people who assisted to this demo didn't understand what it was. And the answer of the artist was the worst. Imagine assisting to Wright brothers' demo, and comi
It seems to me that there are several levels of misunderstanding here. And the most interesting part is when Suzuki asks "So, what is your goal?", and the engineer answers "Well, we would like to build a machine that can draw pictures like humans do.". This is certainly a commendable goal. Then we cut to another sequence, where Miyazaki is drawing, and reflecting: "I feel like we are nearing the end of times. We humans are losing faith in ourselves..." It may or may not be so, but this is an interesting point to discuss. I can certainly understand how it could feel like it, but you'd have to study the motive for wanting to "replace" humans by machines, or just have machine perform like humans. One key misunderstanding in this exchange, and foremost on the part of the journalists reporting it (damn dumb journalists!), is that "This is a presentation of an artificial intelligence model which learned certain movements." Obviously, they didn't teach it to move, they had a certain model of the body, and let the AI loose, trying to learn by itself how to move. This is a classical application of genetic programming. See how some of those creatures look "creepy" too: this video [LINK] [LINK] [LINK] They obtained some creepy result, added a creepy texture and made it into a quick & dirty demo for "animating zombies". Clearly, the people who assisted to this demo didn't understand what it was. And the answer of the artist was the worst. Imagine assisting to Wright brothers' demo, and comi
The article's philosophical discussion of "surprise" feels a little klunky and academic to me, and I think conflates some different kinds of surprise, but it's still really fun to think about. Many of the projects here are all inspired by Karl Sims' work in the early 90's. [LINK] Sims evolved virtual creates by specifying goals to achieve and then running a physics simulation. He noted at the time that the evolution process was great at exploiting bugs in the simulation. this video I was insipred enough by Sims' genetic images ( [LINK] ) that I spent a few years trying to get surprising and beautiful results of my own, with some limited success ( [LINK] ).