From the consistently wonderful SMBC:
Hilarious, but it’s also real research. Read more about how robots evolve to lie here. And if you want some biological examples, I’ve discussed dishonest signaling in deer and fiddler crabs in a previous post.
This is post 16 of 49 of Blogathon. Pledge a donation to the Secular Student Alliance here.
It makes sense. From an evolutionary stance, it takes a lot of energy to go chasing after what you want. It takes much less energy to pick a spot and lure your prey to you. I’m half-convinced that marriage is the honest expression of love that coincidentally tricks my wife into getting me chicken nuggets, and tricks me into mowing the lawn. :)
Zach Weiner is such a marvelous bastard.
I wonder if the ‘food source’ was limited in some way for the robot experiment.
I think it’s sweet that some of the robots “signaled danger and died to save other robots.” I never expected to see altruism from a robot, but it’s nice. Perhaps our new electronic leaders will be merciful lords.