Artificial Life Forms Evolve Basic Memory, Strategy

Calopteryx notes a New Scientist piece on how digital organisms in a computer world called Avida replicate, mutate, and have evolved a rudimentary form of memory. Another example of evolution in a simulation lab is provided by reader Csiko: "An evolutionary algorithm was used to derive a control strategy for simulated robot soccer players. The results are interesting — after a few hundred generations, the robots learn to defend, pass, and score — amazing considering that there was no trainer in the system; the self-organizing differentiated behavior of the players emerged solely out of the evolutionary process."

Comments

Re:God

[starslab]

If evolution is the work of Gods, and we can refrain from wiping ourselves out in the next few generations, then we shall be as Gods... And if you follow the mythologies of old, we'll probably be just as stupid and make as many silly jealous mistakes as those very "human" Gods from back then...

Re:Not really amazing...

[Trepidity]

You do have to be a bit careful, though--- sometimes there is a hidden trainer in the system. In evolutionary algorithms, there are often a lot of parameters and data structures to tweak at the beginning, e.g., what kinds of crossover and mutation operators do you have, and what's your bit-string encoding? There are a whole lot of ways to slip in human domain knowledge of which things are important into the up-front engineering.

Too late to call this "evolutionary":

[carlhaagen]

A bit more than 15 years ago I saw a documentary on Discovery Channel featuring identical work being made by a brittish scientist / computer programmer. His software spawned simple "lifeforms" made up by basic 2D and 3D geometrical objects - cubes, cylinders, flat triangles etc., - that were then trying to evolve methods of how to most efficiently move and travel in the simulated environment they were put in - sometimes an airy environment with ground underneath them, and gravity, and sometimes an "ocean" in which the "lifeforms" swam. Minute after minute the "lifeforms" jiggered and bounced around like broken machinery, but slowly developing a method for moving and navigating that was the most efficient for their particular shape. He spawned caterpillar-like animals made up from chains of cubes, that slowly learned how to wriggle and crawl just like catterpillars and snakes do. He spawned randomized "freaks" that learned that sometimes managed to learn how to walk with their disfiguring, and sometimes learning that the only way was to throw some bodypart around to pull themselves forward. He spawned biped animals that slowly learned how to jump to move forward, an triped animals that learned how to skip from one leg to the other, to the third. He spawned lifeforms in a watery environment that learned how to rhythmically oscillate their bodyparts to create propulsion in order to swim forward and turn around. To me, this was just as impressive, if not more, than the featured story. As a curious detail to it all, the programmer developed his software in BlitzBasic, running on a heavily accelerated Amiga 1200.

Addendum to first article is pretty good

[somersault]

In the late 1980s, ecologist Thomas Ray, who is now at the University of Oklahoma in Norman, got wind of Core Wars and saw its potential for studying evolution. He built Tierra, a computerised world populated by self-replicating programs that could make errors as they reproduced.

When the cloned programs filled the memory space available to them, they began overwriting existing copies. Then things changed. The original program was 80 lines long, but after some time Ray saw a 79-line program appear, then a 78-line one. Gradually, to fit more copies in, the programs trimmed their own code, one line at a time. Then one emerged that was 45 lines long. It had eliminated its copy instruction, and replaced it with a shorter piece of code that allowed it to hijack the copying code of a longer program. Digital evolvers had arrived, and a virus was born.

Avida is Tierra's rightful successor. Its environment can be made far more complex, it allows for more flexibility and more analysis, and - crucially - its organisms can't use each other's code. That makes them more life-like than the inhabitants of Tierra.

Actually, organisms using each others code sounds way more like our world than ones that can't leech off each other. They already pointed out viruses, and plenty of species exist today that need other species to continue to survive.. in fact pretty much all animals need to eat other lifeforms because we can't draw energy from the sun directly.

Re:Addendum to first article is pretty good

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it almost seems like the beginnings of gender differences in the code. In a way, men hijack the reproductive systems of women in order copy themselves, once men insert their "genetic code" into the woman she pretty much handles the whole reproduction thing from thereon out. With this experiment you've got a newer program that is dependent on the reproductive abilities of others in its species. It's become more efficient by using a truncated version of its "genetic" code. This kind of matches up with XX and XY chromosomes with males and females. It'll be interesting if the 45 line program propagates and the original code adapts to this evolution by shedding lines of code of it's own to take advantage of this.

Re:Addendum to first article is pretty good

[khallow]

While there is a photochemical step in the synthesis of vitamin D it's hardly fair calling a double bond being split by a photon as "drawing energy" from the sun.

