The scaling of goals via homeostasis: an evolutionary simulation, experiment and analysis

Abstract

All cognitive agents are composite beings. Specifically, complex living agents consist of cells, which are themselves competent sub-agents navigating physiological and metabolic spaces. Behavior science, evolutionary developmental biology, and the field of machine intelligence all seek an answer to the scaling of biological cognition: what evolutionary dynamics enable individual cells to integrate their activities to result in the emergence of a novel, higher-level intelligence that has goals and competencies that belong to it and not to its parts? Here, we report the results of simulations based on the TAME framework, which proposes that evolution pivoted the collective intelligence of cells during morphogenesis of the body into traditional behavioral intelligence by scaling up the goal states at the center of homeostatic processes. We tested the hypothesis that a minimal evolutionary framework is sufficient for small, low-level setpoints of metabolic homeostasis in cells to scale up into collectives (tissues) which solve a problem in morphospace: the organization of a body-wide positional information axis (the classic French Flag problem). We found that these emergent morphogenetic agents exhibit a number of predicted features, including the use of stress propagation dynamics to achieve its target morphology as well as the ability to recover from perturbation (robustness) and long-term stability (even though neither of these was directly selected for). Moreover, we observed unexpected behavior of sudden remodeling long after the system stabilizes. We tested this prediction in a biological system -regenerating planaria -and observed a very similar phenomenon. We propose that this system is a first step toward a quantitative understanding of how evolution scales minimal goal-directed behavior (homeostatic loops) into higher-level problem-solving agents in morphogenetic and other spaces.

Wissen aus Bewegungsdaten

“…The previous point leads directly into the necessity of various "parts" inside the AGI's metaphorical "body", to maintain a homeostatic state and solve certain problems without its conscious intervention. It is a key prerequisite for any higher embodied consciousness to pursue higher goals (Pio-Lopez et al, 2022). This is self-evident as humans have already created a number of solutions for maintaining various systems they have created without the need for an AGI to "direct" their actions.…”