In the year 2525, engineers finally managed to build robots that looked like humans, acted like humans, and were ready to reproduce. Ten thousands robots of various types had been rebuilt, all of them female. A research team set out to design a male robot who would be able to find a good mate, found a family, and take care of the little robots until they were able to take care of themselves. They called the first model, Maximizer, M-1 for short. Programmed to find the best mate, M-1 proceeded to identify a thousand female robots that fit his goal of not marrying a model older than himself. He detected five hundreds features on which individual female robots varied, such as energy consumption, computing speed and frame elasticity. Regrettably, the females did not have their individual feature values printed on their foreheads; some even hid them, trying to fool M-1. He had to infer these values from samples of behaviour. After three months passed, he had succeeded in getting reliable measures on the first feature he tested, memory size, from each female robot. The research team made a quick calculation of when M-1 would be ready to pick the best and discovered that no one in the team would still be alive at that point - nor would the best female robot. The thousand females were upset that M-1 could not make up his mind, and, as he began recording the second feature, the serial number, they pulled out his batteries and dumped him in a scrap yard. The team went back to the drawing board. M-2 was designed to focus on the most important features and to stop looking for more when the costs of collecting further information exceeded its benefits. After three months, M-2 was exactly where M-1 was, and in addition was busy measuring the benefits and costs of each feature so that he could know what to ignore. The impatient female ripped out his wires and got rid of him, too.
The team now adopted the proverb that the best is the enemy of the good and designed G-1, a robot who looked for a mate that was good enough. G-1 had an aspiration level built in. When he encountered the first female who met his aspiration level, he would propose to her - and ignore the rest. To make sure that he found a mate if his aspirations were too high, he was equipped with a feedback loop that lowered the aspiration level if none of the females were good enough for him over too long a period. G-1 showed no interest in the first six females he met, but the proposed to number seven. Short of alternatives, she accepted. Three months later, to everyone's pleasure, G-1 was married and had two small kids. While writing the final report, however, the team learned that G-1 had left his wife for another robot. Nothing in his brain had prevented him from running off to what looked to him like a better deal. One team member pointed out that M-1 would never have left his wife, because he would only have accepted the best in the first place. That's true, responded the others, but G-1 at least found one. The team discussed the problem for a while and then came up with with GE-1. He was happy with a good-enough female, just like G-1, but was additionally equipped with an emotional glue that was released when he met a good-enough robot and adhered more strongly with each physical contact. Just to be sure, they inserted a second form of emotional glue into his brain that discharged when a baby was born and tightened after each physical contact with the baby. GE-1 proposed to a female as quickly as G-1 did, married and fathered three babies. He was still with them when the team finished the report. He was somewhat clingy, but dependable. Ever since, GE-1 robots have conquered the earth.
-Extract taken from Gigerenzer, G. (2007). Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious. London: Penguin Books Ltd.
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