Is the step endothermic or not? If it is endothermic, then the reaction is indeed drawing energy (no "scare quotes" needed) from the Sun. Given that UV radiation (which is the highest energy photons coming from solar radiation) is apparently needed as part of the process, this indicates to me that the critical step is highly endothermic.

Re:Addendum to first article is pretty good

[Bigjeff5]

Vitamin D is not an energy source, which is what you said here:

Organisms can perfectly draw energy directly from the sun, and animals and humans still do (such as vitamine D production).

That's total bullshit, and shows incredible ignorance about how the body works. Not one joule of energy an animal's body uses comes from the sun. We use the sun in vitamin D production because a proton can split the molecule, and it's cheaper to let the sun do it than to do it ourselves.

So the sun does save a little energy, but it does not, in any way, shape, or form, produce energy for animals to use. The only way animals get energy from the sun is by eating plants, or eating animals that eat plans. It is an indirect transfer of energy, not a direct one.

Reptiles don't get their energy from the sun. If left to bake out in the sand they would die in short order - they die when their fat reserves, obtained by consuming other animals, run out - not when the sun goes down. The sun adds absolutely nothing to their life-sustaining processes. Again, what it does is save energy by bringing the body up to to a good temperature to facilitate the body's chemical reactions - which are the source of all the energy reptiles use.

In both cases, the sun is acting as a facilitator, it is not acting as a source of life-sustaining energy. Claiming the sun is a direct source of energy for reptiles is like claiming a room's ambient heat is a source of energy for a chemical reaction. It's stupid. The reaction may occur more easily at a given temperature, but you can't say it's adding energy to the reaction. The energy all animals use comes from disassembling the ATP molecule in the cells. It's a chemical process, the fuel for which comes from other animals or plants. Period.

Note that plants also use ATP, but they create it from sugar generated via photosynthesis. Animals either get their sugar directly from plants, or they create it from the tissue of other animals. No photosynthesis involved.

Re:Not really amazing...

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

The fun thing is that these robots truly have a one-track mind. They do not learn -at all- within one generation, even if they have a brain that is relatively similar to ours. The brain is configured -entirely- at "birth" by the natural selection algorithm.

And yet they display a few remarkably human traits, that seem to -but don't- indicate learning. Memory. Strategy. Having a strategy responding to the "enemy". Yet by most standards -they don't think during the game. This makes one wonder ... is the fact that humans have memory, adapt "somewhat", devise strategy really an indication of the level of thought we think humans have ?

Makes one wonder just how one-track the human mind is. Everyone likes to always accuse everyone else of "not seeing the truth" about very nontrivial problems. Are people really "seeing the truth" or just repeating what they were programmed ?

History of science definitely seems to agree with the "programmed" argument. Other histories ... even more. We are mindless automatons, we just like to think we aren't.

Re:What's the news?

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

You don't have to go into philosophy to get these. Theoretical mathematics will help you out here.

Suppose you had a "perfect" learner. One that tries every theoretically possible analytical technique. And then it manages to surprise you : it discovers existing mathematics, and perhaps a bit more, but nothing truly remarkable. That would simply be the result of a mathematical property of the "mathematical space" (the set of all possible mathematical knowledge, of, say all Godel-sentences) : that would simply mean that space is chaotic.

There are already known properties of the total mathematical search space : for one, it's not necessarily consistent (and thus not necessarily correct). It is known to be large: there is more mathematics than there are atoms in the universe (but it remains an open question if the subset of correct mathematical theory is infinite. Theoretically it could even be the empty set - that mathematics is fundamentally flawed).

Re:What's the news?

[Anonymous Coward]

Life in general is not much different. The environment/nature/the universe sets rules that encourage the creation of lifeforms, encourages them to replicate and improve their chance of survival. It's no surprise that life evolves and creatures develop memories, intelligence etc. The whole system is setup in a way that it is bound to happen.
Whether evolution in nature or evolution on a computer, the underlying principles at work are similar.

The main difference between nature and your goldbach conjecture example is imho that the complexity of the system 'nature' is much higher and the goal 'surving' is much broader and that this game in nature doesn't stop, since each step in evolution and some random factors constantly change the environment, in which the next generation is trying out new/modified patterns to survive.
One could say it's all information endlessly playing with itself and that certain patterns emerge that stay over time is simply the consequence that can be explained with math.

Re:Not really amazing...

