   Goal : Reproduce Stone Age Behavior
  Hi. I''ve just started my Ph.D in Computer Science (specifically the fields of graphics and AI), and after researching for going on 4 months now I''ve narrowed the focus of my research to have a long term goal of being able to reproduce stone age behavior in software (i.e before the advent of language to communicate).My supervisor (himself a doctor in AI) has advised me to be very ambitious and try to eventually create an ''Intelligent'' Agent in a virtual environment that has the ''strong'' agent qualities of rationality, learning, goal-orientedness etc.In his own words : i.e. the goal is to develop an I.A. that "thinks about" and reacts to its environment similar to humans. Then how does changingthat environment change its behaviour? i.e. you could have itrequire food, clothing and shelter etc  Now I''ve been reading a lot into emergent behavior, genetic algorithms, neural nets, fuzzy logic and so forth - but my main problem is that I can''t decide which style of AI representation(s) I should focus on first. Perhaps none of the above could really be used to develop so called ''strong'' agent qualities...or perhaps using them in conjunction could yield better results? I was just wondering if you guys had any comments, suggestions or recommendations for me as I start out on the long journey towards being a doctor! Any help would be great.Cheers,SFA. 
  i think neural nets can be used to reproduce any kind of artifical intelligence/behavior. its just a matter of complexity. i think you should think about this, and the right ways to implement an evironment to teach your agent. i hope you will succeed, im also planning to specialize my studies for AI an graphics, but i have a few more years left at my uni.  "Knowledge is no more expensive than ignorance, and at least as satisfying." -Barrin ;  Hehe... time to buy Alex''s book!   Dave Mark - President and Lead DesignerIntrinsic Algorithm - "Reducing the world to mathematical equations!";  I''d personally probably use fuzzy logic for states like hunger, temperature, need to go to the bathroom, etc. Then feed that into a neural network and train to be what you define as being a leader.I''d also just like to point out that I personally don''t have much experience with AI, and that this is off the top of my head...dont flame me!  _________________________________________"Why, why why does everyone ask ''''why'''' when ''''how'''' is so much more fun"-Spawn 1997 ;  Stone age civilizations had language...even monkeys have vocal communication...Anyway, it might be more important to focus on the problem representation instead of how you are going to solve the problem. If the agent requires food, clothing, shelter, how does it get these things? How complex is the simulated world that it will have to navigate? Then to behave rationally, the agent has to take its observations and choose actions...genetic algorithms/random searching could be used to evolve an AI that survives well in the environment, of course there also needs to be a representation for the AI... it sounds like it should have some sort of memory, to remember what to do in different conditions as well. ;  You should definitely go out and get a copy of the game Creatures (I,II or III) and read up everything you can find online about Norns. Then hunt down their creator and read anything you can about his research work.Norns are the little creatures in the game that learn and interact with each other and the environment. They can actually teach each other and learn to perfom a whole range of tasks in their environment. They have desires and needs (like food, shelter, sex, etc) which are governed by their physiology. They actually have a simplified neurochemistry which alters their perceptions and reactions and which is affected by their activity, food intake, rest, sexual activity, etc. All of the biological information in the norns is encoded in their chromosomes and when they mate, they actually pass on genetic information to their offspring, so the norn race actually evolves over time as well.It sounds like this is the sort of ecosystem you want to achieve. How you implement it is up to you. It''ll almost certainly require a combination of AI tools and you''ll need to do some research on basic physiology.There''s plenty of literature around on artificial life simulations... Norns are just one example of them.Good luck with your research... it''s going to become hard, tiring and you may get depressed about ever finishing it... but it''s all worth it in the end. The sense of pride you have when you look at your thesis is very special.Good luck,Timkin ;quote:Original post by Timkin  Good luck with your research... it''s going to become hard, tiring and you may get depressed about ever finishing it... but it''s all worth it in the end. The sense of pride you have when you look at your thesis is very special.Gee, you dont know how familiar that sounds... Anyway, SFA, one thing I know is that you shouldnt let the tools dictate which way you want to go.See, the thing is, they are TOOLS, which mean they get used.A Neural Network is not some sort of panacea that will solve all your problems, nor should you try to think of everything you try to solve in terms of "how can I use a NN to do this".Think about what you want, think about the tools at your disposal, THEN choose the right ones for the right job.And dont limit yourself to AI reads. There are a lot of things out there, and sometimes, ideas come from far places.Read Richard Dawkins, for instance, if you want to see his point of view about the origin and "goals" of chromosomes.Read Jean M Auel''s saga if you want a deeper (and verbose, and researched) look into stone age behvaiours. There isnt enough room here to tell you how much details she puts into her books, but if you are interested in Nehandertals and their cousins Cro Magnon, you ll want to read her work.anyway, you are just at the beginning of the journey, so good luck, and hang in there !   Sancte Isidore ora pro nobis !;  You probably want to accelerate the system thus you need to intervene in the simulation to create situations that aid your creatures to develop skills faster. This AI is possible to do but it will be exhaustive effort with moral implications. I don''t like the moral issues that will come out of this. You can accomplish anything that you dream of but watch out for the consequences of your actions. ;  Uh, what exactly are the moral issues involved with applying domain specific knowledge to training an AI agent? ;  none, but that''s not what we''re talking about here. Please pay attention next time. 