The parasitic manipulation of an animat’s behavior

Abstract

Abstract This paper uses an analogy to parasitic zombiing in nature to show how a robot’s goal-setting and behavior can be changed. The implementation of these parasite-like mechanisms is based on the emotional and temperamental architecture of the robot’s control system. A number of possible mechanisms used by parasites to manipulate hosts’ behavior have been considered, including changes to the host’s behavioral characteristics, the direct re-ordering of behavioral responses, and the reorientation of hosts’ reactions. It was determined that each of these mechanisms can be employed using a relatively primitive and restricted set of influences or parasite control signals. This approach led us to propose several variants of a high-level control system architecture. The main assumption was that the center of mass of a robot’s control system lies on the level of basic behavioral procedures while high-level control can be realized using parasite-like methods.