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Amethyst Shadow
Joined: 10 Jul 2006
Posts: 299
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 Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 7:03 pm Post subject: Artificial Personalities To Populate Virtual World |
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| Quote: | 19 May 2006
Artificial Personalities To Populate Virtual World
by Kate Melville
A fascinating experiment into personality and social interaction in which millions of software agents will potentially evolve their own culture is about to be switched on by five European research institutes. The NEW TIES project will be a virtual world populated by randomly generated software beings, capable of developing their own language and society.
The project has brought together AI experts, computer scientists, sociologists and linguists to study natural processes (like language development), and to advance the construction of collective artificial intelligence. "While individual, or machine, learning and evolutionary behavior have been quite well studied, social learning is still an unknown quantity," says project coordinator Gusz Eiben, an AI professor at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam. "For the linguists and sociologists, the main motivation is to study existing processes in societies and languages. The computer scientists on the other hand want to develop and study machine collaboration, with an eye on future applications in robotics," he added.
The NEW TIES world will initially be running across a grid of 60 computers. The virtual world will support about 1,000 agents (artificial personalities) at first, building eventually to millions - each one a unique entity with its own characteristics, including gender, life expectancy, fertility, size, and metabolism. The agents will each have their own distinguishing characteristics to make them recognizable. Some of their traits will be inherited from their parents, and passed on to their offspring, but they will also be able to learn from their own experiences and from each other.
"We are not hardwiring agents," stresses Eiben. "We are not programming how they behave. Each entity has its own 'controller,' analogous to a brain. And because we want to create an interesting controller, we have to produce a challenging world - otherwise there would be no impetus for development. So, in one scenario, we have created a world with seasons - so that the agents have to learn to find, transport and store food. And there are two rival groups, so they will have to learn to tell friend from foe."
The artificial life-forms will have the ability to communicate, using a native vocabulary of a few simple words like, 'food', 'near', and 'agent'. "One interesting question is how they will communicate," says Eiben. "Naturally, the linguists want to see how they develop a spoken language, but for the AI researchers we will also test to see if there are possible alternatives - telepathy, for example." Some basic rules will also be given, along the lines of, "if it's hot, it burns," but the agents are expected to add to the rule set as they discover new laws of nature.
Eiben said he hoped to eventually scale the world up to 5,000 computers, supporting a much larger population of agents, which he believes will kick-start complex emergent behaviors. Until then, he points to some intriguing results obtained from other platforms. His own findings have established that aggressive behavior increases in agent-worlds as life becomes easier, while an ideal world (ideal meaning maximum survival) has two main attributes: flexibility and mobility.
The project team is also working on a state-of-the-art visualization for its interface, to make its agents more comprehensible to a public well versed in The Sims and other computer realities.
Check out the NEW TIES website for more information about this project.
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Original article can be found at:
http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20060418233544data_trunc_sys.shtml
Is it just me or does anyone else have a really bad feeling on where this is going to end up? |
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Major Tom
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 7561
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| Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 7:06 pm Post subject: |
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...it becomes aware as 2:14 a.m.
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Does anyone really believe that politicians and bureaucrats in Washington can successfully steer a multi-national corporation to economic viability?
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The Victim Here
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 2813
Location: Almost Not Trinity.
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| Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 7:17 pm Post subject: |
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Perish the thought, they'll never be able to get a computer to throw a hissy fit.
Last edited by The Victim Here on Thu Aug 28, 2008 9:27 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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E-boy
Joined: 10 Jul 2006
Posts: 1545
Location: Virginia (Much barfiness)
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| Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 9:16 pm Post subject: |
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I had a very long elaborate reply all ready to post and my internet crashed... It was compelling, and interesting, well referenced, and generally outstanding in every way. Too bad no one will ever see it now...
I second TVH, and add that it would be a miracle if the managed a computer, or software agent capable of a basic "hissy fit".
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"Life is tough, but it's tougher when you're stupid" ~ SGT John Stryker from "Sands of Iwo Jima". |
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mouse
Joined: 10 Jul 2006
Posts: 14855
Location: under the bed
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| Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 10:27 pm Post subject: |
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i figure they should just study sinfest......we seem to fit most of the criteria.
_and_ we can throw hissy fits.
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aka: neverscared! |
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Amethyst Shadow
Joined: 10 Jul 2006
Posts: 299
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| Posted: Fri Aug 29, 2008 3:16 pm Post subject: |
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| mouse wrote: | | _and_ we can throw hissy fits. |
we should all have honorary doctorates in the field of hissy fits |
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YenTheFirst
Joined: 18 Feb 2007
Posts: 2620
Location: Slightly less than crazy.
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| Posted: Fri Aug 29, 2008 5:16 pm Post subject: |
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| Major Tom wrote: | | ...it becomes aware as 2:14 a.m. |
| Major Tom's signature wrote: | | I think it's a pretty good timetable... - J. McCain |
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Dad said "No! You will BE KILL BY DEMONS" |
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Thy Brilliance
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 3090
Location: Relative
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| Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2008 12:34 am Post subject: |
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| You mean the intelligent spam we've been getting? |
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Superninfreak
Joined: 25 Jul 2007
Posts: 113
Location: The interwebs
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| Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2008 4:49 am Post subject: |
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| Is it just me or does this sound sorta like the beginning of a Michael Crichton book? |
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Uncle Taylorbell
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 3191
Location: Northern England
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| Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2008 4:52 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Is it just me or does this sound sorta like the beginning of a Michael Crichton book? |
Thankfully the real world is better written. |
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Amethyst Shadow
Joined: 10 Jul 2006
Posts: 299
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| Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2008 1:24 pm Post subject: |
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| Uncle Taylorbell wrote: | | Quote: | | Is it just me or does this sound sorta like the beginning of a Michael Crichton book? |
Thankfully the real world is better written. |
*rimshot* |
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The Victim Here
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 2813
Location: Almost Not Trinity.
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| Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2008 2:05 pm Post subject: |
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The only other issue will be that unless programmed individually to have maladjusted attitudes, egos or irrationallity, then they'll all act logically and with minimal stupidity; wars shouldn't happen, since if it's too close to call, neither side will want to risk attack, and in the case of a war, pride will take second place to survival.
Unless they tell the programs to develop stupidity, it'll be about as boring as watching dots grow, I would think...
Unless if I'm completely wrong. Any one have a link on any update they have for this project? Considering this article is 2 years old... |
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The Highlord
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 555
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| Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2008 3:37 pm Post subject: |
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http://www.cs.vu.nl/~gusz/newties/newties.html
| Quote: | | Project duration: 01-09-2004 - 31-08-2007 |
The website's down, the project was either concluded or canceled, and nobody seems to care. Guess it was a bust.
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There is a luxury to self-reproach. |
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The Victim Here
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 2813
Location: Almost Not Trinity.
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| Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2008 3:54 pm Post subject: |
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| Or maybe they escaped into the wild...And live on the internet to this day still! |
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Lasairfiona
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 9386
Location: I have to be somewhere? ::runs around frantically::
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| Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2008 8:36 am Post subject: |
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I'm sure that the experiment didn't produce anything and they were too embarrassed to tell anyone.
They suspect our existence. Good thing they haven't figured out the color tag indicators. End log.
_________________
Before God created Las he pondered on all the aspects a woman might have, he considered which ones would look good super-inflated and which ones to leave alone.
After much deliberation he gave her a giant comfort zone. - Michael |
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