Story gains traction on tech forums and social media
2 Oct 31 11:09 AM · 7d ago · 2 posts · 12 comments · 3 sources · development 2 of 3
The article is shared on Lobsters and Mastodon with positive reception. Multiple commenters on Hacker News reference historical precedents and related work, discussing connections to Grey Walter's turtles, Braitenberg's vehicles, BEAM robotics, and Conway's Game of Life.
“The ancestor is not Braitenberg. It's Grey Walter's turtles. In 1948, W. Grey Walter built two simple robots that could sense light and touch.”
Animats, Hacker News commenter · hn ↗Aatish Bhatia Author and educatorW. Grey Walter Pioneering roboticist (1948)
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The ancestor is not Braitenberg. It's Grey Walter's turtles.In 1948, W. Grey Walter built two simple robots that could sense light and touch.[1] Much complex behavior emerged. That's where this idea started.Watch the video.[2] It's very impressive for 1948 and tube technology. If you've seen an original Roomba, you've seen a similar level of…
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> If you saw creatures behaving like this in the wild, you might attribute some rudimentary intelligence to them.> But we’ve just shown you how this apparent intelligence arises from the bottom up, with just four neurons and two connections. There’s no magic here. In this view, behavior emerges from neural circuits.Isn't the conclusion here that…
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See also: https://cyberneticzoo.com/cyberneticanimals/1969-the-logo-tu... In my gifted & talented class in the 80's we were introduced to computers and I remember seeing the picture of "Irving" and thinking "Wow, I should learn LOGO to program robots when I grow up" (unfortunately, recursion scared me so I switched to BASIC and later assembly).
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It’s very odd that Braitenberg didn’t cite Walter’s precedent in ‘Vehicles’. He very likely knew about Walter, Ashby’s homeostat, etc, and used the cybernetics terminology in some of his work.Fun historical note: the linked newsreel film was known about but unseen for a long time, then found by Owen Holland in the BBC Bristol archive around 1999…
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Growing up I tinkered with BEAM robotics. It's a philosophy of design that begins with these types of very simple reactive circuits usually from scavenged parts. It's nice to see someone break down the effect of different variables in the design.
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Love the article, I'm jealous of the author's ability to visualize this. I played with this a while ago using small neural networks and state preference to do something similar, the NNs became self tuning PID controllers and the bots could fly around the simulation like hummingbirds. Was pretty neat.
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Thank you - also came to comment on Elmer and Elise being the precursor long ago.Walter himself mentioned the perceived complexity of a simple system to the observer, stating it "might be accepted as evidence of some degree of self-awareness."
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Best thing is, you can physically build this with a few discrete analog components! Search terms: light-bot, or light following robot. You can try to create swarms adding a light to the rear end of your robot
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Grey Walter also wrote The Living Brain in 1953. It's a fascinating window into the state of brain science and robotics around that time.
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Check out Valentino Braitenberg's vehicles. It's one of my favourite books ever.
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