Title: Artificial Life
1Artificial Life
2Contents
- Introduction
- Emergent Patterns
- Cellular Automata
- Agent-based modelling
- Distributed Intelligence
- Artificial Evolution
- Artificial Chemistry
- Examples
- Bibliography
3What is Life?
- There is no generally accepted definition of
life. - In general, it can be said that the condition
that distinguishes living organisms from
inorganic objects or dead organisms growth
through metabolism, a means of reproduction, and
internal regulation in response to the
environment. - Even though the ability to reproduce is
considered essential to life, this might be more
true for species than for individual organisms.
Some animals are incapable of reproducing, e.g.
mules, soldier ants/bees or simply infertile
organisms. Does this mean they are not alive?
INTRODUCTION gt What is Life
4What is Artificial Life?
- The study of man-made systems that exhibit
behaviors characteristic of natural living
systems . - It came into being at the end of the 80s when
Christopher G. Langton organized the first
workshop on that subject in Los Alamos National
Laboratory in 1987, with the title
"International Conference on the Synthesis and
Simulation of Living Systems".
INTRODUCTION gt What is Artificial Life
5What is Artificial Life?
- Artificial life researchers have often been
divided into two main groups - The strong alife position states that life is a
process which can be abstracted away from any
particular medium. - The weak alife position denies the possibility of
generating a "living process" outside of a
carbon-based chemical solution. Its researchers
try instead to mimic life processes to understand
the appearance of individual phenomena.
INTRODUCTION gt What is Artificial Life
6What is Artificial Life?
- The goal of Artificial Life is not only to
provide biological models but also to investigate
general principles of Life. - These principles can be investigated in their own
right, without necessarily having to have a
direct natural equivalent.
INTRODUCTION gt What is Artificial Life
7The Basis of Artificial Life
- Artificial Life tries to transcend the limitation
to Earth bound life, based beyond the
carbon-chain, on the assumption that life is a
property of the organization of matter, rather
than a property of the matter itself.
INTRODUCTION gt The Basis of Artificial Life
8The Basis of Artificial Life
- Synthetic Approach Synthesis ofcomplex systems
from many simple interacting entities. - If we captured the essential spirit of ant
behavior in the rules for virtual ants, the
virtual ants in the simulated ant colony should
behave as real ants in a real ant colony.
INTRODUCTION gt The Basis of Artificial Life
9The Basis of Artificial Life
- Self-Organization Spontaneous formation of
complex patterns or complex behavior emerging
from the interaction of simple lower-level
elements/organisms. - Emergence Property of a system as a whole not
contained in any of its parts. Such emergent
behavior results from the interaction of the
elements of such system, which act following
local, low-level rules.
INTRODUCTION gt The Basis of Artificial Life
10The Basis of Artificial Life
- Levels of Organization Life, as we know it on
Earth, is organized into at least four levels of
structure - Molecular level.
- Cellular level.
- Organism level.
- Population-ecosystem level.
INTRODUCTION gt The Basis of Artificial Life
11The Basis of Artificial Life
- We have to distinguish between the perspective of
an observer looking at an creature and the
perspective of the creature itself. - In particular, descriptions of behavior from an
observer's perspective must not be taken as the
internal mechanisms underlying the described
behavior of the creature. - The observed behavior of a creature is always the
result of a system-environment interaction. It
cannot be explained on the basis of internal
mechanisms only. - Seemingly complex behavior does not necessarily
require complex internal mechanisms. Seemingly
simple behavior is not necessarily the results of
simple internal mechanisms.
INTRODUCTION gt The Basis of Artificial Life
12Linear vs. Non-Linear Models
- Linear models are unable to describe many natural
phenomena. - In a linear model, the whole is the sum of its
parts, and small changes in model parameters have
little effect on the behavior of the model. - Many phenomena such as weather, growth of plants,
traffic jams, flocking of birds, stock market
crashes, development of multi-cellular organisms,
pattern formation in nature (for example on sea
shells and butterflies), evolution, intelligence,
and so forth resisted any linearization that is,
no satisfying linear model was ever found.
