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Steve Grand and Creatures The Next Step
Steve Grand and Creatures I noticed an article over on the NY Times, discussing an interview with Steve Grand, creator of the acclaimed 'ALife' game (Man Who Would Be God: Giving Robots Life). While most of the article pays tribute to -- almost blindly worshipping -- Steve's work, some of it also promotes his upcoming book! But seriously, some parts are quite interesting... he surprisingly works alone, which will work to his disadvantage in the long run. He's now setting out to build an intelligent robot, capable of learning like babies. Lets see what he can come up with! | Alex J. Champandard 934 posts. Sunday 03 February, 14:55 Reply
Cabbages and Kings I've followed Steve Grand's progress too, particularly because his "Lucy" robot appears similar to my own. The NYT article did indeed seem especially greasy, and there is often the temptation in the media to hype these sorts of projects out of all proportion, treating the researcher in question as some sort of demigod. In my experience its best to judge AI/ALife researchers by their actual results rather than by the often outrageous claims and promises they make about their particular technology. There are costs and benefits to working singlehandedly on a project. It's true that often great inventions are made by lone individuals - such as the Wright brothers working in their bicycle shed 100 years ago. Sometimes its far easier to do something individually rather than by commitee. From my own limited experience, all too often people in AI work alone and end up reinventing basically the same thing over and over again. This seems to be true of the MIT Cog robot, where individual researchers have worked on their own specialised components but that the components havn't been designed to work together in harmony to produce "the whole iguana". Anyway it will be interesting to see what Steve comes up with. I'm not sure what will come out of my own experiments with Rodney and really only time and a good deal of tinkering about will tell. - Bob | motters 136 posts. Sunday 03 February, 17:19 Reply
Semi-Gods and Researchers Yes, I do have quite a bit of respect for Steve... he found a niche, and managed to mold a little technology into a polished product. The hype made the game snow-ball, which is what he managed to do so well. I don't believe Norms are anything as amazing as they are said to be, but they're good enough to fool most of us. > lone individuals - such as the Wright brothers hehe, lets think about that one ;) I do agree that a lot of technology emerges from applying one's brain to a specific problem... that's my approach, among many others. Thinking about theoretical solutions means nothing to me when there's no need for it! | Alex J. Champandard 934 posts. Monday 04 February, 08:43 Reply