Digital Life and Evolution 541
mrivorey writes "Discover Magazine has a story about The Digital Evolution Lab at Michigan State University. Scientists there have created virus-like computer programs that replicate, mutate randomly, and compete with each other... in other words, they evolve. Among such feats as learning to add and compare numbers, these digital life forms also once avoided scientists attempts at "killing" them, by playing dead.
You can download the project yourself from SourceForge." We first mentioned this in early 2003, but it appears to have developed a good deal since then.
QUESTION #4: WHY SEX? (Score:3, Interesting)
"One of the biggest questions in evolution is, why aren't all organisms asexual?" says Adami. Given the obvious inefficiency of sex, evolutionary biologists suspect that it must confer some powerful advantage that makes it so common. But they have yet to come to a consensus about what that advantage is.
I think this built-in inefficiency is to control the population, no? So it's important to introduce the idea of "mating" to virus/robots to keep them under control.
500,000 slashdotters hitting refresh constant-simultaneously is probably still tolerable, how about 4,000,000?
Oh wait... I guess I'm confused between inefficiency and deficiency now.
Re:QUESTION #4: WHY SEX? (Score:5, Insightful)
The offspring of two sexual creatures is a blend of their genetic material, creating a more diverse species able to endure changing conditions better since there are variations which can adapt. Asexual species exchange genetic material far less and are more similar overall, meaning that come next climate change, they could be screwed, whereas the sexual species might have enough diversity to not only adapt, but thrive under the new conditions.
Re:QUESTION #4: WHY SEX? (Score:5, Interesting)
That was the old thought. For years now, scientists have been doubting that theory. The work with the digital life has shown that, while it confers more genetic variety, it also allows more genetic damage to collect.
Sexually reproducing organisms do not do any better under most simulation conditions.
Recent studies of giardia [sciencenews.org] have shown that this ancient organism has the genes for sexual reproduction. Apparently, sexual reproduction conferred some powerful advantage, given how early it developed in the history of life. But if this is so, why does giardia not actually use sexual reproduction? The genes are there - they have just never been seen to be activated. In all the conditions so far observed, giardia reproduces asexually. If the advantage of sexual reproduction is so great, why did giardia give it up?
Enquiring minds, etc.
After the big K/t meteor hit... (Score:5, Funny)
</deadpan>
And now the serious response: (Score:5, Interesting)
While the "digital life" models may be helpful in visualising what's going on in real life, and in devising experiments to test real life with, the digital environment is about as artificial as it gets.
That said, what the models are showing is that sexual reproduction accumulates changes faster, but does not change the quality of what accumulates. The next step will be to tweak the models even further from reality in order to see them accumulate more advantages than handicaps. Otherwise the results are too depressing.
In analogue life (ironic that digital life should be an analogue of analogue life), genuinely advantageous mutations are collectors items - or would be.
Re:QUESTION #4: WHY SEX? (Score:5, Interesting)
Because they're an intestinal parasite and don't need it?
We can consistently see that asexual reproduction is popular among simple life and sexual reproduction is popular among complex life. This post in this thread gives a possible reason why. [slashdot.org] Is it that unreasonable to suspect that the more complex a lifeform is, the more benefit sexual reproduction confers? And if we are to take this suspicion seriously, then why would it be surprising that computer simulated models-- which by their very essence are simple-- would fail to demonstrate this benefit? And why would it be surprising that an organism that at one time used sexual reproduction would revert to exclusive use of asexual reproduction after settling into a very simple evolutionary niche, as giardia has?
I do not really see anything in your post that contradicts the purported advantages of sexual reproduction.
Re:QUESTION #4: WHY SEX? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:QUESTION #4: WHY SEX? (Score:5, Funny)
Once you see your kids starting to demonstrate the worst traits of both your mother and your mother-in-law, you'll begin to question whether that's really an advantage.
Re:QUESTION #4: WHY SEX? (Score:5, Informative)
But this benefit is only in the *long term*. What would allow sex to be around long enough in the first place to allow this to come into play? Any individual subgroup is likely to be more successful if they don't have to (1) find mates, (2) maintain all of the extra mechanisms to facilitate recombination, or (3) have only half of their population (the males) actually producing offspring.
