Editorial: Agency in Natural and Artificial Systems

Editorial: Agency in Natural and Artificial Systems

The 1980s and 1990s saw a reorientation of the field of artificial intelligence (AI) away from disembodied software, a domain where AI research continues predominantly as software engineering, and toward situated and embodied robotics. Crucially, the publication of Braitenberg's (1984) Vehicles and, later on, the behavior-based robotics movement (e.g., Brooks, 1995) catalyzed this emphasis on a...

Agency in Natural and Artificial Systems

We analyze the conditions for agency in natural and artificial systems. In the case of basic (natural) autonomous systems, self-construction and activity in the environment are two aspects of the same organization, the distinction between which is entirely conceptual: their sensorimotor activities are metabolic, realized according to the same principles and through the same material transformat...

Evolutionary Adaptation in Natural and Artificial Systems

Evolution in Natural and Artificial Systems

The goal of this research is to study the conditions in which evolution may lead to the sustained emergence of novel behaviours, and how this may be applied to the automatic design of complex entities. We argue that with regard to artificial evolution, this field of study has been rather overlooked, with a preference given to mathematical or experimental results based on abstract selection mode...

Motivation Theories for Natural and Artificial Systems

Motivation is the cause of action (Mook, 1987). When we ask the question: “Why did he or she do that?” we are inquiring about an individual’s motivation. Motivation is though to have three primary functions: a directing function that to steers an individual’s behaviour towards or away from specific goals, an activating function that energises action in pursuit of goals and an organising functio...