He then assigned them a task: to walk. He used a GA to evolve this capability, which involved seven hundred parameters. “If you look at that system with your human eyes, there’s no way you can do it on your own, because the system is just too complex,” Reil points out. “That’s where evolution comes in.”210 While some of the evolved creatures walked in a smooth and convincing way, the research demonstrated a well-known attribute of GAs: you get what you ask for. Some creatures figured out novel new ways of passing for walking. According to Reil, “We got some creatures that didn’t walk at all,
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