Introduction to
Artificial Life
Brought to you by
The True Artificials
The True Artificials
Carlos
Inna
Han
Christopher
Mike
Q What is life?
Oxford,State of functional activity and
continual change peculiar to animals and
plants before death,animate existence,
Webster’s,The quality that distinguishes a
vital and functioning being from a dead body;
an organismic state characterized by capacity
for metabolism,growth,reaction to stimuli,
and reproduction.
Levy,A continuum,not binary values
Artificial Life
History -> From Ancient Greece and Egypt
1941 -> Electronic Computer
1956 -> Artificial Intelligence ( Darmourth )
1987 ->Alife,Official,Los Alamos,NM
Alife - Multidisciplinary
Biology Math
Chemistry
COSC
Artificial Life
Same as life,different structure,not carbon based.
Study of non-organic,alternative life-like organisms.
Abstraction on a different,artificial environment.
Artificial,man made,humanly contrived,usually on a
natural model.
Debate -> Philosophical,Moral,Technical
Artificial Life - Properties
Favorable initial state
Ability to learn
Ability to evolve
Reproduction
Emergence ( result > sum of parts )
Alife,Goals
Help in study of biological phenomena
Help solve computational problems
Study life in the computer,not in nature
or laboratory
Increase our understanding of nature
Convert into artificial models to improve
Create self-reproducing machines
Achieve intelligence in machines ( GA )
A Life vs,A Intelligence
Alife is part of AI,new route to develop AI
AI,Create by force,tell computer what to
think.
Alife,Let it develop on it’s own,Less rules.
A Life vs,Genetic Engineering
GI,Modify something already alive
modify
Alife,Create something from scratch
create
Alife,A definition
Alife is the name given to a new discipline
that studies,natural” life by attempting to
recreate biological phenomena from scratch
within computers and other,artificial” media.
Alife complements the traditional analytic approach of
traditional biology with a synthetic approach in which,
rather than studying biological phenomena by taking
apart living organisms to see how they work,one
attempts to put together systems that behave like living
organisms.
Cool Demos
( Simulation of Biological Life )
Darwin Pond
Frameworks
Biotopia
Fish Tank ( Aquarium )
Gene Pool
Soccer Game
Many others
www.ventrella.com/darwin
www.alife.santafe.edu/~liekens
www.alife.santafe.edu/~joke
www.ventrella.com/genepool
www.legolab.daimi.au.dk/cerrs
Current Models
C o m p u t e r
V i r u se s
E v o l v i n g
C o m p u t e r
P r o ce ss e s
B i o m o r p h s R o b o t i c s A u t o c a t a l y t i c
N e t w o r ks
C e l l u l a r
A u t o m a t a
A r t i f i c i a l
N u cl e o t i d e s
A R T I F I C I A L
L I F E
Applications
Synthetic Chemistry
Engineering,Aircraft design
Games
Many others
Experiments
von Neuman,Cellular Automata
Turing,Turing Machine
Dyson,Self-reproducing machines
Marc Ludwig,Computer Viruses
Reynolds,Flight patterns of flocks of birds
MIT,Gengis ( robotic roach )
Hillis,Red Queen Behavior ( parasites )
Thomas Ray,Tierra ( self copy )
Ackley,AL ( agents – Baldwin Effect )
Holland + Koza,Genetic Algorithms & Programming
Available Web Resources
www.alife.org
www.aaai.org
www.santafe.edu
www.krl.caltech.edu
www.biota.org
www.ai.mit.edu
Thank You