The Animat Path to AI
Stewart W. Wilson · The MIT Press eBooks · 1991
A research methodology is proposed for understanding intelligence through simulation of artificial animals ("animats") in progressively more challenging environments while retaining characteristics of holism, pragmatism, perception, categorization, and adaptation that are often underrepresented in standard AI approaches to intelligence. It is suggested that basic elements of the methodology should include a theory/taxonomy of environments by which they can be ordered in difficulty---one is offered---and a theory of animat efficiency. It is also suggested that the methodology offers a new approach to the problem of perception.