Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
Mother Robot Evolves Her Children
Apparently, we're running out of robotics post-docs to do the grunt work of evolving robot-kind. Letting the robots do it might work better, anyway.
The basic idea behind evolutionary robotics is to build a whole bunch of simple robots, test them in some way, and then take a few of the most promising robots and use them to inform the design of the following generation. This is generally how biology evolution works (survival of the fittest and whatnot), and the fact that you’re sitting there reading this is a testament to how successful it can be. For those of us who don’t have eons to wait, robots can be forcibly evolved much much faster, as long as you’re willing to focus on just one trait and keep things extremely basic.
In a paper published last month in PLOS ONE, Luzius Brodbeck, Simon Hauser, and Fumiya Iida from the Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems at ETH Zurich took things one step further by teaching a “mother robot” to autonomously build children robots out of component parts to see how well they move, doing all of the hard work of robot evolution without any simulation compromises at all.
(Morphological Evolution of Physical Robots: Building)
This is a UR5 arm “mother robot” (that’s what the paper calls it) constructing a locomotion agent (what I’ve been calling a “child robot”) out of a few standardized parts, including active cubes with one rotating face and smaller passive cubes made out of wood. The mother robot hot glues active and passive cubes together and then transports them to a testing area, where they’re wirelessly activated and an overhead camera watches them wiggle around...
I was fascinated to read this study, because I couldn't help but think of the wonderful 1941 short story The Mechanical Mice, by Eric Frank Russell writing as Maurice A. Hugi. In the story, a man comes back from the future with the design for a robot mother, which is capable of designing and building smaller, mobile robots called golden shuttles:
He said, "The Robot Mother! That's what I made - a duplicate of the Robot Mother. I didn't realize it, but I was patiently building the most dangerous thing in creation, a thing that is a terrible menace because it shares with mankind the ability to propagate. Thank Heaven we stopped it in time!"..."Did you notice," I went on, "the touch of bee-psychology in our antagonists? You built the hive, and from it emerged workers, warriors, and" - I indicated the dead saunterer - "one drone."
With a sigh of relief, I strolled toward the door. A high whine of midget motors drew my startled attention downward. While Butman and I stared aghast, a golden shuttle slid easily through one of the rat holes, sensed the death of the Robot Mother and scooted back through the other hole before I could stop it...
"Bill," [Burman] mouthed, "your bee analogy was perfect. Don't you understand? There's another swarm! A queen got loose!"
Read more about machine evolution-related articles (from Philip K. Dick's 1953 story Second Variety).
Via IEEE Spectrum.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 7/29/2015)
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 ")
Artificial Skin For Robots Is Coming Right Along
'... an elastic, tinted material that had all the feel and appearance of human flesh and epidermis.' - Harl Vincent (1934)
Robot Guard Dog On Duty
I might also be thinking of K-9 from Doctor Who.
Wearable Artificial Fabric Muscles
'It is remarkable that the long leverages of their machines are in most cases actuated by a sort of sham musculature...' HG Wells, 1898.
Dancing Robots Taught Dance Moves
'A clockwork figure would be the thing for you...' Jerome K. Jerome, 1893.
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.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
The Zapata Air Scooter Would Be Great In A Science Fiction Story
'Betty's slapdash style.'
Thermostabilized Wet Meat Product (NASA Prototype)
There are no orbiting Michelin stars. Yet.
Could Crystal Batteries Generate Power For Centuries?
'Power could be compressed thus into an inch-square cube of what looked like blue-white ice'
India Ponders Always-On Smartphone Location Tracking
'It is necessary... for your own protection.'
Amazon Will Send You Heinlein's Knockdown Cabin
'It's so light that you can set it up in five minutes by yourself...'
Is It Time To Forbid Human Driving?
'Heavy penalties... were to be applied to any one found driving manually-controlled machines.'
Replace The Smartphone With A Connected Edge Node For AI Inference
'Buy a Little Dingbat... electropen, wrist watch, pocketphone, pocket radio, billfold ... all in one.'
Artificial Skin For Robots Is Coming Right Along
'... an elastic, tinted material that had all the feel and appearance of human flesh and epidermis.'
Robot Guard Dog On Duty
I might also be thinking of K-9 from Doctor Who.
Wearable Artificial Fabric Muscles
'It is remarkable that the long leverages of their machines are in most cases actuated by a sort of sham musculature...'
BrainBridge Concept Transplant Of Human Head Proposed
'Briquet’s head seemed to think that to find and attach a new body to her head was as easy as to fit and sew a new dress.'
Google's Nano Banana Pro Presents Handwritten Math Solutions
'...copy was turned out in a charming and entirely feminine handwriting.'
Edible Meat-Like Fungus Like Barbara Hambly's Slunch?
'It was almost unheard of for slunch to spread that fast...'
Sunday Robotics 'Memo' Bot Has Unique Training Glove
'He then started hand movements of definite pattern...'
Woman Marries Computer, Vonnegut's Dream Comes True
'Men are made of protoplasm... Lasts forever.'
Natural Gait With Prosthetic Connected To Nervous System
'The leg was to function, in a way, as a servo-mechanism operated by Larry’s brain...'
