[ExI] Purified humanity Re: Your Genome Is a Post-Apocalyptic Wasteland

[Anders Sandberg]

On 2013-10-07 11:34, Eugen Leitl wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 07, 2013 at 11:20:43AM +0100, BillK wrote:
>
>> You may be mixing evolutionary computing techniques to solve specific
>> problems with evolutionary changes.
> When arguing your case, please don't invent facts. They hate that.
However, this morning I think the facts are confused about who is 
arguing what. I have a suspicion that BillK was talking about doing 
artificial selection on real genomes using selection methods generated 
by various methods, including evolutionary computing.

>> Evolutionary computing starts afresh with every new problem. Evolution doesn't.
> It depends on what you prime your initial population with.
> Starting from urslime all the time is expensive. Notice that
> none of current methods are anywhere criticality, aka evolving
> evolvability. This is computationally expensive, and likely not
> easy to replicate in a different context. So this means mature
> methods will have initial pool conservation.

I think this is an important consideration. Far too much evolutionary 
algorithms start with ur-slime because it is far cooler and more 
open-ended than playing Author and dropping in some already-designed 
scheme. Then again, most useful applications of EC tend to be finding 
weird-looking solutions in small problem spaces rather than open-ended 
invention. Small 'c' creativity, rather than the capital 'C' Creativity 
that answers a different question than you asked.

>> For example, way back, some creature in the sea found that four fins
>> were quite useful at that time. After that, evolution, building on the
>> past, was stuck with four limbs for ever after. Even when four limbs
> Hexapodia is the key insight.

I haven't had the chance to see the video. Bandwidth here in the UK is 
so limited.


-- 
Dr Anders Sandberg
Future of Humanity Institute
Oxford Martin School
Oxford University