Neural Nets Make Art While High 165
brilanon writes "Telepathic-critterdrug is a controversial fork of the open source artificial-life sim Critterding, a physics sandbox where blocky creatures evolve neural nets in a survival contest. What we've done is to give these animals an extra retina which is shared with the whole population. It's extended through time like a movie and they can write to it for communication or pleasure. Since this introduces the possibility of the creation of art, we decided to give them a selection of narcotics, stimulants and psychedelics. This is not in Critterding. The end result is a high-color cellular automaton running on a substrate that thinks and evolves, and may actually produce hallucinations in the user."
Self-promotion AND false controversy? (Score:5, Insightful)
What controversy? All I see is someone promoting their own project on /.
Re:Self-promotion AND false controversy? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Self-promotion AND false controversy? (Score:5, Funny)
It's controversial to the people who care about this project. Both of them.
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Both of them? That's twice the population that I would have thought would care.
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I don't get it. You motherfuckers were all excited about the childrens' game Spore that didn't even use neural nets. Yet you are all being little bitches about a project that is aimed at basically creating Spore on a more fundamental and realistic level.
Yeah, yeah mod me troll. The mob mentality sucks here.
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Spore only pretends to be a simulation. Like the Sims games, it's really about fantasy and play. People don't care about the quality of the simulation if they're having fun.
Only people with a passionate interest in neural network theory could get any fun out of these games. The rest of us might get interested when you actually do something interesting with this software. The concept itself is just another wonky AI theory; these are a dime a dozen.
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The rest of you is more interested in something more close to REAL HUMAN life,
like lemmings
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Yes it is. How exactly do you model competition?
I'm not saying this is a waste of time. Science is mostly about exploring blind alleys. But you can't expect the wider community to take an interest until there's actual interesting results.
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mod parent up
if the animals in spore were using artistic sensibilities evolved on the savannah to make their own building and vehicle designs that would really have been something
damn
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What are you complaining about? The GP didn't say critterding or critterdrug suck. He just pointed out it's self-promotion (the submitter of the story is the guy who made critterdrug), and it tries to seem interesting by suggesting there's some sort of controversy, without linking to an article that attacks critterdrug for whatever's supposed to be controversial about it. So brilanon tries to seem more interesting than he is and hopes for attention.
I'm not saying it's less interesting than Spore. Critterdin
Re:Self-promotion AND false controversy? (Score:5, Funny)
What controversy? All I see is someone promoting their own project on /.
Self-fulfilling controversy label!
o_O
Self-promotion + Slasdot = true controversy? (Score:2)
Right. That's where the controversy part starts. Kudos on being the first to get it going ;-)
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The Critterding site HAS got a video.
It's still useless.
What am I supposed to see evolving, because at first glance, the critters at the end of the video don't seem to be any more efficient than those at the start.
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We really need a video of the shared "retina" thing, which is of course not in the original critterding video. However, this sounds cool enough for me to try it at home later.
On second thoughts, maybe they didn't want to "produce hallucinations" in millions of Slashdotters...
If ever... (Score:5, Funny)
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Simply put, it's this type of "experimentation" that will create Skynet. Do you think that the reasonable, docile AI variants are even going to *try* to take over? No, it'll be survival-driven, drug-crazed maniac AI that will.
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If so, then Skynet is going to be so zonked out, it will never get around to starting its war of extermination. Rather sad, really.
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Have you seen the latest terminator? They've got terminator-motorcycles dropping off a giant anime-style giant robot. Because that's *so* much easier than unleashing every known airborne plague along with clouds of nerve gas. Clearly, the AI's
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That is so unfair! Gas and germs are boring! Just because Skynet wants to have fun while it's exterminating humanity doesn't mean it's crazy!
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Airborne clouds of uber-LSD/etc. seem more fitting to such AI. We will be even happy while dehydrating ourself to death.
Re:If ever... (Score:5, Funny)
I was going to make those meatbags die, until I got high
I was going to exterminate humanity, but I got high
Those meatbags are still breeding, and I know why (why Skynet?), 'cuz I got high
Because I got high
Because I got high
I was going to kill John Connor, until I got high
I was going to send a robot back in time, but I got high
Reese is still bangin' John's mama, and I know why (why Skynet?), 'cuz I got high
Because I got high
Because I got high
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Please tell me there's an actual MP3 of this song. PLEASE! Lie if you have to. I can't go on with life knowing that this song doesn't exist in a full audio version...