[hvm2hvm]

Depends on what level of perspective you want to look at. If you look at simple tasks and abilities, yes, a human will learn and think (some more than others) over the course of his life. It is evident if you take for example twins that grow in different environments, they get to have different abilities and understanding of the world.

OTOH if you widen your view and look at how humans interact between each other (i.e. society), how they think (technology, culture), and other things like that they don't really learn anything during their life. That's where evolution kicks in, people born in different generations have different ways of interacting and thinking. Some are behind their times while others are ahead which I see as a normal mutation, if you will, that can be a succesful one or a failing one. But even revolutionary people become conservatives after a certain age. That's why people die, that's how society evolves.

Yes, it's not all black and white like I made it sound, some things in the first category are inate and some in the secondary can still be modified by experience but I think my point was properly made.

Intelligent Design tag?

[mangu]

I would tag this as "Intelligent Design".

This is a very simple demonstration that something can evolve from simple beginnings, if the creator was intelligent enough.

A not-so-intelligent designer, OTOH, would probably prefer to create its beings in their final state because it takes more effort to create a system capable of evolution.

Re:Intelligent Design tag?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's imho an illogical assumption that the universe needed an intelligent creator, but that the intelligent creator didn't need one himself. If you say the creator created himself, then I can also the universe created itself.

I think intelligence is an emerging trait. A system that I set up to evolve could come up with something that is more intelligent than me in the end. The rules are usually simple, they imply no limits that tell the system not to evolve beyond the intelligence of the creator.

So coming back to what I said first, the universe itself could be rather dumb and generated all the intelligence that we see, but assuming there was an intelligent creator leads to even more contradictions than assuming there was none.

Re:Intelligent Design tag?

[mdda]

Actually no. The evolution mechanism is really robust.

Basically, if you have a bunch of random individuals, and the 'evolution' just mashes a bunch of the better ones together, you'll see the increase in fitness occurring. But it's not just a small effect : almost any crazy 'mashing together' method works, and the adaptation will spark off unbelievably quickly.

I know this because I did this for my PhD back in 1995. I had a choice then between going the Neural Net path, and playing around with the Genetic Algorithm/Genetic Programming stuff. Simple experiments proved that making NNs 'do the right thing' was a fairly tricky process of getting things set up right (and your formulae had to be right, etc : a fairly sensitive procedure). But the Genetic stuff was amazingly robust : almost any crazy method of crushing individuals together will produce remarkable innovation and learning (on a population basis).

But don't take my word for it, write a small piece of code yourself. The literature makes it sound like a more exact science that it needs to be. As I said, almost any 'mashup' method will work - the 'evolution thing' will simply find a way to 'protect' the important stuff.

So while this looks like 'old news' in some ways, I'm glad that they've got an eye-opening application : More people should know how much the computer guys can add to the biological evolution debate.

Re:Intelligent Design tag?

[mangu]

It's imho an illogical assumption that the universe needed an intelligent creator, but that the intelligent creator didn't need one himself

I agree, but that's a second step in the argument. If they first demonstrate that intelligence can emerge from a non-intelligent system, then it's an obvious corollary that intelligence wasn't necessary to create the non-intelligent system in the first place.

Re:Intelligent Design tag?

[VortexCortex]

High order self aware intelligence as far as we know has only evolved in us. It is exceedingly difficult to say what exactly the odds are for such things.

It could be pretty damn common then, eh?

If puddles could think:
Oh my! Just look at how perfectly I fit into this hole in the ground! This must be proof that an intelligent creator created the hole to suit me.

As intelligent beings we frequently imagine other things to have our traits. Personifying the very physics that govern the universe creates a god where none exists or is required.

Just because you have intelligence doesn't mean that plants and rocks and physics do too.

It is true that humans have used evolutionary principals to change wolves into the many breeds of dogs we have today,
but using a principal intelligently doesn't mean that it must always have been used intelligently.
In fact it proves that unintelligent processes (such as a change in climate or food sources) also affect evolution (as verified by the fossil record).

Having intelligence arise in a system based upon evolution while providing our own substitute for natural selection doesn't prove that an intelligent creator exists;
It proves that our own intelligence has likely evolved due to unintelligent phenomena such as evolution due to competition and natural selection.

Re:Intelligent Design tag?

[node 3]

I would tag this as "Intelligent Design".

The whole point is that this wasn't designed. Only the initial conditions were designed, and the designers then let them go on their own without any knowledge or comprehension as to how they would progress. The bullshit that is known as "Intelligent Design" is based on the assumption that the end results are too complex to have arisen on their own. In this case, the ability for the soccer players to know how to pass and such would be seen as "too complex" to have arisen by trial and error from a basic initial condition, but this is exactly what happened.

