Robohub.org
 

ShanghAI Lectures 2013, Lecture 4 – Evolution: Cognition from scratch

by
10 February 2014



share this:

This week we publish the fourth of the ShanghAI Lectures 2013 Edition on Robohub — we will release a new lecture from this series every Monday until the series is complete. Please use the comments section below to send us your questions, and we will do our best to respond! You can learn more about the ShanghAI lectures here.

Lecture 4 – Evolution: Cognition from scratch

EvoTimeScales

If you believe that it’s too difficult to develop the mathematical models required to arrive at a new concept of embodied AI and robotics, this lecture will offer you hope. In her talk, Prof. Verena Hafner, from Humboldt University in Berlin, discusses the concept of ‘body maps’ from an embodied intelligence perspective, and shows how they can emerge from sensorimotor flow, through information distances in the data flow and/or an internal simulation. In this context the ‘body map’ is not a symbolic ‘representation’ of the agent’s body, but rather an emerging structure used by the agent in its interaction with its environment.

Creating body maps” by Verena Hafner

Evolution: cognition from scratch” by Rolf Pfeifer

In the second talk, Rolf Pfeifer shows how evolutionary processes at different time scales drive the development of embodied intelligence in nature, and how they can be mimicked (with surprisingly good results) for the development of artificial systems, including … pipes and antennas!

How can we exploit Gene Regulatory Networks for the development of a new paradigm for robots?

Guest Lecture – “How can we test for artificial life? Complexity and computation in Nature” by Hector Zenil

SlimeMoldjpg

An unlikely yellow ‘computer’?

The skeptics will think that certain concepts such as ‘life’ or ‘self-organization’ are too  elusive and ill-defined to be useful to AI. Hector Zeni, from the Karolinska Institute in Stockolm, Sweden, does cutting-edge research on the applications of Algorithmic Information Theory to the modeling of life and cognition. Witness how AIT might come to the rescue with this lecture, also hosted by Humboldt University Berlin …

 

About the ShanghAI Lectures

ShanghAIGlobeColor

While in the classical approach “intelligence” was essentially viewed as information processing taking place in the brain, the more recent insight that interaction with the environment is of central importance is gaining acceptance. This has led to the metaphor of embodiment, i.e., that intelligence is always a property of an entire organism — an idea that has far-reaching implications and often leads to surprising insights, but which has not so far been widely exploited in industry practice.

The ShanghAI Lectures project aims to:

  • Build a sustainable community of students and researchers in the area of Embodied Intelligence
  • Make education and knowledge on cutting-edge scientific topics accessible to everyone
  • Explore novel methods of knowledge transfer
  • Overcome the complexity of a multi-cultural and interdisciplinary learning context
  • Bring global teaching to a new level

These lectures about Natural and Artificial Intelligence have been held via videoconference at the University Carlos III of Madrid in Spain, the University of Zurich in Switzerland, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna of Pisa, Italy, Humboldt University Berlin in Germany, University of Plymouth and University of Salford in the UK, and 10 other universities around the globe. Students from the participating universities are still working together on the exercises, using Webots by Cyberbotics, and Ludobots by the University of Vermont.

The lectures have also been streamed to allow remote participation to anybody.

The ShanghAI Lectures differ from ‘conventional’ MOOCs as they exploit telecommunication technology to build a global, distributed lecture hall that allows rich interaction rather than simply implementing the good old fashioned TV broadcasting model on a different medium. They also differ from other AI courses as they propose a new paradigm approach to embodied cognition (a.k.a. AI and Robotics). It is a kind of Copernican revolution with respect to GOFAI and its robotics application — and thus a research program for the coming decades.

This year I coordinated the lectures, with help from Prof. Rolf Pfeifer and Dr. Nathan Labhart at the University of Zurich . Rolf Pfeifer and I provided the context (introduction, moderation, and conclusion). As always, there were 2-3  invited guest lectures each week.



tags: , , , , , , , , ,


Fabio Bonsignorio is a professor in the BioRobotics Institute at the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna (Pisa, Italy).
Fabio Bonsignorio is a professor in the BioRobotics Institute at the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna (Pisa, Italy).





Related posts :



Open Robotics Launches the Open Source Robotics Alliance

The Open Source Robotics Foundation (OSRF) is pleased to announce the creation of the Open Source Robotics Alliance (OSRA), a new initiative to strengthen the governance of our open-source robotics so...

Robot Talk Episode 77 – Patricia Shaw

In the latest episode of the Robot Talk podcast, Claire chatted to Patricia Shaw from Aberystwyth University all about home assistance robots, and robot learning and development.
18 March 2024, by

Robot Talk Episode 64 – Rav Chunilal

In the latest episode of the Robot Talk podcast, Claire chatted to Rav Chunilal from Sellafield all about robotics and AI for nuclear decommissioning.
31 December 2023, by

AI holidays 2023

Thanks to those that sent and suggested AI and robotics-themed holiday videos, images, and stories. Here’s a sample to get you into the spirit this season....
31 December 2023, by and

Faced with dwindling bee colonies, scientists are arming queens with robots and smart hives

By Farshad Arvin, Martin Stefanec, and Tomas Krajnik Be it the news or the dwindling number of creatures hitting your windscreens, it will not have evaded you that the insect world in bad shape. ...
31 December 2023, by

Robot Talk Episode 63 – Ayse Kucukyilmaz

In the latest episode of the Robot Talk podcast, Claire chatted to Ayse Kucukyilmaz from the University of Nottingham about collaboration, conflict and failure in human-robot interactions.
31 December 2023, by





Robohub is supported by:




Would you like to learn how to tell impactful stories about your robot or AI system?


scicomm
training the next generation of science communicators in robotics & AI


©2024 - Association for the Understanding of Artificial Intelligence


 












©2021 - ROBOTS Association