INTRODUCTION gt Linear Models
13Linear vs. Non-linear Models
- Non-linear models can exhibit a number of
features not known from linear ones - Chaos Small changes in parameters or initial
conditions can lead to qualitatively different
outcomes. - Emergent phenomena Occurrence of higher level
features that werent explicitly modelled. - As a main disadvantage, non-linear models
typically cannot be solved analytically, in
contrast with Linear Models. Nonlinear modeling
became manageable only when fast computers were
available . - Models used in Artificial Life are always
non-linear.
INTRODUCTION gt Non-Linear Models
14Contents
- Introduction
- Emergent Patterns
- Cellular Automata
- Agent-based modelling
- Distributed Intelligence
- Artificial Evolution
- Artificial Chemistry
- Examples
- Bibliography
15Lindenmeyer Systems
- Lindenmayer Systems or L-systems are a
mathematical formalism proposed in 1968 by
biologist Aristid Lindenmayer as a basis for an
axiomatic theory on biological development. - The basic idea underlaying L-Systems is
rewriting Components of a single object are
replaced using predefined rewriting rules. - Its main application field is realistic plants
modelling and fractals. - Theyre based in symbolic rules that define the
graphic structure generation, starting from a
sequence of characters. - Only as small amount of information is needed to
represent very complex models.
EMERGENT PATTERNS gt L-Systems
16Lindenmeyer Systems
EMERGENT PATTERNS gt L-Systems
17Lindenmeyer Systems
EMERGENT PATTERNS gt L-Systems
- Even though Lindenmeyer Systems do not directly
generate images but long sequences of symbols,
they can be interpreted in such a way that it is
possible to visualize them as Turtle Graphics
(Turtle Graphics were created by Seymour Papert
for the LOGO language).
18Lindenmeyer Systems
EMERGENT PATTERNS gt L-Systems
19Diffusion Limited Aggregation (DLA)
- "Diffusion limited aggregation, a kinetic
critical phenomena, Physical Review Letters,
num. 47, published in 1981. - It reproduces the growth of vegetal entities like
mosses, seaweed or lichen, and chemical processes
such as electrolysis or the crystallization of
certain products. - A number of moving particles are freed inside an
enclosure where we have already one or more
particles fixed. - Free particles keep moving in a Brownian motion
until they reach a fixed particle nearby. In that
case they fix themselves too.
EMERGENT PATTERNS gt DLA
20Diffusion Limited Aggregation (DLA)
EMERGENT PATTERNS gt DLA
21Diffusion Limited Aggregation (DLA)
EMERGENT PATTERNS gt DLA
22Diffusion Limited Aggregation (DLA)
EMERGENT PATTERNS gt DLA
23Diffusion Limited Aggregation (DLA)
EMERGENT PATTERNS gt DLA
24Contents
- Introduction
- Emergent Patterns
- Cellular Automata
- Agent-based modelling
- Distributed Intelligence
- Artificial Evolution
- Artificial Chemistry
- Examples
- Bibliography
25Cellular Automata
- Discrete model studied in computability theory
and mathematics. - It consists of an infinite, regular grid of
cells, each in one of a finite number of states. - The grid can be in any finite number of
dimensions. - Time is also discrete, and the state of a cell at
time t is a function of the state of a finite
number of cells called the neighborhood at time
t-1. - The neighbourhood is a selection of cells
relative to some specified, and does not change. - Every cell has the same rule for updating, based
on the values in this neighbourhood. - Each time the rules are applied to the whole grid
a new generation is produced.
