Hod Lipson shows how he is taking a different approach to robotics… instead of trying to force them into a self-awareness, he builds them at a basic level and allows them to actually evolve through its own queries and discoveries. He programs the machines he builds to effectively “learn how to walk” by assessing its own motor functionality, which allows them to map out a picture and working model of how they may best be able to use their various parts in order to achieve a forward motion. Hod Lipson believes that this is the first step toward making machines self-aware so that they may be more aware of the environment arround them and react/interact with it.
This is an example of automata, which Rokeby describes as one of the four models of interactivity. Lipson’s approach is to simulate the biological process of evolution to machines so they may more closely mirror a biological existence, even in their mechanical shell.