Re: 'not an artist' article

[Joel Utting <joelu.geo@yahoo.com>]

Steve Baker wrote:
> 
> Erik wrote:
> 
> > Here I thought I was a supergenious having
> > this idea, and it turns out everyone and their brother is thinking along the
> > same lines.
> 
> Genetic algorithms are becoming pretty commonplace these days.
> 
> > One problem with evolving systems in software is that it uses a lot of
> > technique that are primarily in the field of AI, and most programmers don't
> > have a strong AI background.
> 
> For what I propose (evolving artwork) this isn't an issue.
> 
> The original biomorphs program was very simple - no AI at all.
> 
> The goal of the evolution is to please humans - hence a human has to say
> which mutant lives and which dies on the basis of which one comes closest
> to their idea of 'cute' or 'agressive' or whatever criteria is needed.
> 
> To misquote Darwin: It's a matter of "Survival of the Cutest".
> 
> People who have tried to use automatic selection criteria have
> discovered that the critters that are produced have a tendancy
> to exploit 'holes' in your criteria of bugs in the program.
> 
> I forget the name of the guy - but there was a SigGraph paper
> a few years ago about this software package that evolved locomotion
> systems - with the hope that it would create critters that could
> walk, slither, crawl, whatever.
> 
< snip lots of funny stuff !>

Luckily I wasn't considering starting from scratch - I would have used
already working models and evolved them further - the idea being that
each colony of say, goblins, would have a distinctive look which you
could recognize, and even be described to you - "They're talling then
the average goblin, with bigger teeth."

Still it could be a good competition - who can write the best evolution
only game - no external game data allowed. Sounds like fun.

Bye - Joel.

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