 |
Robot Swarms Improve Culture By Forgetting
The Emergence of Artificial Culture in Robot Societies (or, the Artificial Culture project) is a four-year research effort to understand why people have culture. This is done with little swarm robots; by building a simple robot society, creating suitable initial conditions, then running the robot society they watch to see if simple proto-cultural behaviours, i.e. 'traditions', emerge.
(The Emergence of Artificial Culture in Robot Societies)
In the limited memory trials each robot had a memory capacity of only five learned memes, so that when a new meme was learned the oldest one in the robot’s memory was deleted...When we ran multiple trials of the limited and unlimited memory cases, then analysed the number and sizes of the clusters of related memes in the meme pool, we saw that the limited memory trials showed a smaller number of larger clusters than the unlimited memory case. The difference was clear and significant; with limited memory an average of 2.8 clusters of average size 8.3, with unlimited memory 3.9 clusters of size 6.9.
Why is this clustering interesting? Well it’s because the number and size of clusters in the meme pool are good indicators of its diversity. Think of each cluster of related memes as a ‘tradition’. A healthy culture needs a balance between stability and diversity. Neither too much stability, i.e. a very small number (in the limit 1) of traditions, or too much diversity, i.e. clusters so small that there are no persistent traditions at all. Perhaps the ideal balance is a smallish number of somewhat persistent traditions.
One of my favorite sf stories of the 1970's is Home is the Hangman, by Roger Zelazny. In the story, a robot (the Hangman) with a "learning brain" is trained using a telefactoring connection with each of several researchers. In the process of imparting lessons on how to move around and manipulate objects, the connection also passes some measure of the feeling and emotions of the researchers.
As a prank, the researchers use the Hangman to break into a bank. Unfortunately, a human guard is killed; the Hangman feels the guilt and horror of the researchers and has what amounts to a 'psychotic break'.
Eventually, the robot achieves a kind of integration and comes back to confront his makers.
Read more at Robohub and the Artificial Culture Project
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 6/13/2015)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )
Related News Stories - (" Robotics ")
Qbit Robot Bartender Also Makes Coffee
'...he sipped the cognac that the robot bartender handed him.' - Alfred Bester, 1956.
Out-Of-Work Blue Collar Robots Need Your Help
'His legs relaxed with a rattle as he cut off all power below his waist... and ran his eye down the Help Wanted - Robot column...' - Harry Harrison, 1956.
Massage Robot Has Soft Hands, Er, Pads
'The automatic massager began to fumble gently over my naked form.' - AE van Vogt, 1944
M-Blocks 2.0 Self-Assembling Robots
'Faster the cubes moved...' - Abraham Merritt, 1920.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Current News
Via Virtual Reality, Mother Encounters Deceased Daughter
'But that barrier was going to melt away someday soon. The transhumanists had promised...'
Clothes That Do Photosyntheisis
'Clothes are no longer made from dead fibers of fixed color and texture...'
Stratuscent Electronic Nose
'It's picking up diphenyl compounds and tetra hydrocarbons.'
CIMON Companion Robot For Space Station Astronauts
'... in some departments their power is absolute.'
Qbit Robot Bartender Also Makes Coffee
'...he sipped the cognac that the robot bartender handed him.'
Moving Desks Not SciFi After All
'Charged with hope, he zipped from stack to stack...'
Cruise Autonomous Car Drives Aimlessly For An Hour
Convincing video shows progress (and limitations).
Fast Charging A Bus In 20 Seconds
'... in almost every town and village.'
Realistic Translation With The Waverly Labs Ambassador
'The speech patterns you actually hear decode the brainwave matrix which has been fed into your mind by your Babel fish.'
Biotech Firms Raised $Millions For Anti-Agathics (Longevity Drugs)
'Against Death doth no simple grow.'
Out-Of-Work Blue Collar Robots Need Your Help
'His legs relaxed with a rattle as he cut off all power below his waist... and ran his eye down the Help Wanted - Robot column...'
The Dawn Of Orbiting Manufacturing In 2020?
'It can be mass-produced only in the orbiting factories.'
Smart Contact Lenses Charges With 3D Printed Antenna
'He realized that it was not quite a clear lens.'
Segway S-Pod Fulfills Dire 1928 SciFi Prophecy
'Noiselessly, on rubber-tired wheels, they journeyed down the long aisles...'
Physicist Inspired By SciFi And Seeing Back In Time
'Here is the chronoscope... Scansion depends upon a special curved field...'
Airbnb Has AI Psychiatrist Looking At Your Facebook
'It's illegal to hold back information during a psyche test.'
