Thanks for the follow-up Steve, Great videos!
-- Russ On Mon, May 29, 2023 at 9:14 AM Steve Smith <sasm...@swcp.com> wrote: > > Russ - > > I also have a lot of life in my immediate environment, with a 1 year old > puppy and kitty who grew up wrestling their way through the house and take > one another's cues when it comes to alerting to the birds outside the > window and the moths and flies who are silly enough to be available to > these two little terrorists. The wild things also/moreso, not to mention > the networks of relationships within a domus/guild/habitat/ecosystem. > > While watching my two little dogs run around our house, it struck me that > a feature that distinguishes living from non-living entities is the > apparent effortlessness with which living ones navigate the world. Imagine > how difficult it would be to build a robot that could navigate the world so > effortlessly. To make the comparison a bit simpler, imagine how difficult > it would be to build a robotic cockroach. > > > Mark Tilden's BEAM Robotics and Nervous Nets were pretty impressive in > this regard back 20+ years ago: > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BEAM_robotics > > https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0921889003001520 > > > https://www.rssc.org/uploads/4/5/1/1/45118641/buildfest_handout_2006_06_10.pdf > > I'm not describing these to contradict your main point, rather to > counter-point it? And then there is Theo Jansen's Strandbeest! > > https://www.strandbeest.com/ > > There is something fascinating about autonomous "agents" operating outside > the context of the von Neumann "Universal Computing" paradigm. I'm of the > spirit to believe that collectives of interacting sub-universal-complexity > elements can collectively execute Universal Computation. > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swarm_robotics > > Others here can speak *much* more directly to the arc of > development/evolution of the SFI/Swarm.org work going back 30 ish years? > (I don't know of any specific *hardware* instantiation/bridge beyond > Tilden, et al's work, but there may well be). There is probably a swarm > of tiny origami boats driven by surface-tension gradients somewhere in > Sausalito Bay, doing performance art or perhaps plotting a world takeover? > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OU76wwmg9Hs > > https://www.swarm.org/ > > > https://sfi-edu.s3.amazonaws.com/sfi-edu/production/uploads/sfi-com/dev/uploads/filer/8a/2a/8a2ae001-9ad5-43e6-b7e3-4d951223e9e8/96-06-042.pdf > > I started down the rabbit hole of a google search: > > and got overwhelmed with how popular the invocation of "Swarm" has > become: Oh well. > > Strange Find in Australia: A dopplenymic artist - Christopher Langton: > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJ27Rphomsg > > and a wonderfully apropos-for-the-NFT-moment essay on Virtual Art which > references Chris a lot: > > > https://textinart.files.wordpress.com/2019/12/leonardo-oliver-grau-virtual-art_-from-illusion-to-immersion-2003-mit-press.pdf > > > When I asked ChatGPT whether anyone has built a robotic cockroach, it > came up with these examples. (I haven't checked to see whether these are > real projects.) > > > - > > DASH: The Dynamic Autonomous Sprawled Hexapod (DASH) robot, developed > at the University of California, Berkeley, was inspired by the rapid > locomotion of cockroaches. It has six legs and can move quickly on various > terrains using a simple control mechanism. > > > - > > Harvard RoboBee: Although not specifically modeled after a cockroach, > the Harvard RoboBee project aims to develop small, insect-like robots. > These tiny flying robots are inspired by the mechanics and flight > capabilities of insects and demonstrate similar agility and > maneuverability. > > > - > > iSprawl: The iSprawl robot, developed at the University of California, > Berkeley, was inspired by cockroaches' ability to squeeze through small > spaces. It uses a compliant body design and six legs to navigate tight and > cluttered environments. > > > - > > VelociRoACH: Developed at the University of California, Berkeley, the > VelociRoACH is a fast-running robot designed to mimic the high-speed > locomotion of cockroaches. It utilizes a legged design and has demonstrated > impressive speed and agility. > > These mainly explore locomotion. Besides locomotion, cockroaches notice > when someone enters an area where they are exposed. They quickly scuttle > off to some hiding place. How do they sense the presence of a new being? > How do they know where the hiding places are? How do they know how to move > in the right direction? How do they know how to avoid small obstacles and > fires? Etc. > > One can argue that these capabilities are hard-wired in. But that > doesn't make it any easier. These are still capabilities they have, that > would be a challenge to build. > > I became amazed at how well-connected living entities are to their > environments. They quickly and easily extract and use information from > their environment that is important to their survival. > > Man-made robots have nowhere near that level of embeddedness and > environmental integration. > > Was it Rodney Brooks who said that we should build that sort of > connectedness before worrying about building intelligence into our robots? > Today that struck me as an important insight. > > I do agree that robotics/AI is a *long way* (but on a different > time-metric than we are?) from "life as we know it" but some of the > AI/Robot-dysphoria comes *from* the "as we know it" clause... which can be > as benign as the "uncanny valley" experience to something on the order of a > literal or merely *literary* "gray goo scenario". > > > https://www.diggitmagazine.com/blog/generative-ai-and-uncanny-valley-and-call-action > > > https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/03/ai-chatgpt-writing-language-models/673318/ > > > Mumble, > > - Steve > -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom > https://bit.ly/virtualfriam > to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > archives: 5/2017 thru present > https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ >
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