Hmmm.
I'm not certain whether to be oddly reassured by this, or highly alarmed.
"Dario Floreano and his team at the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems in the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology built a swarm of mobile robots [with unprogrammed learning A.I.s], outfitted with light bulbs and photodetectors. These were set loose in a zone with illuminated "food" and "poison" zones which charged or depleted their batteries."
What followed was a set of standard 'genetic algorithm' type culls for most-fit results, as measured by scores, followed by redownload/ reproduction of the winners across the same robot set. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. What happened next has been seen in pure simulations like "Life," but with robots it's more explicit:
"Within fifty generations of this electronic evolution, co-operative societies of robots had formed - helping each other to find food and avoid poison. Even more amazing is the emergence of cheats and martyrs...."
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