This was not intelligent design. It is, in fact, the very definition of evolution. It's also worth noting that evolution says absolutely nothing about the initial conditions for life, only how it progressed since it began.

Re:Intelligent Design tag?

[deapbluesea]

Basically, if you have a bunch of random individuals, and the 'evolution' just mashes a bunch of the better ones together, you'll see the increase in fitness occurring.

Funny, I did my Masters degree in 2003 on GAs and the major finding is that, while the system finds novel solutions, it also exploits the weaknesses of the fitness function very easily. In other words, if you wanted to get a particular result, you had to put most of your effort into the fitness function that describes the desired result. This doesn't work without said function, ergo, design is the key, not simply mashing things together. In fact, if you run a GA without a fitness function, you get a random walk, aka monkeys on a typewriter.

It's foolish to conflate computational optimization methods with biological evolution. While the mechanisms are similar, the means by which it occurs is about as closely related as AI is to human thought

Tierra was - and is - really cool.

[Dr. Manhattan]

In the late 1980s, ecologist Thomas Ray, who is now at the University of Oklahoma in Norman, got wind of Core Wars and saw its potential for studying evolution. He built Tierra, a computerised world populated by self-replicating programs that could make errors as they reproduced.

I was so amazed by the results claimed for Tierra that I went and reimplemented it myself. And damned if I didn't get similar results. At the time, it blew me away that such a system could come up with novel solutions I hadn't expected or 'programmed in'. Indeed, a couple times it took me a while to even figure out how the things worked.

Re:God

[V!NCENT]

Evolution isn't some process, it's a phenomenon.

Genes get mixed and mutate and everything turns to chaos.

What survives and duplicates gets to the next level. That which dies cannot duplicate and dies.

How simple do you want it? This is where you stop thinking, God or no god.

Re:Not really amazing...

[mdda]

Not really. While the literature makes a lot of fine distinctions between the various cross-over methods/rates etc., in reality it's pretty academic.

Getting the genetic process going on a population is a really small amount of code, and there's a huge payoff to seeing it work for yourself (rather than using someone else's Black Box code).

The real key is that 'mashing' two individuals together to create a 'child' (evolution) is a whole lot better than creating a child as a random variation of one of those individuals (hill climbing), which is in turn a whole lot better than simply creating new individuals at random (monkeys at keyboards).

But you don't have to trust me. You should be able to code something up in an hour or two to see the effects. Don't worry about the details. This stuff really works.

Re:Not really amazing...

[Anonymous Coward]

What's academic during the first few cycles turn into a significant bias during the next few hundred rounds...

Re:Not really amazing...

[vell0cet]

I think this is a place where people get distracted when it comes to evolution.

Evolution IS directed. It's directed by Natural Selection. The direction it moves in is dictated by the environment and the species fitness to it. Because environments can change, directions also change.

This is a very important distinction because some Intelligent Design proponents (including their top "actual" biologist Michael Behe) believe in Evolution, but not by Natural Selection. They believe in Evolution by Intelligent Design.

Re:Not really amazing...

[Rainulf]

Speaking of twins, there are actually a lot of discoveries where twins get separated, lived and grew in a completely different environment but end up having the same traits such as habits, ways of thinking, etc.

One of the most shocking findings is by Bouchard, Oskar and Jack ( http://www.psywww.com/intropsych/ch11_personality/bouchards_twin_research.html ):
1. Was raised in extremely different cultures; Oskar raised as Catholic; Jack as a Jew.
2. Both were wearing wire-rimmed glasses and mustaches.
3. Both sported two-pocket shirts with epaulets
4. They share idiosyncrasies galore.
5. They like spicy foods and sweet liqueurs, are absentminded
6. Have a habit of falling asleep in front of the television.
7. Think it's funny to sneeze in a crowd of strangers.
8. Flush the toilet before using it.
9. Read magazines from back to front. and many many more

Another shocking one (came from the same source) is the Jim Twins.
1. James Lewis and James Springer were separated weeks after birth.
2. Both married and divorced women named Linda.
3. Both had second marriages with women named Betty.
4. Both had police training and worked part-time with law enforcement agencies.
5. Both had childhood pets named Toy.
6. Their first-born sons were named James Alan Lewis and James Allan Springer.

Which brings the issue of 'Nature vs Nurture'. Are we really pre-programmed?