21-07-2005 13:40									#1
	New Scientist: Simulated society may generate virtual culture Get a bigger avatar today!

http://www.newscientist.com/article...line-news_rss20

quote: The experiment will see about 1000 agents live together in a simulated world hosted on a network of 50 computers based at the various institutions involved. Each agent will be capable of various simple tasks, like moving around and building simple structures, but will also have the ability to communicate and cooperate with its cohabitants. Though simple interaction, the researchers hope to watch these characters create their very own society from scratch. Every character in the simulated world will need to eat to survive, and will be able to learn from their environment through trial and error - learning, for example, how to cultivate edible plants with water and sunlight. In addition, characters will be able to reproduce by mating with members the opposite sex and their offspring will inherited a random collection of their parents "genetic" traits.

Interesting

	21-07-2005 13:42									#2
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why do I see this experiment ending with all of them killing each other.

But I doubt they programmed violence into the model making it unrealistic and entirely worthless on a human scale.

	21-07-2005 13:43									#3
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and the landscape looks a little arid. Good luck growing food to survive. they are going to have to eat each other. I doubt they programmed that into the model either.

	21-07-2005 13:44									#4
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There is no spoon.

	21-07-2005 14:01									#5
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Like we didn't know this from the last few thousand years

	21-07-2005 14:06									#6
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Well think about it, with this we can learn how to reverse evolution in simulation. Then we will know all things that ever existed and when they came and so on and so forth.



edit: I should include a smiley just in case you take me seriously.


Though I like to believe it is possible.

	21-07-2005 14:18									#7
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Introduce religion and watch the fun begin...

	21-07-2005 14:18									#8
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Or mice...

	21-07-2005 14:30									#9
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You read the article?

It says something about them even developing their own religion (a sort of belief system I think)

I didn't read the article completely.

	21-07-2005 14:34									#10
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They are extremely confident in their AI.

I strongly doubt this thing will deliver results that are anything like the scientists expect (well, the language should happen, but I'm not even sure they'll assist to an evolution of language). They'd have to have a knack for computers, psychology, sociology and linguistics to make the project lifelike.

As a critics said, it's much more interesting to study the emergence of actual online cultures. At least, these cultures are there, so there's a real phenomenon to study, instead of attempting to create one.

	21-07-2005 14:38									#11
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They don't mention "religion" specifically in the article. The creatures may develope their own language based on objects in their environment and may even progress towards symbolism. The people working on this project think it's possible that rituals might evolve out of the symbolism.

	21-07-2005 14:41									#12
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http://www.new-ties.org/mambo/

Apparently, the apocalypse comes August 31, 2007...

	21-07-2005 16:55									#13
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That's would have to be very impressive AI coding to completely decouple it from human culture and enable a completely new system to emerge.

	21-07-2005 19:38									#14
	Simulated society may generate virtual culture.... Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

... it's already happened

Attachment: baudrillard.jpg
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	21-07-2005 19:44									#15
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Just something I thought of while thinking about how rituals could develop.

Say you have to kill animals for food, and so the hunters have rpg-esque stats that are not visible to them directly. So a custom could develop that, before you go off on a big hunt, you test your stats by killing a smaller animal.

	21-07-2005 19:53									#16
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quote: Originally posted by Spiffor They are extremely confident in their AI.

AI?

Is this an automatically running computer simulation or an online community with people controlling the characters?

I thought this was like The Sims Delux

	21-07-2005 20:04									#17
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quote: Originally posted by OzzyKP AI? Is this an automatically running computer simulation or an online community with people controlling the characters? I thought this was like The Sims Delux

Nope. There are no humain players. They are simulations of humans, with complex electronic personalities, app'rently.

	21-07-2005 20:09									#18
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This holds out hope for finaly turning sociology into a testable , hard science . Sociology professors , I guess , must be quaking in their boots .

The hard part will be getting the societal constants right ( and identifying the societal constants , of course ) .

Last edited by aneeshm on 21-07-2005 at 20:25

	21-07-2005 20:11									#19
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Oh yeah , and I almost forgot - "Lord of the Flies" , anyone ?

	21-07-2005 20:17									#20
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quote: Originally posted by Spiffor Nope. There are no humain players. They are simulations of humans, with complex electronic personalities, app'rently.

Hmm....

<--- Skeptical

	21-07-2005 20:23									#21
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Great! They created an expensive, scientific version of The Sims

	21-07-2005 20:39									#22
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quote: Originally posted by aneeshm This holds out hope for finaly turning sociology into a testable , hard science . Sociology professors , I guess , must be quaking in thier boots .

Considering that they can only derive their model of human behaviour from the analyses of psychologists and sociologists, such simulations are actually more likely to feed academic circle jerking than to put it in question.

quote: The hard part will be getting the societal constants right ( and identifying the societal constants , of course ) .

Well, duh. Sociology and psychology struggle to find middle-range models that can predict human behaviour with some sort of accuracy. Considering that these simulations can not produce genuine humans, but simplifications taken from sociology and psychology, I fear it won't bring much.

	21-07-2005 22:59									#23
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What if you just include the basic emotions and instincts?

Maybe from there, the AI will build on itself.


Example, happy man and angry woman have child, child has a slightly different emotion, a varient of the parents, which is completely new to the world.

	21-07-2005 23:07									#24
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My God, look at the person at the front of the picture - it's The Architect! It's happening!

	21-07-2005 23:24									#25
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The fact we see nothing about violence makes the whole thing subject to caution.
Anyhow, it is funny to see that one of Lem's short stories has become a reality: Scientists creating an artificial life and culture, whose inhabitants wonder about the existance of God, and whose creator will have, due to budget reasons, to pull the plug and let them all die.

	22-07-2005 01:21									#26
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quote: Originally posted by Spiffor Considering that they can only derive their model of human behaviour from the analyses of psychologists and sociologists, such simulations are actually more likely to feed academic circle jerking than to put it in question.

AIUI, these aren't modeled to behave like humans. They develop their own behavior. But this sort of thing can be immensely valuable to psychology and sociology as sciences, in that we can potentially view the formation of structures that are present in our societies.

	22-07-2005 08:23									#27
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The problem is that people didn't begin by moving around as individual "agents" growing food and procreating, they evolved as social animals hunting and gathering in small kinship/tribal groups. The results of the study aren't likely to be useful.

	22-07-2005 08:50									#28
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however, at some point, this social aspect evolved

	22-07-2005 09:45									#29
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I think his point that we were social before we were even human.

	22-07-2005 09:52									#30
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As is mine.