CELLULAR AUTOMATA gt Introduction
26Wolframs Cellular Automata
CELLULAR AUTOMATA gt Wolfram CAs
- Studied by Stephen Wolfram at the beginning of
the 80s. - Unidimensional cellular automata with a
neighbourhood of 1 cell around the one were
studying. - There are 256 elemental Wolfram CAm each of them
with an associated Wolfram Number.
27Wolframs Cellular Automata
CELLULAR AUTOMATA gt Wolfram CAs
28Wolframs Cellular Automata
CELLULAR AUTOMATA gt Wolfram CAs
29Wolframs four Classes of CA
- Class I (Empty) Tends to spatially homogeneous
state (all cells are in the same state). Patterns
disappear with time. Small changes in the
initial conditions cause no change in final
state. - Class II (Stable or Periodic) Yields a sequence
of simple stable or periodic structures (endless
cycle of same states). Point attractor or
periodic attractor. Small changes in the initial
conditions cause changes only in a region of
finite size. - Class III (Chaotic) Exhibits chaotic aperiodic
behavior. Pattern grows indefinitely at a fixed
rate. Small changes in the initial conditions
cause changes over a region of ever-increasing
size. - Class IV (Complex) Yields complicated localized
structures, some propagating. Pattern grows and
contracts with time. Small changes in the
initial conditions cause irregular changes.
CELLULAR AUTOMATA gt Wolfram CAs
30Class IV CA Examples
CELLULAR AUTOMATA gt Wolfram CAs
311-D CA Example Seashells
CELLULAR AUTOMATA gt Wolfram CAs
32Conways Game of Life
- Invented by english mathematician John Conway and
published by Martin Gardner in Scientific
American in 1970. - Bidimensional board, in each cell can be one or
none live cells (binary). - The neighbourhood is the 8 surrounding cells.
- Very simple rule set
- Survival A cell survives if there are 2 or 3
live cells in its neighbourhood. - Death A cell surrounded by other 4 or more dies
of overpopulation. If it is surrounded by one or
none, dies of isolation. - Birth An empty place surrounded by exactly three
cells gives place to a new cells birth. - The result is a Turing-Complete system.
CELLULAR AUTOMATA gt Conways Game of Life
33Conways Game of Life
CELLULAR AUTOMATA gt Conways Game of Life
34Conways Game of Life
CELLULAR AUTOMATA gt Conways Game of Life
35Contents
- Introduction
- Emergent Patterns
- Cellular Automata
- Agent-based modelling
- Distributed Intelligence
- Artificial Evolution
- Artificial Chemistry
- Examples
- Bibliography
36Agent-based Modelling
- Computational model based in the analysis of
specific individuals situated in an environment,
for the study of complex systems. - The model was conceptually developed at the end
of the 40s, and had to wait for the arrival of
computers to be able to develop totally. - The idea is to build the agents, or computational
devices, and simulate them in parallel to be able
to model the real phenomena that is being
analysed. - The resulting process is the emergency from lower
levels of the social system (micro) towards the
upper levels (macro).
AGENTS gt Introduction
37Agent-based Modelling
- Simulations based in agents have two essential
components - Agents
- Environment
- The environment has a certain autonomy from the
actions of the agents, although it can be
modified by their behaviour. - The interaction between the agents is simulated,
as well as the interaction between the agents and
their surrounding environment.
AGENTS gt Introduction
38Artificial Societies Chimps
- Charlotte Hemelrijk has investigated (1998) the
emergence of structure in societies of primates
in the real world and in simulation. - Her creatures were able to move and to see each
other. If creatures perceived someone nearby,
they engaged in dominance interactions. - The effects of losing (and winning) are
self-reinforcing after losing a fight the chance
to loose the next fight is larger (even if the
opponent is weak). The winner effect is the
converse. - If they were not engaged in dominance
interactions, they followed rules of moving and
turning, that kept them aggregated (because real
primates are group-living). - It is unnecesary to consider the representation
of a hierarchical structure in the individual
minds of the chimps, because it appears
spontaneously as an emergent structure of the
group.
