Titulo Estágio
Evolving Virtual Ecologies
Local do Estágio
CMS-CISUC
Enquadramento
“Within fifty to a hundred years, a new class of organisms is likely to emerge. These organisms will be artificial in the sense that they will originally be designed by humans. However, they will reproduce, and will evolve into something other than their original form; they will be "alive" under any reasonable definition of the word . . . The advent of artificial life will be the most significant historical event since the emergence of human beings…” [1] Artificial life (A-Life) is the study of life through artificial means such as computers, robots, nanotechnology, etc. According to Christopher Langton's A-Life can offer insight not just into “life as we know it”, but also into “life as it could be”. That is, A-Life is not primarily concerned with the simulation of existing living systems. Instead, it “strives to introduce a broader, more universal, understanding of life – accessible to new kinds of manipulation and testing – than that defined by traditional biology” [2].
The work of Karl Sims [3,4] on the evolution of the morphology and behavior of virtual creatures simulated in a realistic 3D environment is one of the milestones of A-life research. More recently, A-Life crossed the gap between the academic world and the general public fostering new applications in the arts, design, architecture, edutainment and games.
References
[1] Farmer, D. F., and Belin, A. d'A. "Artificial Life: the coming evolution." In Artificial Life , edited by C. G. Langton. SFI Studies in the Sciences of Complexity, Proc. Vol. VI. Redwood City, CA: Addison-Wesley, 1989: 815-840.
[2] Forbes, N., “Life as it could be: Alife attempts to simulate evolution” Intelligent Systems and Their Applications, IEEE [see also IEEE Intelligent Systems], Vol.15, Iss.6, Nov/Dec 2000.
[3] Sims, K. “Evolving virtual creatures.” In Proceedings of the 21st Annual Conference on Computer Graphics and interactive Techniques SIGGRAPH '94. ACM Press, New York, NY, 15-22, 1994
[4] Sims, K. 1994. Evolving 3D morphology and behavior by competition. Artif. Life 1, 4, 353-372, 1994
Objetivo
The present thesis will focus on the evolution of virtual ecosystems, studying the impact of environmental changes on the virtual ecologies and on the evolutionary process. Particular emphasis will be given to the interactions (cooperation, competition, co-evolution, etc.) among artificial beings.
Plano de Trabalhos - Semestre 1
Step 1 - Revision of the Bibliography.
Step 2 - Determining the techniques to use and develop
Step 3 - Development of canonical a-life engine
Step 4 - Thesis and work plan proposal
Plano de Trabalhos - Semestre 2
Step 5 – Expansion of the a-life engine.
Fase 6 - Experimentation, validation and analysis.
Fase 7 - Writing of the Thesis.
Fase 8 - Scientific paper.
Condições
The student will work in the Computational Design and Visualization Lab. (CDV) is a research laboratory of the Cognitive and Media Systems Group (CMS) of the Centre of Informatics and Systems of the University of Coimbra (CISUC), with access to all its facilities and resources.
Observações
Strong skills in programming. Will to communicate in English with other researchers is also important. Other skills of interest include Artificial Intelligence and Generative Design.
Orientador
Penousal Machado e Tiago Martins
machado@dei.uc.pt 📩