Artificial Life in real life
March 29, 2011 17 Comments
If anyone’s wondering why they can’t get to the Grandroids pages on Kickstarter, it’s because they’re having server upgrade problems. Should be back online soonish. http://blog.kickstarter.com/post/4187781326/site-issues
[Edit: Ok, they’re back up again now.]
I'm an independent AI and artificial life researcher, interested in oodles and oodles of things but especially the brain.
And chocolate. I like chocolate too.
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Steve, how are you? This is Jack in China. I set up an account with paypal but when trying to make a donation on kickstarter it redirected me to amazon with no option of using a paypal account. I’d still really like to play some part in this project, if possible. My email account is Mr.j.a.p.1987@gmail.com. You seem to be doing pretty well with your fundraiser but if you could use the extra couple hundred it’d be my pleasure to contribute.
When are you going to make a new creatures game???
I’m already making one, Rebecca! 🙂 I’m working really hard on it right now! It won’t be called Creatures, because I don’t own the rights to the name, but it will be far more advanced artificial life than anyone’s created before. I haven’t been talking about it publicly, because I promised exclusive access to my kickstarter backers – they have access to a private website and forum – but I’ll update everybody fairly soon, promise. It’s going pretty well so far, although the science behind it is very new and advanced, so it’s going to take me some months to finish it yet. So hang on in there!!!
I am hanging in there as well, Rebecca.
Steve, I don’t suppose there’s anyway I could belatedly donate money to the cause in order to get in on the action? If that’s at all an option, I’d love to hear from you at morgan.wildermuth@gmail.com; not knowing how you’re progressing is a wee bit like torture!
If that’s not an option, could the phrase “some months” be further defined? 🙂
Thanks,
Morgan
I’m with morgwild! I heard way too late about the kickstarter and I want to be a part of this somehow, desperately. I’ve always been into AI, robotics and whatnot, and that’s what drew me to loving tinkering with Creatures back in the day. Drop me a line at egoimago@gmail.com if there’s any options of me joining in on the fun and/or donating your way.
How do you back the project? I’m a grad student and broke but I’d like to donate a little as the game meant a lot to me growing up.
Nel
I can’t believe I’ve only just heard about this (despite semi-regular google searches on the general topic)! I love Creatures! I too would love to donate a little too if it’s not too late…
D.
Hi Nel, hi Ding, did I get back to either or both of you guys? I’ve got a little confused about who I’ve replied to, what with things coming in through blogs, twitter, kickstarter and email. I think maybe I’m working too hard…
Hi Steve,
Nope but still interested!
Hi Steve, how’s Grandroids going? It looks like there’s been no updates on your log since last year. 🙂
Hi Ben,
It’s going ok, thanks. My kickstarter backers get loads of info and discussion on the project website but I don’t have time to blog about it publicly as well because I’m working my **** off, 70+ hours a week! 😉 Also, one of the ‘perks’ for supporting the project was exclusivity, so it’s not really fair if I just go and say the same things here. But although it’s hard work and I’m behind where I hoped to be at this point it’s all still moving forward. The theory is holding up, which is a big relief, and I’m pretty excited about how it’s coming together. I reckon I’m still about a year from release. I do keep meaning to update everyone here, but I keep waiting until I’ve got to some kind of clear milestone and somehow it never seems to happen quite that neatly, so it’s hard to know what to say to people who haven’t been following it day to day. I’ll update everyone fairly soon, promise.
I always wondered Steve, do you worry for the welfare of AI like norns or grandriods? Especially grandroids, which in you are attempting to make capable fo thought, and release them to the public in a world with no prevention of cruelty to virtual life?
Not much with Norns, but I hope to worry a little more about Grandroids. One of the main reasons I do this work is to make people ask questions about what cruelty means, what life is, what it means to have feelings and fears and rights and responsibilities. Many people don’t think very clearly or deliberately about these things, so by giving them examples that challenge our assumptions I hope to shake up their intuitions a little. If the small potential for suffering by some pieces of software can make a few people think more carefully about how they treat natural creatures then I reckon that’s a good trade-off. I appreciate that it’s a moral dilemma of the “do you push the fat guy in front of the bus to stop it ploughing into those kids?” variety, but if we’re ever going to understand who and what we are, and how we relate to our cousins on this planet, then we need to try building systems that show the properties we’re trying to understand anyway, and so this kind of kills two birds with one stone (to pick an unfortunate metaphor!). My experience, though, has been that people tend to really look after these creatures and show thought, concern and compassion in bucketloads, so I’m quite happy to put my little creations up for adoption. It seems to do much more good than harm. Does that put your mind at rest?
Could you reopen the kickstarter for a couple of days for those of us who missed the first round (I’m not sure if kickstarter works like that but pretty, pretty please?) Looks like there’s a few of us who missed the deadline and want to read the updates. I will even do my best norn imitation for you!
Heh, I’ll do anything for a norn imitation! 🙂
I don’t think it’s possible to reopen a Kickstarter – I’d have to apply for a new one. But I still do take a few donations on the same basis; I just keep trying my best not to tell anyone, which is actually turning out to be increasingly futile. It’s probably really silly of me, but it seems to me there’s a fine ethical line between people kindly giving me gifts because they care about what I do, and me effectively “pre-selling” a game that doesn’t even exist yet and in principle might still fail. So I don’t publicly ask for donations now that my Kickstarter is over, but if people actually take the trouble to offer me money, I figure that’s completely different! I certainly appreciate all the support I can get.
So if you or anyone else missed the Kickstarter and would really still like to be part of the community and help me make this thing happen, here’s the way to do it. You can PayPal a donation to this email: “steve at cyberlife hyphen research dot com”, and I’ll also need to know your real name, physical address (so I can send you stuff later) and the username you’d like to use on the community site. There’s a lovely bunch of people on the forum. I’ll get straight back to you with log-in details and my eternal gratitude!
So what’s fastbleepbiology?
Forgot to include my e-mail on the paypal donation, oops! It’s as above. Dancing to follow shortly. 😉
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