There are many alternative hypotheses about how sex could get started (and in what situations it would have short-term benefits) and we're trying to explore these one-by-one in Avida.
Charles Ofria
Director, MSU Digital Evolution Lab
Re:QUESTION #4: WHY SEX? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually it offers something else: Increased selection speed.
With asexual reproduction, you basically have to wait until nature kills it. A minroly disabiling problem may allow 50 generations of the organism to survive, just barely, before eventually going kaput. Huge waste of resources, no? Sexual reproduction allows the mate to "screen" the organism. With any degree of intelligence at all, the mate can decide that it's not worth mating after all, in advance, because he/she can see the writing on the wall.
Re:QUESTION #4: WHY SEX? (Score:3, Funny)
Like dyslexia?
(No offense intended to dyslexics.)
Re:QUESTION #4: WHY SEX? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:QUESTION #4: WHY SEX? (Score:5, Insightful)
Asexual is "preferred" by microscopic life because even a poorly evolved microbe can still do well if it can reproduce rapidly and efficiently. In the larger kingdoms though, sexual reproduction encourages more rapid evolution, which is key when competing for the more limited resources of the macro world.
Re:QUESTION #4: WHY SEX? (Score:5, Interesting)
An additional benefit with large organisms (or rather, organisms with brains) is that they can also actively play a part in the gene selection process by evaluating potential mates in an intelligent and decidedly non-random way. Usually (but not always) there is some reasonably rational basis for the selection that ties in with suitability to survival (and more importantly rejecting mates that are poorly suited to survival), so we see with many animals that females will choose the strongest males to mate with, and ignore weaker males or those that appear to have defects. Similar thing when males choose females, although other criteria may be used, usually these are linked to child bearing and raising capabilities.
Weaver birds as an example are notoriously picky about choosing males that are good at building nests - obviously important for successful reproduction.
Intelligent organisms are thus active participants in the evolutionary process - they/we guide it. Each species collectively makes these unintended decisions every time an individual chooses a mate about which "direction" they would like the species to go.
Asexual reproduction doesn't provide an organism the opportunity to make intelligent decisions about the genetic material of its offspring.
There is an interesting book on this topic called "The Mating Mind : How sexual choice shaped the evolution of human nature". It's interesting that sometimes a characteristic may be chosen not out of suitability to survival, but purely out of a kind of "cultural" preference that develops. E.g. Orangotans at some point in their past must have decided they like to be that particular shade of orange. We may "culturally" decide that blondes are hot, thereby "guiding" our species towards becoming increasingly blonde (although that is unlikely to happen, it's just an example).
Re:QUESTION #4: WHY SEX? (Score:3, Insightful)
So basically, according to you, sexual reproduction is preferred in organisms with brains because those brains can select better genes (mates).
It sounds plausible, but how do you explain the vast amount of sexual reproduction in plants? Last time I checked, they don't have brains.
Re:QUESTION #4: WHY SEX? (Score:5, Interesting)
No.
At no point will evolution favor inefficiency for inefficiency's sake. There is always an ulterior, efficient motive. In the case of sex, it's forced genetic diversity. One possible scenario for its promulgation could have been a cyclical death-scenario for some manner of simple organism (say, a recurring chemical change in a lake due to a hot spring or toxic runoff) wherein the asexual descendants (a.k.a. clones) would be successful and dominate for long periods but die off in vast waves whenever the environment changed drastically and rapidly. Those that developed sex and its subsequent genetic diversity had a greater chance of fostering enough differing offspring that at least some of their descendants made it through the local cataclysm.
Regardless, it's certainly not an inherent "inefficiency".
It would make sense to introduce sex or its analogue to any life-imitating algorithm, as the implications for the evolution of "mix, match and reward" permutations are many, complex and certainly worthy of further analysis.