AGENTS gt Chimps
39Artificial Societies Chimps
AGENTS gt Chimps
40Artificial Societies Chimps
- Interactions among these artificial chimps are
just triggered by the proximity of others not by
record keeping or other strategic considerations. - A dominance hierarchy arose, and a social-spatial
structure, with dominants in the center and
subordinates at the periphery, similar to what
has been described for several primate species. - For an external observer, support in fights
appeared to be repaid, despite the absence of a
motivation to support or keep records of them. - This was a consequence of the occurrence of a
series of cooperation that consisted of two
creatures alternatively supporting each other to
chase away a third. - These originated because by fleeing from the
attack range of one opponent the victim ended up
in the attack range of the other opponent. This
typically ended when the spatial structure had
changed such that one of both cooperators
attacked the other.
AGENTS gt Chimps
41Artificial Societies Chimps
AGENTS gt Chimps
42Contents
- Introduction
- Emergent Patterns
- Cellular Automata
- Agent-based modelling
- Distributed Intelligence
- Artificial Evolution
- Artificial Chemistry
- Examples
- Bibliography
43Distributed Intelligence
- Complex behaviour patterns of a group, in which
there is no central command. - It arises from emergent behaviour.
- It appears in a group as a whole, but is no
explicitly programmed in none of the individual
members of the group. - Simple behaviour rules in the individual members
of the group can cause a complex behaviour
pattern of the group as a whole. - The group is able to solve complex problems a
partir only local information. - Examples Social insects, immunological system,
neural net processing.
DISTRIBUTED INTELLIGENCE gt Introduction
44Didabots
- Experiment carried on in 1996, studying the
collective behaviour of simple robots, called
Didabots. - The main idea is to verify that apparently
complex behaviour patterns can be a consequence
of very simple rules that guide the interactions
between the entities and the environment. - This idea has been successfully applied for
example to the study of social insects.
DISTRIBUTED INTELLIGENCE gt Didabots
45Didabots
- Infrared sensors can be used to detect proximity
up to about 5 cm. - Programmed exclusively for avoiding obstacles.
- Sensorial stimulation of the left sensor makes
the bot turn a bit to the right, and viceversa.
DISTRIBUTED INTELLIGENCE gt Didabots
46Didabots
DISTRIBUTED INTELLIGENCE gt Didabots
47Didabots
- Initially the cubes are randomly distributed.
- Over time, a number of clusters start to form. In
the end, there are only two clusters and a number
of cubes along the walls of the arena. - These experiments were performed many times and
the result is very consistent. - Apparently Didabots are cleaning the arena,
grouping blocks into clusters, from an external
observer point of view. - The robots were only programmed to avoid
obstacles. - This happens because when there is a cube right
in front of the Didabot, it is not able to detect
it, and thew Didabot pushes the cube until it
collides with another cube. The cube being pushed
is slightly moved and it enters the perception
space of one of the sensors. The Didabot turns a
bit then and leaves the cube.
DISTRIBUTED INTELLIGENCE gt Didabots
48Social Insects
- The main quality for the so-called social
insects, ants or bees, is to form part of a
self-organised group, whose key aspect is
simplicity. - These insects solve their complex problems
through the sum of simple interactions of every
individual insect.
DISTRIBUTED INTELLIGENCE gt Social Insects
49Bees
- The distribution of brood and nourishment in the
comb of honey bees is not random, but forms a
regular pattern . - The central brooding region is close to a region
containing pollen and one containing nectar
(providing protein and carbohydrates for the
brood). - Due to the intake and outtake of pollen and
nectar, the pattern is changing all the time on a
local scale, but it stays stable if observed from
a more global scale.
DISTRIBUTED INTELLIGENCE gt Social Insects
50Bees
- This is not the result of an individual bee being
aware of the global pattern of brood- and
food-distribution in the comb, but of three
simple local rules, which each individual bee
follows - Deposit brood in cells next to cells already
containing brood. - Deposit nectar and pollen in discretionary cells
but empty the cells closest to the brood first. - Extract more pollen than nectar.
