7 ms·
This is interesting, because it seem to be a start at solving the Fulmar Problem. A fulmar is a cliff nesting sea bird (with a defensive habit of noxious proje
by steve_gh 3y ago
This is interesting, because it seem to be a start at solving the Fulmar Problem.
A fulmar is a cliff nesting sea bird (with a defensive habit of noxious projectile vomiting). They spend their early life on a ledge, but one day they have to start flying. And if you are a fulmar you have a very limited time to learn to fly.
So the question is, how does a baby fulmar learn to fly in 10s!
It would be interesting to know how much computing power is required for training (compared to the power reqùred to run the controlling NN).
My own view is that the network architecture is important, so fulmar brains have evolved with a neural architecture that enables extremely quick learning to stable flight.
I played around with a few ideas on using GAs to evolve NN architectures for rapid learning during my PhD 25 years ago, but ended up going in another direction.
- jahnu 3y agoWhy can’t evolution build in the ability of flight and what it needs to learn in the 10 seconds is not how to fly but which way to go?
- throwup238 3y agoInstinct and coordinated muscle memory are two very different things. Animals can evolve to develop that muscle memory faster (i.e. see how long it takes a calf to walk versus a human infant) but it still needs time to develop and that development requires active practice.
- amelius 3y agoA spider does not learn to make a web either. This is arguably more complicated than flying. And its brain is much smaller than a bird's.
- throwup238 3y agoA spider spinning web is an emergent behavior built up from a bunch of simpler ones like excretion, simple movement, and electrostatic hopping from point to point. A bird flying requires the coordination of a much larger number of muscles at the same time, which is much more complex from a nervous system perspective. Spiders reproduce much faster and have a much smaller survival rate so they're well selected for that kind of instinct. Birds less so.
- okamiueru 3y agoExcretion and simple movement from point to point, accurately describes most of my life.
- Cacti 3y agoI mean. I believe spiders eat lots of much smaller, flying creatures?
- thaumasiotes 3y agoIt can, obviously.
- Wowfunhappy 3y agoWell, but then the Fulmar "problem" doesn't seem like much of a problem to me. It doesn't learn. It's born with the knowledge, which was in turn "learned" (indirectly, through natural selection) by the fulmar's ancestors.
- itishappy 3y agoNow you've got a different problem! How are things born with knowledge? Where does that knowledge come from? Are humans?
- mech422 3y agoI actually wonder how animals like sea turtles or fish know what to eat...They are not raised or taught by their parents, so is it just trial and error? What stops them from eating poisonous stuff ?
- melagonster 3y agoI can offer a example of bird. seem like the toxic butterfly just let birds feel terrible, so they actually learning from trying different butterflies.
- mech422 3y agoHeh - that sounds like a really bad deal for the butterfly ?
- melagonster 3y agowarning colors work well. birds don't want to eat distasteful butterfly again. so even just looks like distasteful, butterfly still can enhance fitness. at least this is a good deal all butterfly have same color...
- bitcurious 3y agoA paper airplane can learn to fly on a breeze in being folded. I posit that a fulmar is closer to a paper airplane than to a drone.
- onion2k 3y agoIf that were true lots of young fulmars would drown in the sea at the bottom of a cliff when they fledge. That doesn't happen. They fly, with control, and enough understanding to land safely on water.
- moffkalast 3y agoHuman babies are born knowing how to swim, I suppose they learn that in 3 seconds as well? Both of these are far more likely to just be genetic memory. If you can encode how to fold proteins to make wings, then packaging a control algorithm along is completely trivial in comparison.
- logtempo 3y agoIt's a false believe. Throw a baby in water and he won't survive.
- nsxwolf 3y agoAre you not aware of the throwing babies in pools fad that comes and goes in popularity? They do better than you'd think.
- shkkmo 3y agoInfants do have a "diving reflex" but that is very different from knowing how to swim. If you throw a baby in a pool, the baby will drown and die. There are undoubtedly similar reflexes that assist fulmars in learning to fly quickly, but that doesn't mean that rapid learning isn't also required.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- itishappy 3y agoI'd expect aerodynamic stability from wings to have a huge effect. Drones are inherently unstable. A glider is easier to figure out than a helicopter. On the other hand, I could see a drone being easier for a computer because it behaves the same in any orientation (projectile motion + directional thrust). Unlike birds with their ears and their eyes, computers don't really have an inherent sense of direction.