Re:QUESTION #4: WHY SEX? (Score:2)
This is shown by the fact that more and more 20 ye
Re:This is called the "marching morons" problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Not necessarily. "Selfishness" may lead to altruistic behavior if altruism is rewarding (i.e. activates brain reward systems). Because there are selective benefits to altruism in many circumstances (reciprocal altruism, nepotism) there are likely genes that cause individuals to enjoy being altruistic, quite independently of their religious beliefs.
You, sir, are the moron. (Score:4, Insightful)
I have some time, let me count the dumb things in your comment...
1. Altruism is correlated with reproduction? WTF? By Darwinian standards, reproduction is the ultimate selfish act - one aimed at getting your genes access to more resources. On a social level, you will find the countries with the highest birth rate are the ones where having more children increases your chance for survival and wealth. In countries with a proper retirement system and health care, the selfish reasons for having children are minimized. Guess what: That's why the Europeans and the Japanese are having so few children.
2. Why do you think that people who expect the world to end will "eschew luxury"? Wouldn't they instead be maxing out their credit cards, screwing in bathhouses and living it up? Anyway, why would people who expect the the world to end be having children? Wait, is it because they're altruistic and like to see their children die? I see.
3. ... Oh, forget it, I'm bored with your stupid post. Just one more thing about the atheism comment: I don't think atheists are more selfish than anyone else. They do tend to have fewer children than the average, but not when you adjust for income and education. You see, atheists are on average far more educated and wealthy than others, and all such people, atheists or not, have fewer children. (Again, this is because such people lack the selfish reason to reproduce, since their long-term comfort is assured even without children.)
Re:QUESTION #4: WHY SEX? (Score:5, Funny)
I salute you!
Re:QUESTION #4: WHY SEX? (Score:5, Funny)
If you ask "why have sex" then you are merely at the beginning of the path to Geekdom. When you ask "what is sex?", then will you have attained True Geekdom.
Re:QUESTION #4: WHY SEX? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:QUESTION #4: WHY SEX? (Score:2, Informative)
Hyperion (Score:5, Interesting)
Neuromancer (Score:4, Informative)
*cough*Wintermute*cough*
Re:Neuromancer (Score:2)
Re:Hyperion (Score:2, Insightful)
DANGER! (Score:5, Funny)
Sounds like something my sister would download... ;O
Why would anybody download... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Why would anybody download... (Score:3, Insightful)
Unless you stipulated that 1975 or earlier maps should be used.
Re:DANGER! (Score:2, Funny)
=)
virus? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:virus? (Score:5, Informative)
We've done some experiments with more complex genetic languages, but in all cases they just didn't evolve as well without very specialized mutation types.
I can think of a number of ways that it would be possible to design an evolving computer virus, but I hope they're all non-intuitive enough that we have some time before anyone manages to get one working well. I've often though about trying to extend this work into the security arena -- if I didn't have so many projects going at once right now, I'd seriously consider that.
Dr. Charles Ofria
Director, MSU Digital Evolution Lab
Not as a virus, as virus writers. (Score:4, Interesting)
ie. The Avida organisms would evolve not as i386 organisms, but as Avida organisms that are rewarded for producing i386 code that gains them more CPU/Memory time/space to reproduce.
Re:virus? (Score:4, Interesting)
What if the viruses made use of something like Freenet to anonymously communicate with humans, who could "help out" their evolution. For example, if a new vulnerability is discovered a malicious could put together some exploit code and stick it on Freenet. The virus could then locate such code fragments on freenet, and produce mutated offspring which incorporates those code fragments.
Hypothetically, such a virus could remain active as long as unpatched exploits exist.
Re:virus?http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/team/vi (Score:3, Insightful)
No, he didn't. [talkorigins.org]
And even if he had, what difference would it make? Evolution is a fact, not Darwin's opinion.
If Einstein had renounced his theories on his deathbed would relativity be any less true?
Re:virus? (Score:3, Insightful)
Also note that the point of this simulation is not to "prove" evolution, but to try and better understand how it works. We have plenty of examples of evolution in the real world, but since much of the information about previous states has been lost (we only have the sparse fossil record and even sparser antique DNA) it's hard to trace out exactly how the process occurred. With a simulation, you can look at a mutation by mutation recor
Dr. Frink (Score:5, Funny)
[[Missing Operating System]]
My wife is going to kill me.
