GoiD bring the concepts of artificial intelligence out of the university research departments and into the hands of anyone capable of writing a script. An important difference between typical AI development and GoiD, though, is GoiD’s tendency toward physical environments, as opposed to traditional AI’s focus on abstract environments (say, like playing chess). GoiD’s approach is reasonable because the only existence proof of intelligence is the human nervous system (i.e. your brain), which is in fact much like many of the other nervous systems found on the planet. And there’s one thing that all nervous systems on the planet can do, and it’s not playing Go or trading stocks: they can move.
“Deep Blue might be able to win at chess, but it wouldn’t know to come in from the rain.” – Marvin Minsky
This idea is not new, of course. Robotics labs all over the place create control systems in the spirit of “situational embodiment”, where the control system is “embodied” in a physical structure (the robot) and “situated” in an environment (e.g. a room), and this is a wonderful thing. The problem is that it is expensive and very time consuming. Computer simulations were the knee-jerk solution, but creating one that even remotely honours the laws of physics is remarkably tedious to write and slow to run. Also, no simulation is ever going to be exactly true to real life, so a robotic system will always eventually have to be tested in the real world before it can be said to actually work.
Still, there is a place for simulation in solving general problems and determining best practices. GoiD was created to allow people to explore the very large space of AGI problems in a way that is intended to be fun, and maybe a little competitive. With GoiD the effort of creating a simulation can be shared with everyone, so that as a group more actual AGI development can get done. Also, because players compete, GoiD creates a natural selection environment that – abstractly at least – is similar to how the human nervous system developed.
And if GoiD ends up also being fun to play, all the better.