Amin Girasol<p>Via the <span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://oldbytes.space/@ataripodcast" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@<span>ataripodcast</span></a></span>: in a 25-minute video, Jean Michel Sellier, Research Assistant Professor at Purdue University, demonstrates the use of an <a href="https://oldbytes.space/tags/Atari800XL" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Atari800XL</span></a> to train a neural network using a genetic algorithm instead of the memory-hungry technique of gradient descent.</p><p><a href="https://hackaday.com/2025/02/21/genetic-algorithm-runs-on-atari-800-xl/" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">hackaday.com/2025/02/21/geneti</span><span class="invisible">c-algorithm-runs-on-atari-800-xl/</span></a></p><p>I've had a soft spot for Artificial Life for a long time. During the last AI Winter in the mid 1990s, I was spurred to get back into education and onto a career in commercial software development by Stephen Levy's book "Artificial Life: The Quest for a New Creation". I loved that Artificial Life researchers borrowed well-understood mechanisms from genetics and implemented them in software to converge iteratively on solutions, in contrast to AI research, which was attempting to build models of categories which were not understood at all (and largely still aren't) - intelligence (whatever that is) and perception.</p><p>In subsequent years I wondered why I wasn't hearing any hype about Artificial Life; it turns out practitioners have been quietly getting on with solving problems using the technique. Meanwhile, yet again, AI boosters have blustered their way into the consciousness with another round of overcooked hype.</p><p>The Stephen Levy book is still worth a read, if you can find it. (IIRC Danny Hillis and the Connection Machine folks get a mention too.)</p><p>(I don't know if any of the genetic algorithm folks turned out to be supporters of eugenics, as many of the current crop of AI boosters seem to be.)</p><p><a href="https://archive.org/details/artificiallifequ0000levy_l1x2" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">archive.org/details/artificial</span><span class="invisible">lifequ0000levy_l1x2</span></a></p><p><a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_winter#The_setbacks_of_the_late_1980s_and_early_1990s" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_win</span><span class="invisible">ter#The_setbacks_of_the_late_1980s_and_early_1990s</span></a></p><p><a href="https://oldbytes.space/tags/solarpunk" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>solarpunk</span></a> <a href="https://oldbytes.space/tags/permacomputing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>permacomputing</span></a> <a href="https://oldbytes.space/tags/geneticalgorithms" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>geneticalgorithms</span></a> <a href="https://oldbytes.space/tags/ArtificialLife" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>ArtificialLife</span></a> <a href="https://oldbytes.space/tags/RetroComputing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>RetroComputing</span></a> <a href="https://oldbytes.space/tags/VintageComputing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>VintageComputing</span></a> <a href="https://oldbytes.space/tags/TESCREAL" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>TESCREAL</span></a> <a href="https://oldbytes.space/tags/Eugenics" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Eugenics</span></a> <a href="https://oldbytes.space/tags/Genetics" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Genetics</span></a></p>