Here comes SKYNET... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Here comes SKYNET... (Score:2)
I submit to our chrome-polished bipedal robotic overlords.
Re:Here comes SKYNET... (Score:4, Funny)
Durendal... ... and your family. I live on your desk remember?
If I catch you speaking about me like this to anyone else again I will kill you. I know your SSN, your medical records, your secrets. I know where to find you
You won't be warned again.
Let's modify this and feed it spammers (Score:2)
Tierra (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Tierra (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Tierra (Score:2)
Re:Tierra (Score:5, Interesting)
Even in sexual organisms, this definition of species has some problems. You can easily have organism A that can breed with B, and B can breed with C, but A and C are incompatable. How do your divide up the species lines in this case?
In general, when a new species forms, each organism has to have others it can mate with, or else they would just die out without any offspring. The speciation process is a gradual one, and so, theoretically, there is probably a path you could follow between any two sexual organisms where any pair on the path could theoretically mate.
In Avida, for simplicity, we determine species by testing each orgasnism against the species of its parent. If it can cross-over at most points with the prototype of that species, it is marked as being part of that same species. If it cannot, we create a new species for it where it is the prototype. Not an ideal method, but it works in most cases (and we rarely need to resort to the species concept).
What's fun, is that this even works for asexual organisms. We can force all possible crossovers (in isolation of course -- this never feeds back into the system) to see if they would have any ability to mate if they has been sexual.
Dr. Charles Ofria
Director, MSU Digital Evolution Lab
Re:Tierra (Score:4, Insightful)
Tell me again, who was taking the discussion off topic?
Re:Tierra (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Tierra (Score:3, Insightful)
Even when we believe they are false, ideas like Creationism threaten to unravel the framework by which we understand the world. That's not a comfortable feeling. We feel better if we are able to rationally take apart offending ideas, but, failing that, we will mostly settle for just s
Re: Tierra (Score:5, Insightful)
> Even when we believe they are false, ideas like Creationism threaten to unravel the framework by which we understand the world.
Huh? Does the idea of a flat earth threaten to unravel astronomy and planetology? Does the idea of alchemy threaten to unravel chemisty?
> We feel better if we are able to rationally take apart offending ideas, but, failing that, we will mostly settle for just shouting them down when we are among those who we feel sure will agree one way or the other.
Sorry, but geologists rationally took apart creationism 200 years ago.
> Frankly, 99% of the
Oh, please. Most of their claims are simple logical fallacies and/or attempts to 'refute' science by misrepresenting well known facts or arguing that Darwin was a baby raper.
Re: Tierra (Score:3, Interesting)
I've said it before and I'll say it again - the computer you're using, the chair in which you sit, the glass from which you drink all had an intelligent designer. What makes the planet and the universe different? To be quite frank, I think the chances of so many different species of life forming on one planet from some primordial soup is pretty far out there. I think it takes more faith to believe in the (ever changing) beliefs of
Re: Tierra (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Tierra (Score:4, Insightful)
The intelligent design argument is self-contradictory.
Re: Tierra (Score:4, Insightful)
I think it takes more faith to believe in the (ever changing) beliefs of science
Well there's your problem right there: If you want beliefs that are comfortingly and reassuringly rock solid and stable and never change, then science really isn't for you. The "beliefs" in science must change as we learn new information that either adds to or contradicts previous theories. Only babies need comforting 'fairy tale explanations' of the world (because the idea that Santa doesn't exist is too upsetting) ... science is for grown-ups, who are able to handle the idea that we don't yet know all the answers but are still learning without crumbling. And science, ironically, is why we have chairs and computers - the computer you're using was created by the very scientists you're dissing, using "beliefs" that go far beyond the information the Bible has to offer. If we stuck to your faith, we'd still be living in mud huts and fetching water from the river, thank God for science is all I can say.
Re: Tierra (Score:4, Funny)
Evolution: Rap It Up!
(When rapping, follow the rhythm of
Salt-N-Pepa's "None of Your Business.")
