Summer Updates
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Jeff Clune
Sep 3, 2012, 12:19:54 AM9/3/12
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Hello all,
It has been a busy summer for me (aside from getting married!), and I wanted to share the news.
I am pleased to announce that I have accepted a faculty position at the University of Wyoming. I will begin there as an assistant professor this January. I am currently soliciting applications from graduate students interested in working with me on artificial intelligence, evolutionary computation, and robotics. If you know anyone interested in a fully-funded Ph.D. position in my lab, please have them contact me.
I am also happy to announce two new papers:
1. Clune J, Pennock RT, Ofria C, Lenski RE (2012) Ontogeny tends to recapitulate phylogeny in digital organisms. The American Naturalist. 180: E54–E63.
Link to PDF: http://goo.gl/uSRPK
Article on PhysOrg.com: http://goo.gl/EfgWu
Abstract: Biologists have long debated whether ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny and, if so, why. Two plausible explanations are that (i) changes to early developmental stages are selected against because they tend to disrupt later development and (ii) simpler structures often precede more complex ones in both ontogeny and phylogeny if the former serve as building blocks for the latter. It is difficult to test these hypotheses experimentally in natural systems, so we used a computational system that exhibits evolutionary dynamics. We observed that ontogeny does indeed recapitulate phylogeny; traits that arose earlier in a lineage’s history also tended to be expressed earlier in the development of individuals. The relative complexity of traits contributed substantially to this correlation, but a significant tendency toward recapitulation remained even after accounting for trait complexity. This additional effect provides evidence that selection against developmental disruption also contributed to the conservation of early stages in development.
2. Lohmann S, Yosinski J, Gold E, Clune J, Blum J, Lipson H (2012) Aracna: An Open-Source Quadruped Platform for Evolutionary Robotics. Proceedings of the Artificial Life Conference. 387-392. Best presentation award.
PDF: http://goo.gl/ATzOf
Abstract: We describe a new, quadruped robot platform, Aracna, which requires non-intuitive motor commands in order to locomote and thus provides an interesting challenge for gait learning algorithms, such as those frequently developed in the Evolutionary Computation and Artificial Life communities. Aracna is an open-source hardware project composed of off-the-shelf and 3D-printed parts, enabling other research teams to modify its design according to their scientific needs. Aracna was designed to overcome the shortcomings of a previous quadruped robot platform, whose legs were so heavy that the motors could not reliably execute the commands sent to them. We avoid this problem by locating all motors in the body core instead of on the legs and through a design which enables the servos to have a greater mechanical advantage. Specifically, each of the four legs has two joints controlled by separate four-bar linkage mechanisms that drive the pitch of the hip joint and knee joint. This novel design causes unconventional kinematics, creating an opportunity for gaitlearning algorithms, which excel in counter-intuitive design spaces where human engineers tend to underperform. Because it is low-cost, flexible, kinematically interesting, and and improvement over a previous design, Aracna provides a useful new hardware platform for testing algorithms that automatically generate robotic behaviors.
Miscellaneous news:
• EndlessForms.com was voted one of the top 35 websites in the 3D printing industry! http://goo.gl/QVXb5
• A video about EndlessForms was accepted for the AAAI Video Competition: http://www.aaaivideos.org/2012/
• I will be giving a talk at the University of Texas Sept. 14th: http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~ai-lab/fai/
I had two posters at Alife and GECCO, one presented by Jason Yosinski and another by Jean-Baptiste Mouret
• Yosinski J, Clune J, Hidalgo D, Nguyen S, Cristobal Zagal J, Lipson H (2011) Generating Gaits for Physical Quadruped Robots: Evolved Neural Networks Vs. Local Parameterized Search. Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference.
• Mouret JB, Clune J (2012) Uncovering phenotype-fitness maps using MOLE. Proceedings of the Thirteenth Conference on Artificial Life. East Lansing, MI.
As always, please let me know if you have any questions or comments.
Best regards,
Jeff Clune
Visiting Scientist
Cornell University
jeff...@cornell.edu
jeffclune.com
It has been a busy summer for me (aside from getting married!), and I wanted to share the news.
I am pleased to announce that I have accepted a faculty position at the University of Wyoming. I will begin there as an assistant professor this January. I am currently soliciting applications from graduate students interested in working with me on artificial intelligence, evolutionary computation, and robotics. If you know anyone interested in a fully-funded Ph.D. position in my lab, please have them contact me.
