It’s alive…. IT’S ALIVE!!! Braitenberg vehicles! - Devon Tao at !!Con 2024

Devon Tao demonstrates how simple sensors and motors in Braitenberg vehicles can produce complex, lifelike behaviors without complex AI models.

It’s alive…. IT’S ALIVE!!! Braitenberg Vehicles! (Have you ever seen an AI like this??!!) AI has been getting more and more complex. Surrounded by chess robots, self-driving cars, and now Large Language Models, we begin to ask ourselves: what does it take for a machine to behave like a human? Does it take millions of parameters? Mountains of training data? None of the above! Introducing… Braitenberg Vehicles! These are simple, human-like robots that are made only of a couple of sensors and motors. In this talk, I will convince you that these simple components are enough to show human-like behavior, and we will get to see some Braitenberg Vehicles in action using a Braitenberg Vehicles Simulator I made! Devon is a student at Harvey Mudd College studying computer science and mathematics. Outside of computer science, they also like to write musical theater and make educational videos on their YouTube channel, CS Professor of Fun! Presented at !!Con 2024 (pronounced, of course, "bangbangcon"!) in Santa Cruz, CA -- bangbangcon.com/ !!Con is a production of the Exclamation Foundation -- exclamation.foundation/ Video Production by Confreaks Follow Confreaks 👇 confreaks.com x.com/confreaks