DISTRIBUTED INTELLIGENCE gt Social Insects
51Bees
- Bees keep the thermal stability of the beehive
through a decentralised mechanism in which every
bee acts subjectively and locally. - If the temperature is too high, worker bees start
feeling oppressed and flutter to throw the warm
air out of their nest. They also feel oppressed
when its too cold, in which case they crowd
together and warm the beehive with the sum of
their bodies. - A typical colony comes from a single mother (the
queen), but from very different fathers (between
10 and 30) and thus the genetics of the colony
varies widely, and it wont happen that all the
bees feel oppressed at the same time. That way, a
thermal stability is achieved.
DISTRIBUTED INTELLIGENCE gt Social Insects
52Ants
- Ants are able to find the shortest path between a
food source and their anthill without using
visual references. - They are also able to find a new path, the
shortest one, when a new obstacle appears and the
old path cannot be used any more. - Even though an isolated ant moves randomly, it
prefers to follow a pheromone-rich path. When
they are in a group, then, they are able to make
and maintain a path through the pheromones they
leave when they walk. - Ants who select the shortest path get to their
destination sooner. The shortest path receives
then a higher amount of pheromones in a certain
time unit. As a consequence, a higher number of
ants will follow this shorter path.
DISTRIBUTED INTELLIGENCE gt Social Insects
53Ants
DISTRIBUTED INTELLIGENCE gt Social Insects
54Boids (bird-oids)
- They were invented in the mid-80s by the
computer animator Craig Reynolds. - Their behavior is controlled by very simple local
rules - Collision avoidance. Only position of the other
boids is taken into account, not their velocity. - Velocity matching. In this case only their
velocity is taken into account. - Flock centering makes a boid want to be near the
center of the perceived flockmates. if the boid
is at the periphery, flock centering will cause
it to deflect towards the center.
DISTRIBUTED INTELLIGENCE gt Boids
55Boids (bird-oids)
DISTRIBUTED INTELLIGENCE gt Boids
56Contents
- Introduction
- Emergent Patterns
- Cellular Automata
- Agent-based modelling
- Distributed Intelligence
- Artificial Evolution
- Artificial Chemistry
- Examples
- Bibliography
57Self Replication
- Self Replication is the process in which
something makes copies of itself. - Biological cells, in an adequate environment, do
replicate themselves through cellular division. - Biological viruses reproduce themselves by using
the reproductive mechanisms of the cells they
infect. - Computer virus reproduce themselves by using the
hardware and software already present in
computers. - Memes do reproduce themselves using human mind as
their reproductive machinery.
EVOLUTION gt Self Replication
58Self Replicant Cellular Automata
- In 1948, mathematician von Neumann approached the
topic of self-replication from an abstract point
of view. He used cellular automata and pointed
out for the first time that it was necessary to
distinguish between hardware and software. - Unfortunately, Von Neumanns self reproductive
automata were too big (80x400 cells) and complex
(29 states) to be implemented. - In 1968, E. F. Codd lowered the number of needed
states from 29 to 8, introducing the concept of
sheaths two layers of a particular state
enclosing a single wire of information flow. - In 1979, C. Langton develops an automata with
self reproductive capacity. He realised that such
a structure need not be capable of universal
construction like those from von Neumann and
Codd. It just needs to be able to reproduce its
own structure.
EVOLUTION gt Self Replicant Cellular Automata
59Langton Loops
EVOLUTION gt Autómatas Celulares
60Core War
- It is a game published in May 1984 in Scientific
American, in which two or more programs, written
in an special assembler language called Redcode,
try to conquer all the computers memory fighting
each other. - It is executed in a virtual machine called MARS
(Memory Array Redcode Simulator). - Inspired in Creeper, a useless program that
replicated itself inside the computers memory
and was able to displace more useful programs (it
might be called a virus) and Reaper, created to
seek and destroy copies of Creeper. - The fighting programs reproduce themselves and
try to corrupt the opponents code. - There are no mutations.
