Synopses & Reviews
What happens when we let robots play the game of life? The challenge of studying evolution is that the history of life is buried in the past—we can’t witness the dramatic events that shaped the adaptations we see today. But biorobotics expert John Long has found an ingenious way to overcome this problem: he creates robots that look and behave like extinct animals, subjects them to evolutionary pressures, lets them compete for mates and resources, and mutates their ‘genes’. In short, he lets robots play the game of life. In Darwin’s Devices, Long tells the story of these evolving biorobots—how they came to be, and what they can teach us about the biology of living and extinct species. Evolving biorobots can replicate creatures that disappeared from the earth long ago, showing us in real time what happens in the face of unexpected environmental challenges. Biomechanically correct models of backbones functioning as part of an autonomous robot, for example, can help us understand why the first vertebrates evolved them. But the most impressive feature of these robots, as Long shows, is their ability to illustrate the power of evolution to solve difficult technological challenges autonomously—without human input regarding what a workable solution might be. Even a simple robot can create complex behavior, often learning or evolving greater intelligence than humans could possibly program. This remarkable idea could forever alter the face of engineering, design, and even warfare. An amazing tour through the workings of a fertile mind, Darwin’s Devices will make you rethink everything you thought you knew about evolution, robot intelligence, and life itself.
Review
Neil Shubin, Professor, University of Chicago, and author of Your Inner FishRobots hold a key to our past, present, and future in John Longs fascinating Darwins Devices. Telling the story of the exciting science at the boundary of biology and engineering, Long takes us on a tour of how science is done, how new ideas emerge, and how insights to ourselves can come from surprising places.”George V. Lauder, Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard UniversityJohn Long gives us an engagingly written and highly personal book that introduces his new approach to understanding the past using evolving robots. His unique perspective is sure to inspire others and broaden our views on how robots can inform our understanding of evolution.” David Levy, author of Love and Sex with RobotsJohn Long weaves a fascinating journey of scientific exploration which he describes with a highly infectious enthusiasm. Longs field is the creation of autonomous robots that can teach us about the evolution of animal behavioura complex subject which he analyzes and simplifies with great clarity. Darwins Devices is a thoroughly stimulating read.”
Steven Vogel, James B. Duke Professor, Duke University
Whether in laboratory or kitchen, making something always improves your understanding of how it works. In this book, John Long traces his path toward better understanding the evolution of fish swimming by making robots that swim. His models quite literally embody the way the process of natural selection acts on performance in seeking food or not becoming food. Its a personal account of real-world science, complete with the bumps and bruises, the thickets of thorns. Its about the way we experimentalists go about thingsnot always pretty, but highly addictive in the doing and almost as seductive in the reading.”
Kirkus Reviews
Lively and intriguing.”
Booklist
[A] lucidly written description of [Longs] research
. Using ingeniously engineered devices called evolvobots that mimic carefully selected animal features, Long and his team have been probing such mysteries as how the flexible spines of fish and mammals developed, and whether or not brains are really necessary for some species survival. Especially inspiring is Longs demonstration that biorobotics is not only revolutionizing the study of biology but also providing new enthusiasm for engineering technologys value in novel applications. A must-read for aficionados of both evolutionary theory and cybernetics.”
Publishers Weekly, starred review
Longs process of designing the tadros [tadpole robots] and experiments are fascinating and give unique insights into high-level science.... Long deciphers [the] unexpected results with a delightful sense of humor and an infectious awe at, and enthusiasm for, discovery and the elegant mechanisms of evolution. For readers who like serious science, this is a captivating tour of the marriage of technology and biology.”
New Scientist
Though [Long] is a gifted storyteller, this is no simple fish tale. The engineering draw of robots is clear, but Long also emphasises the value for science, showing how robots can serve as physical models of biological organisms; evolving biorobots can shed light on why organisms evolved as they did; and robot interaction can illustrate coevolutionary dynamics, as between predators and prey.... With Darwins Devices, Long reminds us that science is always an adventure, and that new technology only drives us faster and further into the unknown.”
Boston Globe
[Long] manages to balance fairly detailed and frequently entertaining accounts of the nuts and bolts of robot research with occasional forays into big picture, what-does-it-all-mean thinking.... [H]is discussion was both intelligent and philosophically informed, a rare thing in contemporary science writing.”
Laura Miller, Salon
Darwins Devices is part Descartes, part MacGyver and part Douglas Adams, turning from rumination on the possibility of intelligence residing in a brainless body to tips on making artificial fish vertebrae out of coffee stirrers
. One of the most intriguing and important aspects of Darwins Devices is the way it places the reader in the lab, at the shoulder of people doing hands-on science, sharing in their frustrations (over disappointing data, recalcitrant grant committees and astutely critical colleagues), their successes and their failures. And Long does this so lucidly that you find yourself caught up in the process, grasping the basics and eager to learn the results. Its the best depiction of how science really works that Ive ever read.”
