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Algorithms Acting Out
www.wired.com

Unfettered reward hacking. 'Goldilocks Electronics' is Thompson 1996 redux

Infanticide: In a survival simulation, one AI species evolved to subsist on a diet of its own children.

Space War: Algorithms exploited flaws in the rules of the galactic videogame Elite Dangerous to invent powerful new weapons.

Body Hacking: A four-legged virtual robot was challenged to walk smoothly by balancing a ball on its back. Instead, it trapped the ball in a leg joint, then lurched along as before.

Goldilocks Electronics: Software evolved circuits to interpret electrical signals, but the design only worked at the temperature of the lab where the study took place.

Optical Illusion: Humans teaching a gripper to grasp a ball accidentally trained it to exploit the camera angle so that it appeared successful—even when not touching the ball.

Further reading on this topic
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