I, for one, welcome our altruistic robot overlords.

I've recently spent some time trying to explain to non-sciencey people why kin selection and group selection are such hotly debated topics among evolutionary biologists (Yes guys, we don't debate the validity of evolution, but rather, what kind of evolution). While most people understand the basic theory underlying kin selection (an individual is likely to help those genetically related to itself even at a negative cost to the individual) -- trying to explain group selection is tricky. One of the biggest myths about evolution is that natural selection is the only game in town, and therefore individuals always act selfishly to benefit themselves and their direct descendants. However, lately more and more testable science is showing that natural selection and the "only the fittest survive" theory is just one piece in the complex puzzle that makes up evolution.

When I first read the headlines to this story about robots working together, I thought it must be exaggerated. The idea that we can replicate the behavior of organic life in something completely synthetic still blows my mind. However, Laurent Keller's group in Switzerland has gone above and beyond replicating life. They created robots that were programmed to search for "food" and then move this "food" into a certain spot. The robots were also programmed with a point analysis system where they weighed the costs and benefits of helping. As generations went on, the group simulated evolution by using the "genes" from individual robots that were the most cooperative, ie: the most successful. After hundreds of generations, they found that the robots that helped the group closely resembled systems found in nature.




The theory of kin selection makes sense on paper but the bigger issue has always been demonstrating its existence in the real world. While it becomes harder to immediately extrapolate the results of this study to complex social systems like those of humans, the implications for understanding social insects are immense. Groups where individuals seemingly act on a level that benefits the whole over the individual may be explained by continued studies into kin selection.