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From: dan@ADS.ARPA (Dan Shapiro)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.digest
Subject: animal behavior and AI
Message-ID: <8711110303.AA28544@ADS.ARPA>
Date: Tue, 10-Nov-87 22:03:09 EST
Article-I.D.: ADS.8711110303.AA28544
Posted: Tue Nov 10 22:03:09 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 15-Nov-87 07:18:34 EST
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Approved: ailist@kl.sri.com

I am looking for someone who would be interested in discussing some
ideas that involve both the fields of animal behavior and planning as
a subdiscipline of AI.  My goal is to develop a realistic view of what
planning means to simple animals (at the level of ants for example)
and use that information to motivate planning architectures within AI.
Within this context, my focal point is to look at *errors* in animal
behavior, as when ants build circular bridges out of their own bodies,
and the ones on top simply run themselves to death.  This should give
a sense for the limitations of animal planning and also prevent us
from anthropormorphizing to extremes; the temptation is to view
behavior like the above as goal directed and related to our concept of
"bridge building", when the presence of the error indicates that
something much more primitive is going on.  From the little I have
seen of literature in the behavioral sciences, this type of
projection is fairly common.

In any case, as a first step, I'd like to gather multiple examples of
errors in animal behavior.  If there are any ethologists,
sociobiologists, neuroanatomists, computer scientists or just plain
armchair behaviorists out there who have something to say on this
topic, please contact me.

		Dan Shapiro
		dan@ads.com 
		415 941-3912