The seemingly inevitable march towards machines generating human-like intelligence has been a staple of science fiction for a generation, but it remains something that is a dot on the horizon. A new paper from Michigan State University reminds us of the work that still needs to be done, whilst also proposing a way for machine intelligence to evolve as natural organisms have.
“We know that all organisms are capable of some form of learning, we just weren’t sure how those abilities first evolved. Now we can watch these major evolutionary events unfold before us in a virtual world,” the authors explain. “Understanding how learning behavior evolved helps us figure out how it works and provides insights into other fields such as neuroscience, education, psychology, animal behavior, and even AI. It also supplies clues to how our brains work and could even lead to robots that learn from experiences as effectively as humans do.”