Title : Darwin’s Devices:
What Evolving Robots Can Teach Us
About the History of Life
and the Future of Technology
Author : John Long
Publisher: Basic Books
Pages : 288
ISBN :10: 0465021417
Price :$17.45
The challenge of studying evolution is that the history of life is buried in the past:we can’t witness the dramatic events that shaped the adaptations we see today. But biorobotics expert John Long has found an ingenious way to overcome this problem: he creates robots that look and behave like extinct animals, subjects them to evolutionary pressures, lets them compete for mates and resources, and mutates their ‘genes’. In short, he lets robots play the game of life.
In Darwin’s Devices, Long tells the story of these
evolving biorobots—how they came to be, and what they can teach us about the
biology of living and extinct species. Evolving biorobots can replicate
creatures that disappeared from the earth long ago, showing us in real time
what happens in the face of unexpected environmental challenges.
Biomechanically correct models of backbones functioning as part of an
autonomous robot, for example, can help us understand why the first vertebrates
evolved them.
But the most impressive feature of these robots, as Long
shows, is their ability to illustrate the power of evolution to solve difficult
technological challenges autonomously, without human input regarding what a
workable solution might be. Even a simple robot can create complex behavior,
often learning or evolving greater intelligence than humans could possibly
program. This remarkable idea could forever alter the face of engineering,
design, and even warfare.
Long himself uses robots to answer two primary sets of
questions. The first is about living organisms, especially fish: how do they
get around, catch food, simply, how do they do what they do? The second is about
long-dead organisms, including one of the toughest questions of them all: why
did animals ever evolve backbones, and once they did, why did they prove so
successful? But theres no reason to stop there, as Long himself argues, the most
important aspect might just be the principles hes developing, which boil down
to the power of dumb evolution to quickly output brilliant designs.
Biologists are pioneering a new way to study evolution. By
building autonomous mobile robots that simulate animal behavior and subjecting
them to selective pressures, they are now able to observe the heretofore
glacial process of evolutionary adaptation. In turn, these mechanisms are
revolutionizing ideas about engineering and design.Darwin’s Devices is a trip
through the laboratory of a fertile mind and the herald of a new era in
experimental science. But more than that, it is proof that both science and
engineering can benefit when we simply sit back and let natural processes take
control.
John Long is a Professor at Vassar College, with joint
appointments in Cognitive Science and Biology. He serves as Director of Vassars
Interdisciplinary Robotics Research Laboratory, which he co-founded. Long and
his robots, Madeleine and the Tadros, have garnered widespread press coverage
in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, and more. He
lives in Poughkeepsie, New York.
Source: www.amazon.com, http://www.powells.com
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