Nature
A book on robotics by a marine biologist sounds a bit fishy, but Darwins Devices is anything but. John Long takes us on a journey through the wonderful, oceanic world of research on the evolution of the vertebrae of extinct species. Longs work is innovative because of his useand strong defenceof modelling with physically embodied robots, rather than the usual software simulations of computational biology.... Longs chatty style made me laugh out loud at times. But beneath the levity lie robust and sometimes powerful arguments about biomimetics.... [T]his is a sound and hard-hitting work
. Darwins Devices represents a step forward in biomimetics. And, cleverly hidden among the discussions and the humour, gems of scientific philosophy shine.”
Macleans
Longs trials, errors and successes should prove enlightening to anyone interested in evolution or the future of robotics.”
Science News
Clearly, its been a labor of love for the author and his scientific collaborators. And through Longs humor and clever descriptions, readers get a sense of how the design concepts underlying these devicesand other robotic animalshave evolved.”
Science
Reading Darwins Devices is like listening, over drinks, to a voluble, engaging, and funny scientist tell you about his work.... Long draws you into a compelling and wide-ranging conversation. This includes discussions of the mechanics of fish backbones, how we practice science, the nature of evolution, what it means to be intelligent, our dystopian robot future, and, most important, the crucial role of good models in science.... Accessible and thought-provoking, Darwins Devices provides an exemplary account of scientific practice for the general reader.”
Synopsis
Biologists are pioneering a new way to study evolution. By building autonomous mobile robots that simulate animal behavior and subjecting them to selective pressures, they are now able to observe the heretofore glacial process of evolutionary adaptation. In turn, these mechanisms are revolutionizing ideas about engineering and design. In Darwin’s Devices, biorobotics expert John Long examines this powerful approach to improving our understanding of biology and the machines we rely on daily.
Darwin’s Devices is a trip through the laboratory of a fertile mind and the herald of a new era in experimental science. But more than that, it is proof that both science and engineering can benefit when we simply sit back and let natural processes take control.
Synopsis
What happens when we let robots play the game of life? The challenge of studying evolution is that the history of life is buried in the past--we can't witness the dramatic events that shaped the adaptations we see today. But biorobotics expert John Long has found an ingenious way to overcome this problem: he creates robots that look and behave like extinct animals, subjects them to evolutionary pressures, lets them compete for mates and resources, and mutates their 'genes'. In short, he lets robots play the game of life. In Darwin's Devices, Long tells the story of these evolving biorobots--how they came to be, and what they can teach us about the biology of living and extinct species. Evolving biorobots can replicate creatures that disappeared from the earth long ago, showing us in real time what happens in the face of unexpected environmental challenges. Biomechanically correct models of backbones functioning as part of an autonomous robot, for example, can help us understand why the first vertebrates evolved them. But the most impressive feature of these robots, as Long shows, is their ability to illustrate the power of evolution to solve difficult technological challenges autonomously--without human input regarding what a workable solution might be. Even a simple robot can create complex behavior, often learning or evolving greater intelligence than humans could possibly program. This remarkable idea could forever alter the face of engineering, design, and even warfare. An amazing tour through the workings of a fertile mind, Darwin's Devices will make you rethink everything you thought you knew about evolution, robot intelligence, and life itself.
Synopsis
Why using natural selection to design robots is revolutionizing our understanding of life.
Synopsis
Robots have come a long way since the days of futuristic metallic humanoid dreams. In
Darwins Devices, biorobotics expert John Long takes readers on a tour of his own work and thinkingshowing how evolutionary concepts can revolutionize design and engineering, while using evolved robots to unlock the biology of living and extinct species.
Long himself uses robots to answer two primary sets of questions. The first is about living organisms, especially fish: how do they get around, catch foodsimply, how do they do what they do? The second is about long-dead organisms, including one of the toughest questions of them all: why did animals ever evolve backbones, and once they did, why did they prove so successful? But theres no reason to stop thereas Long himself argues, the most important aspect might just be the principles hes developing, which boil down to the power of dumb evolution to quickly output brilliant designs.
Darwins Devices is not just an amazing trip through the laboratory of a very fertile mindits proof that both science and engineering can benefit when we simply sit back and let natural processes take control.
About the Author
John Long is a Professor at Vassar College, with joint appointments in Cognitive Science and Biology. He serves as Director of Vassars Interdisciplinary Robotics Research Laboratory, which he co-founded. Long and his robots, Madeleine and the Tadros, have garnered widespread press coverage in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, and more. He lives in Poughkeepsie, New York.