Posted by
Russell Standish on
May 31, 2009; 10:58pm
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Re-Turtles-with-trousers-WAS-robots-forming-etc-tp3002381p3003729.html
On Sun, May 31, 2009 at 10:22:20AM -0600, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
>
> The reason that I raise all of this is that it seems to relate to the
> little dust-up that we had vis-a-vis epstein a few months back. What are
> models for? What does "verisimilitude" do for a model? Do we put skirts,
> trousers, and hats on our turtles or is it better not to? And WHEN is a
> robot something more than a turtle with trousers. I assume that people on
> this list have firm opinions on this subject.
>
In an evolving or learning system, environmental complexity is a big
factor. If you want to build a walking robot, then evolving a
controller in a simulated physical environment is not good enough,
although it makes an excellent starting point. There is the suspicion
that simulated environments are not good enough to evolve intelligence
(the "embedded AI hypothesis"). Similarly, there are some that think
that open-ended evolution is impossible in a simulation setting.
However much sympathy I have for these views, extending it to the
realm of models is just going too far, so I agree with you that adding
trousers to the turtles isn't worth it. A physical instantiation of a
model is only going to add additional confounding factors, which are
already bad enough.
Cheers
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