On September 6, The Next Web broke the news that might seem like déjá vu to anyone who has been involved in the Crypto space. Crypto Kitties appeared to have come again in a new and novel form. No, it was not based on the Ethereum network. No, it was not even Crypto based. At the same time, the similarities are there.
According to the Next Web’s piece on the subject, Keiwan Donyagard, a software developer, has released a sort of game that allows you to grow and evolve your own AI-based creatures in a controlled sandbox environment. To recap, if you do not already know, by sandbox, we mean a tightly controlled environment on a computer or simply on the internet, from which an AI cannot escape or evolve in any way that it wants to evolve.
Underpinning all of this is the fact that the whole environment is also a neural network in and of itself. Despite the seemingly novel and possibly groundbreaking nature of releasing such an AI to the public, Donyagard has made it clear that this is merely a simulation and in addition to this, the entire simulation is goal agnostic.
Knowing this, you would not be off-base to find yourself wondering: in that case, what is the point of even releasing something like this?
From the fact that Donyagard does let users observe how a neural network can evolve with characters that can eventually learn to run, walk and do other actions, perhaps we can find a sort of overarching goal here. We, as those who are already interested in the AI space, need to find a way to show the general public the true utility of constructs like neural networks in ways that they can understand. In connection with this, it appears that Donyagard wants to give the public a taste of the environment that AI teams typically grow their AIs in.
At this time, since the news has just broken over the last month, some of the greater details on this project are logically just not there yet. Still, if you’re interested in trying out the simulation, check out the link to it below and keep your finger on the pulse for our updates on the subject.
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