- Geisterde 3y agoI find your analogy mentally stimulating, I bet the bird wins by a country mile though.
- djmips 3y agoDon't most animals innately know how to locomote in their environment? Fish in water, baby deer etc?
- pizzafeelsright 3y agoNo one wants to admit that DNA holds programming because it'll mean there's a Creator. I have raised animals apart from their kind from birth. They know instinctively how to do things that cannot be taught or learned. How can two spiders for example know how to spin a web without every learning from another being?
- jamilton 3y agoI don't see how genetics allowing for instinctual/"inherent" knowledge requires a creator. Once upon a time there was a bug that had a little sticky bit on it's butt, it had a billion descendants when one of them randomly had a gene that affected it's behavior such that it, I don't know, rested on high surfaces using the sticky bit and was safer from predators or something, and then had slightly more kids than the rest. And one of those kids randomly had a gene that gave it more sticky stuff, and one of it's kids used it a little more effectively, and so on and so forth. And that probably takes somewhere from tens of thousands to a few million years. That's not meant to be literal, but that's the story in my head, and it doesn't feel like a huge leap to get to complex behaviors like webs.
- Keyframe 3y agoThat's the story. Genetic lottery propagates and amplifies (life-)winning traits forward, but who knows.
- pizzafeelsright 3y agoName an example of an advantage spontaneously manifesting outside of directed breeding by humans.
- gia_ferrari 3y agoI really don't follow. Define programming in your context? Is it distinct from encoding physical structures like wings? Is it meaningful to separate physical structures and structures invoking physical behavior? A column of rock erodes, and a piece falls. The piece did not learn to fall. It just _did_, subject to the rules that governed the process of its creation (different meaning) and its environment.
- YeGoblynQueenne 3y agoWhy does it have to be learning? Because we're currently putting all our eggs in the basket of machine learning, so we must convince ourselves that everything that intelligent animals can do is some sort of learning from data? There is no reason to assume any of that.
- Aspos 3y agoI suspect birds don't start with random weights in their NN
- jprete 3y agoBased on a lot of bird nesting videos, they most likely practice in the nest ahead of time. One doesn't have to outright fly to practice generating lift.
- AbortedLaunch 3y agoThey don’t all appear to need this practice in order to be able to fly. https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2020.0668 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2020.066... is a recentish overview of existing literature and touches upon this in the section Wing flapping before flight.
- bongodongobob 3y agoWhat's the problem? It's inherent to the hardware. We don't have to learn how to breathe. Animals don't have to learn to walk. It's the same thing. Are you suggesting that behavior can't be hardwired? I don't think anyone believes that. What am I missing? Genuinely confused. Edit: After googling, I can't find any "Fulmar problem". This is just basic evolution 101.
- verve_rat 3y ago> Animals don't have to learn to walk. Have you seen baby deer?
- jussij 3y agoYet without any external inputs, the deer will eventually learn to walk by itself, suggesting some kind of internal hardwiring.
- ahepp 3y agoI guess I don’t understand what you mean “with no external inputs”. It’s in the physical world, with gravity. Isn’t that an external input? Driving the feedback loop of “I fall on my face if I do it wrong”?
- dudefeliciano 3y agoI think it's more a "if I fall I'm gonna get eaten/injured and not be able to reproduce" kind of thing
- jussij 3y agoThat falling on the face is irrelevant, as it's just a byproduct of some pre-determined programming that is not learned. Surely if this was a learned experience the deer after failing on its face would quickly learn it's best to not try and stand up. Why am I standing when I just keep hitting my face into the ground? The reality is the drive programmed into the brain is to stand up at all costs, even if that means landing flat on your face once in a while.
- tomrod 3y agoAny pubs in the area? GAs are a super interesting case area for this.
- jacquesm 3y agoIt can fly in the same way a newborn foal knows how to walk and even run if it has to.