EVOLUTION gt Core War
61Genetic Evolution
EVOLUTION gt Genetic Evolution
62Biomorphs
- Created by Richard Dawkins in the third chapter
of his book The Blind Watchmaker. - The program is able to show the power of
micromutactions and accumulative selection. - Biomorph Viewer lets the user move through the
genetic space (of 9 dimensions in this case) and
keep selecting the desired shape. - Users eye take the role of natural selection.
EVOLUTION gt Biomorphs
63Biomorphs
EVOLUTION gt Biomorphs
64Karl Sims' Virtual Creatures
- Developed by Karl Sims in 1994.
- Sims evolves morphology and neural control.
- Sims was one of the first to use a 3-D world of
simulated physics in the context of virtual
reality applications. - Simulating physics includes considerations of
gravity, friction, collision detection, collision
response, and viscous fluid effects (e.g. in
simulated water). - Because of the simulated physics, these agents
interact in many unexpected ways with the
environment.
EVOLUTION gt Karl Sims Virtual Creatures
65Karl Sims' Virtual Creatures
EVOLUTION gt Karl Sims Virtual Creatures
66Karl Sims' Virtual Creatures
EVOLUTION gt Karl Sims Virtual Creatures
67Evolutive Algorithms
- Genetic Algorithms The most common form of
evolutive algorithms. The solution to a problem
is search as a text or a bunch of numbers
(usually binary), aplying mutation and
recombination operators and performing a
selection on the possible solutions. - Genetic Programming Solutions in this case are
computer programs, and their fitness is
determined by their ability to solve a
computational problem.
EVOLUTION gt Evolutive Algorithms
68Genetic Algorithms
EVOLUTION gt Genetic Algorithms
69Genetic Programming
EVOLUTION gt Genetic Programming
70Tierra
- Developed by biologist Thomas Ray, inspired by
the game of competing computer programs called
Core Wars. - The creatures are composed of a sequence of
instructions from a limited set of assembly
language operands. - The universe for these things is the domain of
the computer, competing for space (computer
memory) and energy (CPU cycles). - The virtual machine that executed the programs
was designed to allow a small error rate, which
allows mutations while copying, in an analogous
way to natural mutation. - A reaper' program was included to kill some of
the organisms, with an artificial nod and wink to
natural catastrophes.
EVOLUTION gt Tierra
71Tierra
- The universe was seeded with a single organism
(hand coded by Ray), which just had the ability
to reproduce. It had a length of 80 instructions
and it took over 800 instruction cycles to
replicate. - Once the space was filled by 80, the organism
started competing for space and CPU cycles. - Soon mutations only 79 instructions long
proliferated after a while even shorter
organisms. Evolution had begun optimising the
code.
EVOLUTION gt Tierra
72Tierra
- An organism of only 45 instructions was born and
started doing very well soon. This is confusing
45 instructions is certainly not enough for self
replication. - These organisms coexist with organisms of more
than 70 instruccions. - The number of the longer and shorter organisms
seemed to be linked. - These organisms do not have any self-replication
code of their own but they use the code inside
the longer ones instead.Theyre a kind of
parasites.
EVOLUTION gt Tierra
73Tierra
- A very long organism that had developed immunity
to the parasites emerged. It could hide' from
them. - Soon the parasites evolved into a 51 instruction
long parasite, which could find the immune
organism, and so the evolutionary arms race
continued. - Hyperparasites evolved which could exploit the
parasites. - These hyperparasites could be seen to
cooperate, this means that they would exploit
each other leading to the evolution of social
cheaters, which would exploit them both. - The system continued with its evolution of
competing and cooperating self-replicating
organisms
EVOLUTION gt Tierra
74Tierra
EVOLUTION gt Tierra
- Many hosts (red)
- Some parasites appear (yellow)
75Tierra
EVOLUTION gt Tierra
- Parasites have increased a lot.