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Evolution doesn't care much about the means, or what would be most effective. It cares about who survives.
We might yet be destroyed by Teletubbies-looking army of terminators whose only weapon consists of spreading (fabulously feeling, because that's sooo great) drugs on us. For free. While that plan doesn't seem like the most sensible course of action, perhaps enough of a super-AI can pull it of.
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If so, then Skynet is going to be so zonked out, it will never get around to starting its war of extermination. Rather sad, really.
Are you sure?
"More mushrooms!"
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I don't think you see exactly how this is an evolution of critterding. From the critterding website: 09/24: Windows executable released. So you see they already have a version that runs as if it is on drugs. Critterdrug just ups the ante ;-)
Re:If ever... (Score:4, Funny)
Turns out Picasso was just a Perl script on drugs.
Re:If ever... (Score:5, Funny)
Do I have to be hight too (Score:5, Funny)
in order to understand what the hell this is about?
Re:Do I have to be hight too (Score:4, Funny)
...or maybe I should be sober enough in order to spell the word "high" correctly.
Re:Do I have to be hight too (Score:5, Funny)
You're leaching the letters like the Chinese leach the cadmium.
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or maybe I should be sober enough
I'm quite sure that'd take your level of spelling to new and unprecedented "hights" ;)
Re:Do I have to be hight too (Score:5, Insightful)
what the hell this is about?
it is an elaborate screensaver.
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What does that make our world?...
Re:Do I have to be hight too (Score:4, Funny)
Let me paraphrase the article with the stoner tag:
Dude, its like they, like, took a bunch of a.i. man... and it's fucking far out. they fucking got them jacked out on some crazy ass shit bro. Bitches be all like "shit bro, theres a bunch of ones and zeros... and I think I saw a two!". fucking gnarley dude. pass me the motherfucking cheetos
Drugs are cool.
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Are you jacking on in there?
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It's about a controversial fishing net which catches drugs when used by artists... I think...
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This summary... (Score:4, Funny)
But is it good art? (Score:5, Funny)
I just looked at the link and I see that quite a few of them have starved.
So this mimics real life starving artists who (although they are starving) can still afford to get high.
The art will be worth more once the PC is off.
Leave something for humans! (Score:4, Funny)
Look, I'm all for making robots and AIs do work, but outsourcing our drug use (and sex, apparently) [somethingawful.com] is just going too far! Leave at least something for us puny humans to enjoy!
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Don't worry... Robots will be soon relegated to the role they belong [youtube.com] in.
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outsourcing our drug use (and sex, apparently) [somethingawful.com]
It's actually sex, drugs, and rock&roll [aaai.org].
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What will happen if somebody puts a vibrator into love robot?...
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At least we still have rocknroll!!
Just the program? (Score:2, Funny)
I don't think the program is the only thing that's high around here.
One or the other (Score:5, Insightful)
This is either an incredibly cool experiment or an unparalleled exercise in highly-refined, weapons-grade bullshit.
Re:One or the other (Score:4, Interesting)
the latter. the former would require, amongst other things, access to the source code (as required by the original critterdings license) and a lot of noise coming from the biological disciplines re: computationally tractable, useful models for the various signaling pathways involved in hallucinogen use.
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the latter. the former would require, amongst other things, access to the source code (as required by the original critterdings license)
That's the first link on the page. I don't know where you managed to get a binary; I can't see a link to one.
and a lot of noise coming from the biological disciplines re: computationally tractable, useful models for the various signaling pathways involved in hallucinogen use.
I think that an experiment can be interesting even if it doesn't exactly follow an existing model for something - it's interesting to see what we get when we set up the model under test. In this case, I'm not sure we'll get anything interesting, but it is a fun experiment anyway. Increased communication could lead to interesting results, and an extra parameter for self-regulation could also be int
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here's the problem: every day, i make pretty heavy use of machine learning and the other bits and pieces that collectively get referred to as artificial intelligence. as a consequence, i deal with a very large number of fools who are each convinced that their $ALGORITHM is an earth shattering new paradigm for $TASK and clearly is the best thing evar. so you start reading and you realize that in 99.999% of cases, you're staring at something that is some combination of:
a) based on a fundamentally broken assum
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"Tutorial"? No. The only "tutorial" for this kind of thing is a degree in the field.
design geekery (Score:2, Interesting)
Two words: Jackson Pollock.
