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Background: Some guy on the Internet with an unrelated Bachelors degree he didn't study that hard for and has picked up a little Python and Javascript somewhere

Background: Some guy on the Internet with an unrelated Bachelors degree he didn't study that hard for and has picked up a little Python and Javascript somewhere along the way. I know of no biological forms that have evolved wheels. But wheels have turned out to be a hell of a lot faster than fins or legs. I see no reason "intelligence" has to follow the pathways or limitations of biology or neurology at all. Although certainly it may be a place to look for some ideas.

npgatech 9y ago
Fair point, but you are omitting the fact that brain itself (that invented the wheel) was evolved through biological means. That said, evolutionary optimization is generally considered unreliable(convergence) and inefficient.
- mythrwy 9y ago
  The wheel existed before the mind did. It was just sitting there waiting to be noticed :)
  - pookeh 9y ago
    Not for the function the brain made a use of it.
skummetmaelk 9y ago
Wheels are useless if you don't have roads. EDIT: Please explain your downvotes here? Don't you people see that this, coupled with there being no useful intermediate stage before developing a full wheel, prevents evolution from "inventing" it.
- jamiek88 9y ago
  Well that's not true at all. See: Wheelbarrow; amongst many wheeled devices I can think of immediately.
  - skummetmaelk 9y ago
    Wheelbarrow creatures? I don't see how that would be advantageous at all. Also, try running around with a wheelbarrow in a dense forest.
  - PeterisP 9y ago
    Wheelbarrows are a prime counterexample - historically, in environments that had decent man-made trails, wheelbarrows were useful and used; in environments that did not, pack-carrying animals or even people did the job even though the concept of wheelbarrows was known; also, the availability of roads (as opposed to narrow trails) was the prime reason for differences of usage of wheelbarrows (especially the efficient middle-wheel variety e.g. https://www.google.lv/search?q=wheelbarrow+chinese&tbm=isch https://www.google.lv/search?q=wheelbarrow+chinese&tbm=isch ) versus two or four wheel animal (or man) pulled carts, which were popular only where roads had been made and were maintainable, so not in jungle-like environments where it takes more work to keep a road from overgrowing.
MarkMc 9y ago
I would also point to heavier-than-air flight. For thousands of years people tried to mimic flapping wings of birds, but in the end it was the unnatural propellor and fixed wing design that gave us flight.
- serf 9y ago
  Fixed-wing flight isn't unknown to the natural world.[0] Flagella use propeller motion for propulsion.[1] Lots of animals use jets.[2] I'd consider the combustion engine to be the most novel 'human' design with regards to aircraft propulsion -- or the way we achieve jet propulsion; that's pretty unique. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_soaring_birds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_soaring_birds [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flagellum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flagellum [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_propulsion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_propulsion
- hutzlibu 9y ago
  ... and a new energy source, the combustion engine.
Chathamization 9y ago
> I know of no biological forms that have evolved wheels. But wheels have turned out to be a hell of a lot faster than fins or legs. On certain terrain. And much slower - sometimes useless - on others. Wheels aren't simply better legs, they're a different way of moving, with its own benefits and drawbacks. Likewise, if we're talking about computational ability, we already have things that are faster than the human brain in certain areas (say, numerical computation). When we talk about AGI, we're talking about human-like intelligence (at least to a certain degree). So we already have the wheel, but now we want to develop something that does what the leg does. Now, maybe that doesn't have to be an actual leg, but that's usually what people usually end up with when they try to find something that will have a similar functionality as a leg.
viewtransform 9y ago
Not a wheel but a rotary motor: topologically the same. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flagellum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flagellum
korzun 9y ago
The wheel, by itself, is not faster than legs. It does not adapt, repair, or feel. You will always need more than your legs to create a system that properly utilizes wheels. There is nothing intelligent about artificial intelligence. You might as well call it artificial stupidity, but that doesn't make you sound sophisticated. Memorizing the results of a pre-defined concept faster due to a lower barrier of entry does not make you smarter or more intelligent. You can process all of the traffic signals in the world in a blink of an eye only to get stomped by a dancing traffic director. You can't have AI without a human, and you can't have AI with a human.
return0 9y ago
Apparently philosophers have pondered on the matter, it's called the multiple realizability problem.
serf 9y ago
>I know of no biological forms that have evolved wheels. Silly to reduce all rotary motion to wheels. Less complex to roll as a ball -- the benefit of rotary motion without facilitating the additional complexity of adding a steering mechanism. > But wheels have turned out to be a hell of a lot faster than fins or legs. Nature doesn't somehow cares about hyper-optimizing for a single characteristic like 'speed', rather the characteristics arise from individual (species) successes between genetics lines. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotating_locomotion_in_living_systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotating_locomotion_in_living_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Rolling_animals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Rolling_animals
paganel 9y ago
It's not about building better tools (i.e. the "artificial" wheels vs. nature's wings and legs), it's about building a thing that would be just like us, humans: intelligent and especially a thing that has feelings. I know that the "feelings" part is most of the times neglected in these types of presentations (you cannot put them into any abstract representation, like you can draw a wheel using geometry), but it's what most of us, people who are not in this field, expect from AIG. Great Science Fiction works (novels, movies) have talked about this subject (AI and human feelings) long enough, but it somehow never makes it into academic presentations. Just think for a second of the self-driving cars problem. Someone on HN (or maybe reddit) explained a couple of days ago that even if we 'd manage to devise such a system that would be considerably better compared to humans we'd still not be ok with these machines killing us on the roads. Now, imagine these machines possessing the feeling of "guilt", or of "compassion", I'm pretty sure that the percentage of humans that would become ok with some AIG driving our cars for us will rise dramatically (I know I would stand on the AIG's side). We don't mind the fact that machines kill us, accidents happen, we mind that machines kill us and they don't "realize" what they've done and they don't support the consequences. Re-reading my comment I feel like it sounds a little pop-sciency, didn't mean it to go into that direction, it's just my interpretation on how I think things are. I for myself would love, really love, if we'd somehow "make" an AIG capable of telling genuine, funny jokes.
V-2 9y ago
You can't really evolve a wheel in the sense that a half-evolved foot is useful already, whereas a half-evolved wheel: not really. Therefore obtaining a functional wheel has to be done in one jump, which is contrary to how the gradual process of evolution works.
- posterboy 9y ago
  Wheels are way more basic. Anything will skid and slide on a spread of rubble, doesn't even need to be animated.
hatsunearu 9y ago
If you consider rotary motion as wheels, there are some bacteria that have flagella that rotate to propel itself, complete with molecular bearings. That said, biological evolution tends to get stuck on local maxima very easily (see convergent evolution of eyeballs), and wheels are kind of hard to evolve because of the difficulty of making large bearings biologically. Not to mention wheels kind of suck unless you're on pavement (look at tanks, etc)

