when I was like five years old we watched some early-90s PBS program about robotics
they showed some really early research into genetic algorithms, where they were trying to make a program that could evolve a physics-based form of locomotion. So like the software could randomly stick different-shaped boxes together and connect them with physics joints, and then it would run a physics sim and rank them by how much distance they traveled, and then iterate starting from the best candidates
presumably the researchers were hoping it would evolve wheels or legs, but what actually happened was it got stuck in a local maximum, where the most effective way to travel large distances was to make an enormous vertical tower of blocks and just let it fall over lol
the tv show played spooky 80s electronic music over these surreal videos of flat-shaded CGI jenga towers slowly falling to the ground in an infinite void and I was like five and it scared the absolute shit out of me
would really love to find whatever tv program this was, or maybe some reference to the original research, but unfortunately all the related terms were Completely Ungooglable even before google went to shit so I've never been able to find it
thanks @mrfb for identifying it as Karl Sims research
Child Thew is 100% vindicated the music absolutely makes this SPOOKY AS ALL SHIT
