[extropy-chat] Greetings

Derek Zahn DerekZahn at msn.com
Fri Dec 9 16:17:23 UTC 2005


Hi Neil!
 
The field has very likely moved beyond my research topic by this point
(I haven't been following it for 10 years or so).  The concept was to
experiment with evolvable languages for expressing structure (for
example, the structure of neural networks or other parallel processing
networks with semi-uniform architectures), in particular where the
structures unfold from a "developmental" process.  The hope was that
atomic operations on representations of developmental processes would
have the ability to cause both coarse and fine alterations in structure
and thus function and with an appropriate representation would thus be
fruitful for either automatic "genetic algorithm" style exporation of
the space of possible structures, or for direct "intelligent design" by
a person.
 
I spent a lot of time working on formal concepts of evolvability that
didn't produce any breakthroughs; I spent a lot of time working on
potential "substrates" (the network components being assembled by
developmental processes), that didn't lead to anything particularly
revolutionary; I spent a lot of time playing with simple ideas about
these languages; that led to some toy-level results that would have
probably been enough for me to continue with the research, but I was
discouraged because to me the research was basically a failure, so I
gave up and went to work in non-AI industry.
 
I don't have any particular thoughts on future directions, but I think
the time is getting riper and riper for some actual progress to be made;
along with increased processing power I expect to see interesting work
come to light, which is why I'm starting to get interested in following
the field and maybe dabbling a bit as an outsider hobbyist.  I think
that within 5 years or so it should be possible for any AI researcher to
have access to mouse-level processing power (roughly a milli-human),
which might be enough to produce some interesting results.  I think it's
really hard to do much useful work on AI with sticks and rocks and Cray
XMPs and other inadequate tools.
 
Good luck with your research!  What are you working on?
 
 
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