npgatech 9y ago

Fair point, but you are omitting the fact that brain itself (that invented the wheel) was evolved through biological means. That said, evolutionary optimization is generally considered unreliable(convergence) and inefficient.

mythrwy 9y ago
The wheel existed before the mind did. It was just sitting there waiting to be noticed :)
- pookeh 9y ago
  Not for the function the brain made a use of it.

skummetmaelk 9y ago

Wheels are useless if you don't have roads. EDIT: Please explain your downvotes here? Don't you people see that this, coupled with there being no useful intermediate stage before developing a full wheel, prevents evolution from "inventing" it.

jamiek88 9y ago
Well that's not true at all. See: Wheelbarrow; amongst many wheeled devices I can think of immediately.
- skummetmaelk 9y ago
  Wheelbarrow creatures? I don't see how that would be advantageous at all. Also, try running around with a wheelbarrow in a dense forest.
- PeterisP 9y ago
  Wheelbarrows are a prime counterexample - historically, in environments that had decent man-made trails, wheelbarrows were useful and used; in environments that did not, pack-carrying animals or even people did the job even though the concept of wheelbarrows was known; also, the availability of roads (as opposed to narrow trails) was the prime reason for differences of usage of wheelbarrows (especially the efficient middle-wheel variety e.g. https://www.google.lv/search?q=wheelbarrow+chinese&tbm=isch https://www.google.lv/search?q=wheelbarrow+chinese&tbm=isch ) versus two or four wheel animal (or man) pulled carts, which were popular only where roads had been made and were maintainable, so not in jungle-like environments where it takes more work to keep a road from overgrowing.