- Hosts are lowering.
- The first immune creatures (blue) appear
76Tierra
EVOLUTION gt Tierra
- Parasites are spacially displaced.
- Non-immunte hosts lower even more.
- Immune creatures keep increasing and diplace the
parasites.
77Tierra
EVOLUTION gt Tierra
- Parasites are even more scarce.
- Non-immune hosts keep lowering.
- Immune creatures are the domintant life form.
78AVida
- Avida is an auto-adaptive genetic system designed
primarily for use as a platform in Digital or
Artificial Life research. - Digital world in which simple computer programs
mutate and evolve. - Adds Genetic Programming to the virtual world.
- Its similar to Tierra, but
- Has a virtual CPU for each program.
- Creatures can evolve for more than just
reproduction. Configurable fitness function.
EVOLUTION gt Avida
79AVida
EVOLUTION gt Avida
80Physis
- Physis goes a step further
- 1st Phase Building the processors structure and
instruction set according to the description in
the genoma. - 2nd Phase Executing the code with the newly
built processor.
EVOLUTION gt Physis
81Contents
- Introduction
- Emergent Patterns
- Cellular Automata
- Agent-based modelling
- Distributed Intelligence
- Artificial Evolution
- Artificial Chemistry
- Examples
- Bibliography
82Artificial Chemistry
- Artificial Chemistry is the computer simulation
of chemical processes in a similar way to that
found in real world. - It can be the foundation of an artificial life
program, and in that case usually some kind of
organic chemistry is simulated.
ARTIFICIAL CHEMISTRY gt Introduction
83Contents
- Introduction
- Emergent Patterns
- Cellular Automata
- Agent-based modelling
- Distributed Intelligence
- Artificial Evolution
- Artificial Chemistry
- Examples
- Bibliography
84SimLife
EXAMPLES gt Games gt SimLife
85SimLife
- One of the first examples of entertainment
software announced as based in Artificial Life
investigation was SimLife by Maxis, published in
1993. - In essence, SimLife lets the user observe and
interact with a simulated ecosystem with a
variable terrain and climate, and a great variety
of species of plants, plant eaters and
carnivores. - The ecosystem is simulated using cellular
automata techniques, and makes very little use of
autonomous agents.
EXAMPLES gt Games gt SimLife
86Creatures
EXAMPLES gt Games gt Creatures
87Creatures
- Creatures is a game made in 1996 for Windows 95
and Macintosh, that offers the possibility of
getting in touch with Artificial Life
technologies. - Creatures generates a simulated environment in
which a number of synthetic agents coexist, and
with which the user can interact in real-time.
Agents, which are called Creatures, try to be a
kind of virtual pets. - Internal architecture of the Creatures is
inspired by animal biology. Every Creature had a
neural network responsible for the
motor-sensorial coordination and for its
behaviour, and an artificial biochemical system
that simulates a simple energetic metabolism and
an hormonal system that interacts with the neural
network. A learning mechanism allows the neural
network to keep adapting during Creatures life.
EXAMPLES gt Games gt Creatures
88The Sims
EXAMPLES gt Games gt The Sims
89The Sims
- The Sims, created by Maxis, is probably one of
the best examples of Artificial Life and
Artificial Intelligence based in fuzzy state
machines in the videogames industry at the
moment. - The game let the user design small virtual
buildings and their neighbourhood and populate
them with virtual residents ("Sims"). Every Sim
can be created with a great diversity of
personalities and physical traits. - Sims behaviour depends on their environment as
well at the personality traits theyre given.
Even though most of the Sims are able to survive
on their own, they need lots of cares from the
person whos playing to improve. - Objects inside the virtual world (which is called
"smart terrain" by its designer Will Wright)
incorporate inside them all the possible
behaviours and actions related to that object.