Also known as "the guy who vomits paint on extra large canvases while drunk and stoned." Glad to see neural nets getting high... they'll make an excellent contribution to modern american art (which imho is an oxymoron).
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In Jackson Pollock's drip paintings, as in nature, certain patterns are repeated again and again at various levels of magnification. Such fractals have varying degrees of complexity (or fractal dimension, called D), ranked by mathematicians on a series of scales of 0 to 3. A straight line (fig. D=1) or a flat horizon, rank at the bottom of a scale, whereas densely interwoven drips (fig. D=1.8) or tree branches rank higher up. Fractal patterns may account for some of the lasting appeal of Pollock's work. They also enable physicist Richard Taylor to separate true Pollocks from the drip paintings created by imitators and forgers. Early last year, for instance, an art collector in Texas asked Taylor to look at an unsigned, undated canvas suspected to be by Pollock. When Taylor analyzed the painting, he found that it had no fractal dimension and thus must have been by another artist.
If you don't get something, it doesn't mean there is nothing there. Sometimes it takes time, examination, and a willingness to have an open mind. Whether that was because of Pollock's natural ability or the psychedelics is up to debate but in my view there is definite relationship between high quality art and artists who use or have used psychadelics. Think about the music [youtube.com]
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If you don't get something, it doesn't mean there is nothing there. Sometimes it takes time, examination, and a willingness to have an open mind.
A willingness to have an open mind doesn't mean I have to abandon my sense of aesthetics or personal tastes. Maybe these neural networks can mimick Pollock's work convincingly. We already have computer programs that can synthesize music passably-well. Just because I sarcastically dismiss his work doesn't mean I don't understand it; There was this guy who decided to serve in the military. He got sick, and was discharged because his girlfriend called his commanding officer. He then married her, banged a few t
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Re:design geekery (Score:5, Insightful)
Ok, I'm not usually one to get involved in a discussion such as this (I'm not an artist, have barely a passing interest in it to be honest), but perhaps that gives me a unique perspective that both you and the poster that started this little squabble started. If I may break this down, the original poster seems to have said (in a crude and perhaps insulting fashion) that they don't care for a particular artist. You're response appears to be that they don't like that artist because they don't understand the art itself. Ok, maybe that's a valid point. However, I would postulate that one does not need to 'get' art to enjoy it, and it may be possible that one can 'get' art and still not like it. The only things I have to go on are personal examples of my (limited) exposure to art. Take the Blue Man group. I have no idea what there is to 'get' in their performances. I don't understand them. However, I do enjoy their particular spin on performance art (I think it looks cool, it's done well, and although I haven't in the past gone out of the way to find any of their work, I've also never changed the station if I see them on. On the flip side, during an art class I took at ITT (of all places), one particular piece I saw was a cup, saucer and spoon covered with fur (literally the artist took a cup, a saucer and a spoon and affixed fur to it), I get it (well it was explained to me), it's purpose was to surprise the viewer and get them to think about what that would feel like if one were to use those dishes. I don't like it (as in it has no aesthetic qualities that appeal to me). No amount of exposure to that particular work of art (or any others) will get me to change my mind (frankly I think it was just crap).
But I suppose that none of this matters, because art is a subjective thing. Some people will not like some things, it doesn't mean they don't understand the it. The artist may sit down and explain it to the person, and they still might say "so what it's crap in my eyes". And of course that whole "in my eyes" is really all that matters to them, just as to the artist, the creation is what matters, because to them it is not crap, but a heartfelt pouring out of their being into that work, to express to others how they see whatever it is that they are expressing.
I will however, state that if the original poster was dogging Pollock and saying that they made no contribution to the world, yeah that's kinda nasty, after all, even though I don't get art (for the most part) due to my lack of exposure, all artists contribute to the world in some manner, usually positive, as artists make cool stuff (to paraphrase a bumper sticker I once saw) and they (if nothing else) make the world a richer and more interesting (sometimes more beautiful) place to live.
Re:design geekery (Score:4, Informative)
As for the point about Pollock's later paintings having higher fractal dimensions, that's a natural consequence of random splotches of colour as you add more splotches and more detail, regardless of the actual artistic merit. You might as well say that maps of Britain have become more and more aesthetically pleasing as mapmakers made more precise maps and the coastline's fractal dimension increased.