MarkMc 9y ago

I would also point to heavier-than-air flight. For thousands of years people tried to mimic flapping wings of birds, but in the end it was the unnatural propellor and fixed wing design that gave us flight.

serf 9y ago
Fixed-wing flight isn't unknown to the natural world.[0] Flagella use propeller motion for propulsion.[1] Lots of animals use jets.[2] I'd consider the combustion engine to be the most novel 'human' design with regards to aircraft propulsion -- or the way we achieve jet propulsion; that's pretty unique. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_soaring_birds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_soaring_birds [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flagellum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flagellum [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_propulsion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_propulsion
hutzlibu 9y ago
... and a new energy source, the combustion engine.

Chathamization 9y ago

> I know of no biological forms that have evolved wheels. But wheels have turned out to be a hell of a lot faster than fins or legs. On certain terrain. And much slower - sometimes useless - on others. Wheels aren't simply better legs, they're a different way of moving, with its own benefits and drawbacks. Likewise, if we're talking about computational ability, we already have things that are faster than the human brain in certain areas (say, numerical computation). When we talk about AGI, we're talking about human-like intelligence (at least to a certain degree). So we already have the wheel, but now we want to develop something that does what the leg does. Now, maybe that doesn't have to be an actual leg, but that's usually what people usually end up with when they try to find something that will have a similar functionality as a leg.

viewtransform 9y ago

Not a wheel but a rotary motor: topologically the same. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flagellum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flagellum

korzun 9y ago

The wheel, by itself, is not faster than legs. It does not adapt, repair, or feel. You will always need more than your legs to create a system that properly utilizes wheels. There is nothing intelligent about artificial intelligence. You might as well call it artificial stupidity, but that doesn't make you sound sophisticated. Memorizing the results of a pre-defined concept faster due to a lower barrier of entry does not make you smarter or more intelligent. You can process all of the traffic signals in the world in a blink of an eye only to get stomped by a dancing traffic director. You can't have AI without a human, and you can't have AI with a human.

return0 9y ago

Apparently philosophers have pondered on the matter, it's called the multiple realizability problem.

serf 9y ago

>I know of no biological forms that have evolved wheels. Silly to reduce all rotary motion to wheels. Less complex to roll as a ball -- the benefit of rotary motion without facilitating the additional complexity of adding a steering mechanism. > But wheels have turned out to be a hell of a lot faster than fins or legs. Nature doesn't somehow cares about hyper-optimizing for a single characteristic like 'speed', rather the characteristics arise from individual (species) successes between genetics lines. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotating_locomotion_in_living_systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotating_locomotion_in_living_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Rolling_animals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Rolling_animals

paganel 9y ago

It's not about building better tools (i.e. the "artificial" wheels vs. nature's wings and legs), it's about building a thing that would be just like us, humans: intelligent and especially a thing that has feelings. I know that the "feelings" part is most of the times neglected in these types of presentations (you cannot put them into any abstract representation, like you can draw a wheel using geometry), but it's what most of us, people who are not in this field, expect from AIG. Great Science Fiction works (novels, movies) have talked about this subject (AI and human feelings) long enough, but it somehow never makes it into academic presentations. Just think for a second of the self-driving cars problem. Someone on HN (or maybe reddit) explained a couple of days ago that even if we 'd manage to devise such a system that would be considerably better compared to humans we'd still not be ok with these machines killing us on the roads. Now, imagine these machines possessing the feeling of "guilt", or of "compassion", I'm pretty sure that the percentage of humans that would become ok with some AIG driving our cars for us will rise dramatically (I know I would stand on the AIG's side). We don't mind the fact that machines kill us, accidents happen, we mind that machines kill us and they don't "realize" what they've done and they don't support the consequences. Re-reading my comment I feel like it sounds a little pop-sciency, didn't mean it to go into that direction, it's just my interpretation on how I think things are. I for myself would love, really love, if we'd somehow "make" an AIG capable of telling genuine, funny jokes.

V-2 9y ago

You can't really evolve a wheel in the sense that a half-evolved foot is useful already, whereas a half-evolved wheel: not really. Therefore obtaining a functional wheel has to be done in one jump, which is contrary to how the gradual process of evolution works.

posterboy 9y ago
Wheels are way more basic. Anything will skid and slide on a spread of rubble, doesn't even need to be animated.

hatsunearu 9y ago

If you consider rotary motion as wheels, there are some bacteria that have flagella that rotate to propel itself, complete with molecular bearings. That said, biological evolution tends to get stuck on local maxima very easily (see convergent evolution of eyeballs), and wheels are kind of hard to evolve because of the difficulty of making large bearings biologically. Not to mention wheels kind of suck unless you're on pavement (look at tanks, etc)