That makes adding new objects to the game easier.
EXAMPLES gt Games gt The Sims
90Galapagos
EXAMPLES gt Galapagos
91Galapagos
- Galapagos is an Artificial Life simulation
project in which a number of creatures evolve
over time. - By implementing mutations and crossovers and the
implicit natural selection in the simulation the
overall result is an evolution of the creatures
in which new breeds of creatures make different
ecological niches araise. - In this simulation the creatures lives on a
height landscape containing water, sand, soil,
rocks, grass, trees etc. - All creatures are landborn four legged and have a
number of genes determining their physical
properties, such as how well they can digest
different forms of food, the length and size of
different body parts, etc. - Their genome also includes a simple but flexible
fuzzy behaviour based AI brain that allows the
creatures to evolve different behaviours. - Simulations typically start out as dumb
grasseater with a high mortality but after a
while the creatures split up into different
evolutionary paths and creatures such as carrion
eaters and carnivores emerge.
EXAMPLES gt Galapagos
92FramSticks
EXAMPLES gt FramSticks
93FramSticks
- The objective of these experiments is to study
evolution capabilities of creatures in simplified
Earth-like conditions. - This conditions are a three-dimensional
environment, genotype representation of
organisms, physical structure (body) and neural
network (brain) both described in genotype,
stiumuli loop (environment receptors brain
effectors environment), genotype
reconfiguration operations (mutation, crossing
over, repair), energetic requirements and
balance, and specialization.
EXAMPLES gt FramSticks
94Contents
- Introduction
- Emergent Patterns
- Cellular Automata
- Agent-based modelling
- Distributed Intelligence
- Artificial Evolution
- Artificial Chemistry
- Examples
- Bibliography
95Bibliography
- Tierra www.his.atr.jp/ray/tierra/
- Avida http//dllab.caltech.edu/avida/
- Physis http//physis.sourceforge.net/
- Galapagos http//www.lysator.liu.se/mbrx/galapag
os/ - Wikipedia www.wikipedia.org
- Course on Artificial Life by University of
Zurich http//ailab.ch/teaching/classes/2003ss/a
life - Course on Artificial Life http//www.ifi.unizh.ch
/groups/ailab/teaching/AL00.html - Vida artificial, Un enfoque desde la Informática
Teórica http//members.tripod.com/MoisesRBB/vida
.html - Digitales Leben http//homepages.feis.herts.ac.uk
/comqdp1/Studienstiftung/tierra_avida_hysis.ppt - GNU/Linux AI Alife HOWTO http//zhar.net/gnu-li
nux/howto/html/ai.html - Matrem www.phys.uu.nl/romans/
96Bibliography
- Diffusion-Limited Aggregation http//classes.yale
.edu/fractals/Panorama/Physics/DLA/DLA.html - DLA - Diffusion Limited Aggregation
http//astronomy.swin.edu.au/pbourke/fractals/dla
/ - John Conway's solitaire game "life
http//ddi.cs.uni-potsdam.de/HyFISCH/Produzieren/l
is_projekt/proj_gamelife/ConwayScientificAmerican.
htm - Boids, background and update, by Craig Reynolds
http//www.red3d.com/cwr/boids/ - Flocks, Herds, and Schools A Distributed
Behavioral Model http//www.cs.toronto.edu/dt/si
ggraph97-course/cwr87/ - Creatures Artificial Life Autonomous Software
Agents for Home Entertainment http//mrl.snu.ac.k
r/CourseSyntheticCharacter/grand96creatures.pdf - Evolving Virtual Creatures http//www.genarts.com
/karl/papers/siggraph94.pdf - Core War, artículos escaneados de A.K. Dewdney
http//www.koth.org/info/sciam/ - FramSticks http//www.frams.alife.pl/
- StarLogo http//education.mit.edu/starlogo/