# Perspective: Purposeful Failure in Artificial Life and Artificial Intelligence

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2102.12076 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.12076/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 3 of its 28 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 24 Feb 2021.

## Builds on (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [Explaining and Harnessing Adversarial Examples](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1412.6572/) (2014)
- [Intriguing properties of neural networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1312.6199/) (2013)
- [Towards Biologically Plausible Deep Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1502.04156/) (2015)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Motion Illusions Generated Using Predictive Neural Networks Also Fool Humans](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.13243/) (2021)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Complex systems fail. I argue that failures can be a blueprint characterizing living organisms and biological intelligence, a control mechanism to increase complexity in evolutionary simulations, and an alternative to classical fitness optimization. Imitating biological successes in Artificial Life and Artificial Intelligence can be misleading; imitating failures offers a path towards understanding and emulating life it in artificial systems.