Re: Q: Ant colonies and capitalism?

From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Mon Jan 08 2001 - 00:26:33 MST


zeb haradon wrote:
>
> >From: "Eliezer S. Yudkowsky" <sentience@pobox.com>
>
> >
> >(Other answers also welcome. I consult the ExtroCollective!)
> >
> >Eugene, do you know if anyone's ever found capitalistic algorithms
> >operating inside the apparent communism of an ant colony? I wanted to
> >make some point about "If selfishness is so efficient, why hasn't it
> >evolved in ant colonies",
>
> In speculations like these, be sure that you know what you mean

Trust me, I know what I mean. What I'm trying to find out is whether
locally-focused goal systems have emergent behaviors that are genuinely
interesting enough, and adaptive enough, for locally-focused goal systems
to evolve in the absence of a local focus for selection pressures.

And, if so, how does the local focus of a goal system created by a
selection pressure for globally emergent properties differ from the local
focus of a goal system created by a locally focused selection pressure?

-- -- -- -- --
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence



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