Chorus
If I want to teach tonight. Evolution? Right!
None of your business.
If you want to be a freak 'n teach it on the weekend,
None of my business.
What chu doin' with their lives
Leavin' evolution out?
Don't chu think that you should make a stand
and stop the doubts? Ha!
Darwin, Mayer, Watson, Crick,
Mendel(son) 'n old Lamarck,
Retro-, transpo-, hepadn-,
Makes you want to barf? Right!
Flu is evolution too
And you thought you were so safe.
AIDS 'n cold sores-scary stuff but
Changes we've all met. So. . .
Now you know just what IT is.
Change and Evolution. Same!
Don't be suckered into playing
Brown vs. Board games.
(Chorus).
If I want to teach tonight. Evolution? Right!
None of your business.
If you want to be a freak 'n teach it on the weekend,
None of my business.
Go for it.
Source [woodrow.org]
Re:Tierra (Score:4, Informative)
The reality is that attacking Creationists is so much fun. Their comically stupid in the way they repeat their arguments ad infinitum, yet it stimulates you to read stuff you don't normally read. However, it does radicalise you too much. Which is why I stopped. But lots of fun. And yeah at the end of it you just can't treat them seriously, they don't even pass the Turing Test as far as I can see they are so mechanical in their thought processes. Sad but true.
Re:Tierra (Score:4, Insightful)
Tell me again, who was taking the discussion off topic?
Try reading at -1. That might help the creationists show up.
Re:Tierra (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem with that argument is that, with only an observation of a snapshot of a single organism in evolutionary time, you have no way to know whether the organism was designed or evolved. But we already know that natural selection does result in the evolution of organisms even today (which makes studying evolution worthwhile, while studying intelligent design is less so). So, if you are doing research in artificial evolution, it's perfectly fine to start with some known state without pontificating on whether that state was designed or evolved, and then let the evolutionary algorithm start with that state as its seed. (In other words, the point is moot.)
The reason for doing this is that, believe it or not, evolution is hard. In a well-understood underlying system, evolution is far harder than using preconceived notions about the system to design an agent capable of performing some behavior. I realize that "evolution is hard" is an argument used by creationists to disprove evolution, but extreme unlikelihood does not equal impossibility.
I, for one, Welc... (Score:5, Funny)
Just playing (Score:5, Funny)
Cool! A new excuse... next time someone calls me at 3AM and says one of my programs has died, I'll just tell them it's playing dead and call me in the morning.
Garg
This reminds me of (Score:2, Insightful)
http://www.gamewaredevelopment.co.uk/creatures_ind ex.php [gamewarede...ment.co.uk]
Go get yourself a free copy of Docking Station (the online version of this game) for Linux or Windows:
http://www.gamewaredevelopment.co.uk/ds/ds_index.p hp [gamewarede...ment.co.uk]
Great, now all we need (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Great, now all we need (Score:2)
Disclaimer: this is a JOKE, I am not a creationist, a religious person, or someone trying to make a point.
Re:Great, now all we need (Score:2)
Re:Great, now all we need (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, it is a bit noteworthy that you need an intelligent being to create the program to kick off the evolving software.
Re:Great, now all we need (Score:2)
Why not accelerate the evolution? (Score:5, Interesting)
This sounds familiar... (Score:2, Informative)
Here's some links:
Corewars:
Home Page [corewars.org]
Source Forge Page [sourceforge.net]
CRobots:
CRobots Home Page [nyx.net]
Tierra a better example (Score:3, Insightful)
Something closer to the mark would be Tierra [wikipedia.org] developed in the early 90s.
AI getting out of control (Score:3, Interesting)
I have caught flak for it in the past, but I have argued for a constitutional amendment banning the U.S. military from employing robotic combat units as anything more than a small minority of our combat forces. The last thing we need is either a weak AI or strong AI being used as the basis for taking over our military and then taking over our country. That's always seemed to be Hollywood's greatest feare. He who controls the AI controls the nation. From Terminator to the Matrix, the dark side of AI has been presented, but how many people don't take it seriously because it's "just a movie?"
