Daydreaming ... or the art of thinking like a human

HAMLET

Do you see yonder cloud that’s almost in shape of a camel?

POLONIUS

By the mass, and ‘tis like a camel, indeed.

HAMLET

Methinks it is like a weasel.

POLONIUS

It is backed like a weasel.

HAMLET

Or like a whale.

POLONIUS

Very like a whale.

Cloud watching-AKA- daydreaming whereby having a purpose to dream is not the issue, (Save for Hamlet spoofing on Polonius) freeing the mind to think in new ways is, a notion becoming all too real in all things relating to AI.

Evolutionary algorithms have been around for a long time. Traditionally, they’ve been used to solve specific problems. In each generation, the solutions that perform best on some metric — the ability to control a two-legged robot, say — are selected and produce offspring. While these algorithms have seen some successes, they can be more computationally intensive than other approaches such as “deep learning,” which has exploded in popularity in recent years.

The steppingstone principle goes beyond traditional evolutionary approaches. Instead of optimizing for a specific goal, it embraces creative exploration of all possible solutions. By doing so, it has paid off with groundbreaking results. Earlier this year, one system based on the steppingstone principle mastered two video games that had stumped popular machine learning methods. And in a paper published last week in Nature, DeepMind — the artificial intelligence company that pioneered the use of deep learning for problems such as the game of Go — reported success in combining deep learning with the evolution of a diverse population of solutions.

In other words, the start point to thinking like a human.

He hoped to show that by simply following ideas in interesting directions, algorithms could not only produce a diversity of results, but solve problems. More audaciously, he aimed to show that completely ignoring an objective can get you there faster than pursuing it. He did this through an approach called novelty search.

The alien face generated by Picbreeder (left) turned into something like a racecar.

Independence Day ... for real. :)