Design vs Evolution

I just watched a fascinating TED presentation on self–aware robots from Hod Lipson of Cornell University:

It was inspiring to watch the spider–like bot trying to understand its own form and how to move forward. It was fascinating to see it not walk like a spider as we might have hoped for. Instead, it found a completely different way of propelling itself.

Observing users in action within a user centred design (UCD) approach can also be surprising. They often do things we might not expect or be able to predict. As designers, we use our intuition to try and create empathetic experiences that transcend our own predilections. Jared Spool alluded to this recently at dConstruct when he described speaking to members of AIGA. He described how he talked about UCD and experience design to the audience who apparently promptly turned around and said, “that’s what we do!”

In the article about narrative, I was thinking about developer versus user–generated narratives. The best social networks are platforms for expression. Users generate their own stories within the framework. To do this there is often a symbiotic relationship between the stage (the site) and the players (the users and audience.) The stage is literally set by the players and audience. They often find unique and interesting ways of using the stage to tell their stories. They create and pave new cowpaths which are then expanded upon by the developers. So the narrative being designed by the developers is only one of countless plots the users can follow.

That’s what the robot was doing. With a reward at the end, it created its own story in order to understand itself and move forward. As Hod Lipson suggests, evolution rather than design may be a much more effective way of allowing robots to discover themselves. The same could apply to website users. Should we design experiences, or help them evolve? If it’s a balance between the two, how do we walk the line?

The other fascinating portion of the presentation is what happens when rewards are removed. Instead of trying to achieve a task, the robots in the primordial soup of parts and power start to self–replicate. Self–replication becomes the task and the reward; amazingly like us, or any life form.

You might compare that to certain social networks that exist without a goal as such, but to merely connect people. Users define their own rewards and tasks. Create their own narrative. Think about friends lists or popularity on Facebook. In a way that could also be considered self–replication, but of ideas and influence rather than genes. Conversely, on sites like Cybersocietes—a social networking popularity game where an algorithm calculates popularity based on activity—many users choose not to play a part in the designed narrative of the game. They choose instead to get satisfaction in other ways. They create their own narratives that still revolve around influence; not with the false measure of game points though, but in more subtle ways such as participation in public forums or private groups.

Perhaps our job is not to design experiences in all cases, but to enable the audience to explore, play, and learn their way to a rewarding experience. Along the way they teach us a thing or two, and we all move forward together. Thanks to the Cornell Computational Synthesis Lab we can also let robots evolve on our computers as a screensaver (unfortunately Windows only) but fellow Mac users can evolve sheep instead.