SKIRMISHER

Cornell University researchers constructed this “introspective, self-modeling robot” that learns how to correctly move and behave based on its “sensations.”

The robot starts off not knowing what its shape is. It only knows that it is made of 8 motors and 8 pieces, but it does not know how they are arranged - for all it knows, they could be forming a snake, a star, a tree, a five legged machine, or any one from a very large space of possibilities (more than a billion). The robot performs some random motor action and records two tilt angles. It then creates candidate models that would explain this sensation. What is very important to emphasize is that the machine does not have a single model of itself - it has many, simultaneous, competing, different, candidate models.

Researchers (left to right) Victor Zykov, Josh Bongard, and Hod Lipson happily admiring their handiwork.

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