I am also happy to announce two new papers:
1. Clune J, Pennock RT, Ofria C, Lenski RE (2012) Ontogeny tends to recapitulate phylogeny in digital organisms. The American Naturalist. 180: E54–E63.
Link to PDF: http://goo.gl/uSRPK
Article on PhysOrg.com: http://goo.gl/EfgWu
Abstract: Biologists have long debated whether ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny and, if so, why. Two plausible explanations are that (i) changes to early developmental stages are selected against because they tend to disrupt later development and (ii) simpler structures often precede more complex ones in both ontogeny and phylogeny if the former serve as building blocks for the latter. It is difficult to test these hypotheses experimentally in natural systems, so we used a computational system that exhibits evolutionary dynamics. We observed that ontogeny does indeed recapitulate phylogeny; traits that arose earlier in a lineage’s history also tended to be expressed earlier in the development of individuals. The relative complexity of traits contributed substantially to this correlation, but a significant tendency toward recapitulation remained even after accounting for trait complexity. This additional effect provides evidence that selection against developmental disruption also contributed to the conservation of early stages in development.
2. Lohmann S, Yosinski J, Gold E, Clune J, Blum J, Lipson H (2012) Aracna: An Open-Source Quadruped Platform for Evolutionary Robotics. Proceedings of the Artificial Life Conference. 387-392. Best presentation award.
PDF: http://goo.gl/ATzOf
Abstract: We describe a new, quadruped robot platform, Aracna, which requires non-intuitive motor commands in order to locomote and thus provides an interesting challenge for gait learning algorithms, such as those frequently developed in the Evolutionary Computation and Artificial Life communities. Aracna is an open-source hardware project composed of off-the-shelf and 3D-printed parts, enabling other research teams to modify its design according to their scientific needs. Aracna was designed to overcome the shortcomings of a previous quadruped robot platform, whose legs were so heavy that the motors could not reliably execute the commands sent to them. We avoid this problem by locating all motors in the body core instead of on the legs and through a design which enables the servos to have a greater mechanical advantage. Specifically, each of the four legs has two joints controlled by separate four-bar linkage mechanisms that drive the pitch of the hip joint and knee joint. This novel design causes unconventional kinematics, creating an opportunity for gaitlearning algorithms, which excel in counter-intuitive design spaces where human engineers tend to underperform. Because it is low-cost, flexible, kinematically interesting, and and improvement over a previous design, Aracna provides a useful new hardware platform for testing algorithms that automatically generate robotic behaviors.
Miscellaneous news:
• EndlessForms.com was voted one of the top 35 websites in the 3D printing industry! http://goo.gl/QVXb5
• A video about EndlessForms was accepted for the AAAI Video Competition: http://www.aaaivideos.org/2012/
• I will be giving a talk at the University of Texas Sept. 14th: http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~ai-lab/fai/
I had two posters at Alife and GECCO, one presented by Jason Yosinski and another by Jean-Baptiste Mouret
• Yosinski J, Clune J, Hidalgo D, Nguyen S, Cristobal Zagal J, Lipson H (2011) Generating Gaits for Physical Quadruped Robots: Evolved Neural Networks Vs. Local Parameterized Search. Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference.
• Mouret JB, Clune J (2012) Uncovering phenotype-fitness maps using MOLE. Proceedings of the Thirteenth Conference on Artificial Life. East Lansing, MI.
As always, please let me know if you have any questions or comments.
Best regards,
Jeff Clune
Visiting Scientist
Cornell University
jeff...@cornell.edu
jeffclune.com
Alessandro Scoccia Pappagallo
Sep 3, 2012, 9:07:56 AM9/3/12
to jeffclun...@googlegroups.com
Hello Jeff,
I forward this email to my collegues MSc here at University of Sussex (we just finished our master), you will probably receive a couple of emails since a lot of people are interested. ;)
My best,
Alessandro Scoccia Pappagallo
I forward this email to my collegues MSc here at University of Sussex (we just finished our master), you will probably receive a couple of emails since a lot of people are interested. ;)
My best,
Alessandro Scoccia Pappagallo
2012/9/3 Jeff Clune <jeff...@cornell.edu>
Jeff Clune
Sep 3, 2012, 3:13:38 PM9/3/12
to jeffclun...@googlegroups.com
Excellent. Thanks Alessandro!
Jeff Clune
Sep 3, 2012, 3:15:16 PM9/3/12
to jeffclun...@googlegroups.com, Alessandro Scoccia Pappagallo
Excellent. Thanks Alessandro for spreading the word.
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