November 2019 – The Lab

Ep 242: Maybe, if they all work together…

By thelabwithbradbarton | November 21, 2019

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Maybe, if they all work together…

Last time we talked about how the dorg, the lab’s latest batch of digital organisms, are unlikely to be able to evolve into intelligence. This week, we talk about how they might be able to do it anyway. But first, we need to get them to cooperate. In fact, we made need many dorg to act as one creature—to be multicellular. Join us as we talk about cooperation, eusocial insects, and the mystery of multicellular animals.
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Ep 241: How and why the dorg are doomed

By thelabwithbradbarton | November 7, 2019

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 19:15 — 12.8MB) | Embed

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How and why the dorg are doomed

It seems like such a simple and obvious thing. Given that we can cause computer programs and the like to evolve and evolution is what gave us our intelligence, couldn’t we give a computer intelligence by letting it evolve? The experiment has been done, in project after project, by one group after another, (including one of your hosts)—and yet, somehow, it never quite happens… Why not?
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