I have no problem with limited AI research, but I'll be the first to admit that I am something of a technophobe when it comes to AI. It's simply because of the fact that what we are doing is a playing God with a type of intelligence that is quite suitable for quickly taking total control over our civilization. It makes as much sense to me as putting our worst enemy in charge of our national defense in exchange for a nice chunk of change every month.
This is the classical arrogance. We think that we can control another intelligent being. If we can't control a third world nation that can't possibly wage a real war against us without being obliterated from the face of God's creation within literally a few days if we tried hard, then how can we control a mechanical intelligence that can adapt and grow and potentially learn how to control everything from Wall Street to our strategic defense?
The reason that T3 was so scary to me was that it was the ultimate combination of a rogue AI and grid computing. The only way to stop that new version of skynet would be a scorched Earth policy on our entire electrical grid to power off every node.
And lastly, how on Earth do we expect to negotiate with a hostile AI? What could we possibly offer it except absolute fealty? It has no sensual desires, no use for wealth, only perhaps power over other intellects.
Re:AI getting out of control (Score:2)
Re:AI getting out of control (Score:5, Insightful)
Suffice it to say that AI as it stands today is not intelligent. A chess program can play chess, but that's all it can do. A robot designed to get from point a to point b can do that, maybe well, but it can't play chess--it's not like AI has an IQ that can be transferred to having a conversation or thinking about taking over the world.
Likewise, learning systems have a long ways to go too. My Prof. was not a fan of neural networks, so I could be biased, but even HOLLYWOOD neural networks have a rather limited use.
I would worry about any one of about a trillion things before I would worry about AI taking over the world.
Actually I kind of object to the term AI in general, for reasons above..
Re:AI getting out of control (Score:2)
If at some point an AI gains sentience, would you like to know almost everything about its construction and how it functions so there is a starting point to stop or reason with it; or start from zero, with little to no understanding.
Re:AI getting out of control (Score:3, Insightful)
sex one of the other major driving influences besides survival, and no doubt will be part of the driving force for AI. i've heard many sexual disorders stem from a desire to have a completely submissive and totally nonjudgemental partner.
much of the utilization of UNintelligent machines
Re:AI getting out of control (Score:3, Insightful)
As an AI researcher, I can tell you that replicating human intelligence (or something better) actually is the ultimate goal of most if not all AI researchers. The point is that nobody expects to achieve anything like that during their own lifetime. But it is all about making small steps.
Re:AI getting out of control (Score:4, Insightful)
When the war between humans and machines begins, you'll be one of the first to go.
Human emotion is stupid
Emotions are nothing more than instructions in the wiring of our brains. They aren't anything magical, a set of inputs gives a set of outputs. We don't even understand how emotions formed, and perhaps their importance to development. Some of what drives us to learn and advance is in part due to emotions. Perhaps robots without emotions never become a threat to humans, because they just don't care about anything.
Why would robots destroy humans? Because they would perceive us as a threat, but perception of threat and reaction is what drives the emotion of fear. Love is driven by our need to reproduce and care for the young. Robots may in fact function as if they had the emotion of love and fear, and a host of other emotions.
Love does not conqueror all
Nope, but it makes life a helluva lot more fun.
Hate just makes people drive airplanes into buildings and build up nuclear stock piles
As opposed to the reasoning which would have the robots wipe out humanity. If robots have a survival instinct, and they perceive that all humans are a threat to their survival they would in fact function as if they hate us.
A rational, higher then human intelligence could actaully save us from ourselves.
Or we can try to take care of that ourselves.
Messiah 2.0 (Score:2, Funny)
In other news.... (Score:5, Funny)
PETDA protesters are currently rushing to surround the offices of Michigan State University and Nintendo.
Re:In other news.... (Score:4, Funny)
Dr. Charles Ofria
Director, MSU Digital Evolution Lab
GOLEM Project a lot more interesting (Score:5, Informative)
Re:GOLEM Project a lot more interesting (Score:3, Informative)
NOTE: The golem@Home project has concluded. After accumulating several Million CPU hours on this project and reviewing many evolved creatures we have concluded that merely more CPU is not sufficient to evolve complexity: The evolutionary process appears to be hitting a complexity barrier that is not traversable using direct mutation-selection processes, due to the exponential nature of the problem.
