Interactive embodied evolution for socially adept Artificial General Creatures
Kevin Godin-Dubois, Olivier Weissl, Karine Miras, Anna V. Kononova
TL;DR
The paper addresses the challenge of building trustworthy, socially adept Artificial General Creatures (AGCs) with embodied sensorimotor capabilities to ensure long-term viability. It advocates an integrative research program that uses embodied agents and a four layered interactive evolution loop to couple simulation-based optimization with human-in-the-loop evaluation, followed by progressive deployment from virtual to physical agents to reduce the reality gap while fostering mutual trust. Key contributions include a concrete workflow that merges Evolutionary Robotics, reinforcement learning, and neuroevolution concepts, a focus on social interaction and user-centric evaluation, and a roadmap for cross-disciplinary collaboration and governance. Significance lies in delivering relatable, self-sustaining artificial companions that can form beneficial human partnerships and serve as stepping stones toward symbiotic AGI, while addressing ethical and societal considerations.
Abstract
We introduce here the concept of Artificial General Creatures (AGC) which encompasses "robotic or virtual agents with a wide enough range of capabilities to ensure their continued survival". With this in mind, we propose a research line aimed at incrementally building both the technology and the trustworthiness of AGC. The core element in this approach is that trust can only be built over time, through demonstrably mutually beneficial interactions. To this end, we advocate starting from unobtrusive, nonthreatening artificial agents that would explicitly collaborate with humans, similarly to what domestic animals do. By combining multiple research fields, from Evolutionary Robotics to Neuroscience, from Ethics to Human-Machine Interaction, we aim at creating embodied, self-sustaining Artificial General Creatures that would form social and emotional connections with humans. Although they would not be able to play competitive online games or generate poems, we argue that creatures akin to artificial pets would be invaluable stepping stones toward symbiotic Artificial General Intelligence.