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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Decision Making in Evolving Artificial Systems

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The theme of this workshop is artificial perception. In this chapter we will argue that the ecological function of perception is to serve decision-making. If this is so the mechanisms chosen to implement perception, in natural or artificial systems, will be constrained by the requirements of decision-making and theories of decision-making will inevitably influence theories of perception. In what follows we will look at decision-making from what we hope is a new perspective, applying concepts and techniques developed by what we will call “new artificial intelligence”. We will begin, in the second part of the chapter, with a review of traditional, “normative” theories of decision-making and of the mounting body of experimental evidence, showing the inadequacy of these theories. In the third part we will outline an alternative ecological/biological view of decision-making, inspired by computer models from the fields of “Artificial Neural Networks”, “Artificial Evolution” and “Evolutionary Robotics. Finally, we will briefly examine how far this new view may be considered to be biologically realistic and examine some of the possible consequences for theories of perception and of individual perceptive systems.