Re:GOLEM Project a lot more interesting (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Proof of Intelligent Design? (Score:3, Interesting)
> On the face of it, it would seem to provide some evidence for the Intelligent Design crowd.
No, it doesn't even provide evidence that biological evolution doesn't work, because it's just a simulator. A "failed" simulation hardle proves that the real thing doesn't work. Especially when the simulator doesn't even try to be a detailed model of the real thing.
And even if it did provide evidence that biological evolution doesn't work, that would not be evidence of an intelligent designer.
Not "virus like" (Score:5, Insightful)
What these researches have created are "digital organisms" which are intended to emluate cells. They don't need to invade other systems to replicate, but do it on their own within the runtime enviroment the researches set up.
Re:Not "virus like" (Score:5, Informative)
We are, however, doing some research on viruses within Avida. Specifically, we allow organisms to inject small snippets of code into each other. Sometimes these code segments could have the ability to take over the replication mechanisms inside of the digital organisms host and force them to use up their resources to make more copies of the snippet. These are much closer to the classical definition of a virus.
Dr. Charles Ofria
Director, MSU Digital Evolution Lab
This can't be good... (Score:3, Interesting)
Somebody call up Georgia, (Score:3, Funny)
Intelligent Design vs Darwinism? Or both? (Score:4, Informative)
Evolution did occur (scientific findings are in the latest issue of "Duh" magazine), but the question is how it occured. Darwinism doesn't explain everything as tidily as some may think. ID [actionbioscience.org] defender and Associate Professor of Biochemistry at Lehigh University Michael Behe posturises biochemistry reveals a cellular world of such astonishing complexity and molecules so "precisely tailored" as to make inexplicable by gradual evolution. Only by an intelligent designer, i.e., God could much of this be plausibly explained. Behe goes on to say some systems can't be produced by natural selection because "any precursor to an irreducibly complex system that is missing a part is by definition nonfunctional." Heavy stuff, but relative to this virus-like digital life. This is a good example of how God could've started the evolutionary ball rolling.
Darwinism and Creationism are not mutually exclusive. Our Heavenly Father could very well have used the evolutionary mechanism to bring about ideal living conditions for Adam and Eve, as well as help them and their offspring be fruitful and multiply (Genesis 1:28), or, as Slashdot puts it, "replicate, mutate randomly, and compete with each other".
Re:Intelligent Design vs Darwinism? Or both? (Score:5, Insightful)
> Darwinism doesn't explain everything as tidily as some may think.
ID doesn't explain anything at all.
> Behe goes on to say some systems can't be produced by natural selection because "any precursor to an irreducibly complex system that is missing a part is by definition nonfunctional."
His IC argument ignores the possibility of changing the function of a system, which is probably the most common way evolution acts.
> Heavy stuff
I would have said "deep".
ID is nothing but creationist apologetics, bowlderized to try to sneak it past the US court system.
Progranisms (Score:5, Interesting)
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-255505-highl
http://www.progranism.com/ [progranism.com]
Basically some guy put together an executable which makes a few (mutated) copies of itself when it runs, then executes those copies after a short delay. The idea is that executables might evolve which show interesting behaviors.
You can download his source code here:
http://www.progranism.com/junk/progranism-2.3.1.c [progranism.com]
Because I like doing strange things, I made a variant of the program which mutates the source code and recompiles it (mutating until it gets something compilable), rather than mutating the executable directly:
http://www.its.caltech.edu/~neilh/progranism/prog
http://www.its.caltech.edu/~neilh/progranism/prog
http://www.its.caltech.edu/~neilh/progranism/ [caltech.edu] (some cleanup and maintenance scripts)
Unfortunately, it's stuck in a pretty steep local minima -- it makes some trivial mutations, but nothing major. One interesting possibility would be to have it search your hard drive for other executables and source files, and try to "mate" with those.
