In Darwin’s theory of evolution, life is able to evolve through a process of ‘natural selection’, where certain traits become more or less common in animals based on their benefit.

And now researchers are starting to emulate the same process in robots, so that they can learn how to perform complex tasks.

The research involves a similar process of selection but on a larger and faster scale, allowing artificial brains to pick out the most worthwhile traits and continue evolving.

Research carried out by a team from Michigan State University used genetic algorithms to model a large population of robot brains (stock image shown). These were asked to perform tasks, such as finding the exit to a maze. Those that performed the task best had simulated 'offspring', creating a better brain

The research, led by computational biologist Dr Chris Adami from Michigan State University, involves using genetic algorithms to model a large population of robot ‘brains’ working on a task.

For example, this could be finding the exit to a maze.

The brains that performed the task best had the largest number of simulated ‘offspring’, meaning the smartest robots multiplied.

The researchers ran this genetic algorithm over thousands, and sometimes hundreds of thousands of generations, and then downloaded the surviving brains into robots that executed the tasks in the outside world.

One of the more complicated tasks the team's robots worked on required multiple machines to figure out and remember in which order they would leave a room.

The robots were then asked to come back into the room, either in the same order as they left, or in the reverse order.

‘This is difficult because the robots have to ID each other,’ Dr Adami said.

SCIENTISTS MIMIC EVOLUTION WITH DROPLETS OF OIL In December 2014 scientists mimicked evolution in the laboratory for the first time using droplets of oil. The researchers behind the study claim their work proves that a non-biological system composed of chemicals can be made to evolve. The findings mark an important step towards creating synthetic life and may also help scientists to explain how the first biological cells appeared on Earth more than 3.6 billion years ago. Evolution was long believed to be a process that only biological creatures were capable of, but recent research aimed towards creating synthetic life has begun to question that idea. Professor Lee Cronin, regius chair of chemistry at the University of Glasgow who led the new research, used a robot to create tiny oil droplets from a mixture of four chemicals. Each droplet was dropped into a petri dish of water and analysed for three different types of 'fitness' over the course of a minute using video cameras. The robot then selected the droplet that performed best and the chemical composition of this was used to replicate the experiment, tweaking the mixture slightly each time. Over the course of 21 generations, the oil droplets became more stable in the watery world in which they were being dropped. This, according to Professor Cronin, mimicked the process of natural selection, which Charles Darwin proposed for driving evolution. Advertisement

After the genetic algorithm had run its course, the robots seemed to solve the problem by indicating roles to each other with certain motions.

Dr Adami believes that evolving robot brains in complicated worlds that force them to interact with each other is the best path toward self-aware intelligence.

‘When robots have to make models of other robots' brains, they are thinking about thinking,’ he said.

‘We believe this is the onset of consciousness.’

The researchers ran their genetic algorithm over thousands, and sometimes hundreds of thousands of generations, and then downloaded the surviving brains into robots that executed the tasks in the outside world. One of these included finding the exit to a maze (stock image shown)

Charles Darwin, British naturalist, is shown here in a portrait from 1878. Darwin started his career on board the HMS 'Beagle' and spent six years surveying the South American seas. He is remembered for his momentous contributions to biology and as the originator of the theory of evolution

Thinking robots will be extraordinarily useful, Dr Adami says, adding that humanity should have no reason to fear a rise of the machines.

‘When our robots are "born", they will have a brain that has the capacity to learn, but only has instincts,’ he said.

‘It will take a decade or two of exploration and training for these robots to achieve human-level intelligence, just as is the case with us.’

He added: ‘Previous attempts to design human-like intelligence have failed because we don't understand how our own brains work.