Herself’s Artificial Intelligence

So many claims, it’s difficult to sort the intelligent from the educated. But at some point one or more of these claims will be true.

FOR generations, the Avidians have been cloning themselves quietly in a box. They’re not perfect, but most of their mutations go unnoticed. Then something remarkable happens. One steps forward, and that changes everything. Tens of thousands of generations down the line, some of its descendents will evolve memory.

Avidians are not microbes, or sci-fi alien life forms. They are the digital offspring of Charles Ofria and colleagues at Michigan State University (MSU) in East Lansing. They “live” in a computer world called Avida, and replicate using strings of coded computer instructions instead of DNA. But in many ways they are similar to real life: they compete with each other for resources, replicate, mutate, and evolve. They – or things like them – might eventually evolve to become artificially intelligent life forms. read more Artificial life forms evolve basic intelligence

More information:
HyperNEAT
Avida-ED
Avida-ED user manual ( pdf )
Observing mutations on the genomes of evolving Avidians (pdf)
Harnessing Digital Evolution ( $$$ )
Digital Evolution with Avidian

Metaheuristic algorithms such as particle swarm optimization, firefly algorithm and harmony search are now becoming powerful methods for solving many tough optimization problems. In this paper, we propose a new metaheuristic method, the Bat Algorithm, based on the echolocation behaviour of bats. We also intend to combine the advantages of existing algorithms into the new bat algorithm. After a detailed formulation and explanation of its implementation, we will then compare the proposed algorithm with other existing algorithms, including genetic algorithms and particle swarm optimization. Simulations show that the proposed algorithm seems much superior to other algorithms, and further studies are also discussed. [download the paper pdf]

More information
Other swarm papers by Xin-She Yang

Google’s Research Blog posted an article this week on its use of quantum computing algorithms

More information:
Training a Large Scale Classifier with the Quantum Adiabatic Algorithm
Qubuit.org, Center for Quantum Computing
Introduction to Quantum Computing
The Quantum Computer
Quantum Computing and Shor’s Algorithm
Quantum Computing Day 1, Google Tech Talk on YouTube
Quantum Computing Day 2, Google Tech Talk on YouTube
Quantum Computing Day 3, Google Tech Talk on YouTube