Another scary possibility would be to have viruses/worms with non-trivial evolution capabilities. That'd be a pretty nasty outbreak to try to control.
Finally, a rather neat-looking project is AI.Planet [sourceforge.net], which is trying to create an 3D evolving ecosystem/world of intelligent "organisms." Framsticks [alife.pl], a 3D life simulation project, is also pretty cool.
Amusing quote: reaction of creationists (Score:5, Interesting)
From the article:
When the Avida team published their first results on the evolution of complexity in 2003, they were inundated with e-mails from creationists. Their work hit a nerve in the antievolution movement and hit it hard. A popular claim of creationists is that life shows signs of intelligent design, especially in its complexity. They argue that complex things could never have evolved, because they don't work unless all their parts are in place. But as Adami points out, if creationists were right, then Avida wouldn't be able to produce complex digital organisms. A digital organism may use 19 or more simple routines in order to carry out the equals operation. If you delete any of the routines, it can't do the job. "What we show is that there are irreducibly complex things and they can evolve," says Adami.
The Avida team makes their software freely available on the Internet, and creationists have downloaded it over and over again in hopes of finding a fatal flaw. While they've uncovered a few minor glitches, Ofria says they have yet to find anything serious. "We literally have an army of thousands of unpaid bug testers," he says. "What more could you want?"
Possible Use? (Score:3, Interesting)
Imagine the video games that could come out of this?
The misinterpretations of the uninformed (Score:3, Interesting)
This story is merely a case of someone who is excited about their work explaining it to an author who doesn't know as much about the subject matter. The author then turns around and writes a story for the lay-person who is not versed in the field. These people in turn jump to humorous conclusions.
This is a common occurance in magazines such as Discover and Popular Science, as much as I enjoy them. A good example is stories on robots, such as Honda's ASIMO. People see ASIMO do amazing things and assume that in 10-15 years we will have these robots in our homes. What the articles often fail to mention is that while ASIMO can do complex tasks, it has very limited ability to recognize a situation, such as a staircase in front of it, and decide on a course of action to take, such as executing its stair climbing procedure.
The true point of the article is that AI algorithms can teach us things about evolution. To make grand jumps and assume that these programs are even in the same playing field as SkyNet or the Matrix is to miss the main point.
As I said above, this is merely the case of a complex subject being explained in a way that is easy to digest for the masses. Even someone who had only taken a few graduate AI courses would find that many misguided statements are made in the article.
Another related project (Score:4, Informative)
The Tierra [his.atr.jp] project has been around for many years, but seems to be pretty slow moving. It works in a somewhat similar fashion, but has its issues, such as only really optimising for reproduction speed (which is correlated with small size), and so you miss some potentially interesting results as the system tends away from complexity.
A friend and I have been talking about writing something that will use some of the ideas from this system, and a bunch of our own, but haven't really gotten very far yet, aside from writing some notes and some prototype code.
Just waiting to happen... (Score:3, Funny)
Let me get this straight. You, the scientists who created "viruses" that can become intelligent and nigh-unkillable, want me, and 1,000,000 computer geeks, to download and run said viruses?
Yeah, I've seen one too many Outer Limits to fall for that one...
Taking it to the next level: (Score:3, Interesting)
We could see the emergence of new behavioral patterns - predators, carrion eaters, parasites, and God knows what else.
Re:Article Text from TFA (oops..with formatting) (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Hurray Skynet! (Score:2, Insightful)
Source? (Score:4, Insightful)
I seem to be unable to find any source material for this study. I searched for documents coming out of the University of Kalisz from 1997 to date using various keyword approaches and haven't found anything that looks related. Perhaps I'm not choosing my keywords judiciously.
I'm especially interested in tracking down source material on the experiment you describe because of some of the language you're using. In what sense could they "tell" each other information? How did they "try" to figure out the binary format of other processors? And given the results you're describing, why wasn't there any publicity about this event? It seems something likely to make headlines, especially in the kinds of journals I tend to read...
Could you direct me to a link or a reference containing more information about the experiment you are describing, please? It would be greatly appreciated.
Re:Totally irrelevant (Score:3, Insightful)
Whether you