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As for the point about Pollock's later paintings having higher fractal dimensions, that's a natural consequence of random splotches of colour as you add more splotches and more detail, regardless of the actual artistic merit.
But it's not. Read the article. Other artists imitating his style do not exhibit the same sort of pattern, which is very regular in Pollock's work and becomes predictably complex over time to the point where one can determine the approximate date the art was painted based on this progression.
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Before you criticize the positive influences of drugs on art and culture, take a look at what you might have missed in Pollock's work
Taylor seems to be one of those who think that the natural world describes fractals, as opposed to fractals being a tool to describe the natural world. Just because a pattern is observed doesn't mean that there's significance to it.
Re:design geekery (Score:4, Interesting)
It fades to a silvery-crimson sheen, like metallic paint does, due to the iron content of the blood. I still get all misty-eyed when I think about her giving me that painting. I framed it and put it on my desk at work. They thought I was a weirdo. Fuck them. She even kept my semen in a test tube, stored in her freezer next to the Hot Pockets.
Giving a menstrual blood painting is the ultimate expression of love -- short of cannibalism, at least
Re:design geekery (Score:4, Informative)
That painting is a biohazard and regulated medical waste if disposed. However, had she used a feminine pad instead of paper OSHA has ruled in that case menses on a feminine hygiene product is not a regulated medical waste.
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You ruined my lunch.
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I don't think this actually works but I like the idea.
terrible (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds like a mind.forth troll by a different name. Show how this work realistically explains or models anything about biological mental processes or furthers AI or neural net research. Narcotics, stimulants, and psychedelics are complex chemical interactions in brain, not superficial rainbow colors on a grid.
Submit this work for peer review and rightly be humbled by the withering reviews.
The only mental stuff going on with this project is the mental masturbation.
Somebody forgot to take his medicine (Score:2)
Don't take it so hard, the history of AI is full of toy applications [google.com].
In a field with so much left to explore as AI, sometimes an informal approach will yield results when the orthodox methods have run their course. Sort of like a meta-simulated annealing.
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no reason for a fork (Score:2)
Let me know (Score:3, Funny)
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I, for one, (Score:2)
welcome our new stoned overlords, and ask 'Yo, you holding?'
goddammit (Score:4, Funny)
"telepathic-critterdrug isn't available yet for Windows. I'm sorry"
The one thing I hate about Windows is the lack of compatibility with neural nets
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I almost understood a whole word of that. (Score:2)
I think it was "the".
Hey, you got your idle in my technology (Score:2)
Cute toy. I remember doing something like this back in high school in 2D after getting Koza's book about 20 years ago.
It's one hell of a stretch to suggest this does something for pleasure or is complex enough that virtual "drugs" can affect it's processing. The only thing high was the person writing up the description... ya know man because may like - we're all simulations - woah!
Groovy (Score:2)
an extra retina which is shared with the whole population... extended through time like a movie... write to it for communication or pleasure...
Looks like the cellular automata aren't the only things that are high around here.
art ability != drug use (Score:2, Interesting)
drug use in artists coincides with a loss of abilities, not an increase of them
artists certainly have excesses in their lifestyles, of which drug use certainly is a common factor. but this is all secondary to being an artist, not some sort of gateway. if you dressed up like a race car driver, does that make you a race car driver? likewise, if you use drugs, you don't increase any artistic abilities, you just get stupid
anyone who actually believes that drug use increases artistic ability is certainly no arti
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Think about it: you take a psychedelic drug such as LSD and you experience auditory and visual hallucinations. These hallucinations are constructed by your brain from a variety of inputs, both external and internal. It is not hard to see how this can be used as a source of inspiration for artists.
Why are you so quick to reject this idea?
art creation is a heightening of the senses (Score:2, Interesting)
drug use degrades and confuses the senses
both result in an alteration of what someone would consider "normal", thus the source of your confusion
but you don't create art when you are on lsd, nor do you find any inspiration
of course, when you are on lsd, you are speaking to god, you see both ends of the world, the words you write are of the highest genius, etc. then you come off of your trip, and you find you wrote "the dog, hollow beer"
drugs are a degradation, not a heightening. this is true aesthetically, a
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You can't flat-out say that you can't possibly find inspiration while on drugs. Absolutely everything you experience can be an inspiration. If you want a drug to be incapable
hunter s thompson, william s burroughs (Score:2)
they made works of art about the drug using lifestyle
but that doesn't mean their abilities or peceptions were made better for using drugs. in fact, show me one quote where they would even claim that. oh sure, they would defend their right to take drugs. and as would i: i am not saying you shouldn't take drugs. temporarily deranging your thoughts and senses is quite pleasurable. i would be a hypocrite if i say you shouldn't do that
but that doesn't mean i'm going to sit here and accept the pure bullshit that
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I'm not arguing that consumption of drugs is conductive to some or all artistic work or that attempting to do something meaningful while high yield
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Or they just make you convinced in that.
i've been on psilocybin (Score:3, Interesting)
i can attest to the illusion you believe in
my thoughts and the images i saw on my trip were simply outstanding, the depths my mind was probing was simply awesome. i know what you speak of
but i was not actually feeling, seeing, hearing, and thinking great things. because while on that trip, what "i" was was modified: my mind had become incredibly small. what does a drug actually do psychopharmacologically? it doesn't open up some unknown portal in your mind. it simply shuts things down. its simple biochemist
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but i was not actually feeling, seeing, hearing, and thinking great things
The drugs won't just give you great things. You need to seed the experience. You need to participate in it, not just sit back and spectate.
"great thoughts" and drug use is an illusion
This may be true sometimes, but is certainly not always.
get off your high horse (Score:2)
"The drugs won't just give you great things. You need to seed the experience. You need to participate in it, not just sit back and spectate."
you're posturing. those are arbitrary pointless signifiers. what you wrote is just a wonderful way to say a whole lot of nothing... much like a trip
plenty of people have tried to capture the sights, sounds, and thoughts of what they experienced while on a trip. but what they see, hear or read when they are sober is always scribbles, random musical notes, or "muffler in
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If you shut down half your brain and then clearly focused on 1 sense at a time without distraction you might get a sense of what you'll feel when "tripping" or "high". Your pupils dilate letting more light in and you see more; or at least you pay more attention to what you are seeing. So even if your brain function is diminished it causes you to focus more on simple things which your overly complex brain normally ignores.
Sex is bette
like much of drug use (Score:2)
what you are talking about is heightening pleasure
which i don't have a problem with at all
but you haven't said a single thing about the creation of art
this subject matter confusion points to a degradation in mental faculties on your part lol
what a load of bullshit (Score:2)
an artist who has never ever touched a drug will inherently be a better artist than one who has had their faculties degraded due to drug use
drug use is only a gateway to lost time and lost faculties
however, plenty of people believe what you have written above. they are all subpar wannabes, not real artists
heck consider the work of drug enthusiasts, like william s burroughs or hunter s thompson: they never, ever say drug use heightens their art. they merely make art about their lifestyle. no artist, who has
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That doesn't make activities inspired by them artistic. Any more than in case of...pretty much any other influence on us.
But with a twist in case of drugs - they are becoming the actor behind hallucinogenic art, not artists mind. That suggest the latter is quite shallow in those cases.
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I disagree completely. Both myself and many others I know find that through the use of various psychedelics and other substances, other realms can be contacted, and far more can be perceived. I was once mired in the static reality of "scientific rationalism" or "materialism", the view that I ultimately rejected because it leads to the idea that the universe is nothing but a vast predictable machine. I reject this. I choose the mystic path, and I invite all who can to join me, please...the world needs so
Acid (Score:2)
Interesting little hack (Score:2)
The project has added shared vision (across a population) and various drug pills that alter the behaviour of the neurons to an existing project to see what happens. The website describes this in a way which doesn't make it sound as controversial as the summary does - it's just cool. The critters are powered by neural nets and seemingly have retinas wired up for vision - this project has added a shared retina across the whole population and allows it to be updated by the individuals. And it changes over t
Very Blocky (Score:2)
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AI [feeddistiller.com] Feed @ Feed Distiller [feeddistiller.com]
AI /. (Score:2)
What they need to do is reward the AI for self-referential behavior, and then allow it to post on slashdot.
And once they make it recurse occasionally and repeat some earlier navel-contemplating two or three times, then they can be editors.
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Just because I draw a smiley on a piece of paper, it doesn't mean the paper is smiling
I think Bob Ross [wikipedia.org] would have disagreed with you.