Artificial Life

Artificial life uses both computing and biology to model the living world around us or to build new software with the adaptability and resilience of life itself. Presented here are a number of Java demonstrations along with a brief explanation of the field. But first, here are some of the most recent changes to the site.

CopyCat is a one-on-one battle between human and computer players. Starting with a untrained neural network the computer observes its rivals behaviour and attempts to mimic winning strategies. Unfortunately this project was mothballed in its early stages.

(5th April 1997)

If you are interested in looking through the rest of the site have a look through the topics below.

Artificial life what is it and how does it work? Here is a brief explanation of the field and links to some of the other sites out there on the web.

Think Tank was an attempt to develop an artificial intelligence system suitable for controlling computer opponents. Several different techniques were under investigation and some demonstrations are available.

Swarm simulates the behaviour of a collection of mobile bots who pay attention only to their nearest neighbours and follow three simple rules giving rise to some surprisingly lifelike flocks.

Statecharts combine hierarchy and concurrency with state-transition diagrams. With them complex behaviour patterns based on the receipt of events can be easily modelled and efficiently implemented.

Bugs simulates the life of protazoa on the bottom of a pond cruising around eating dead bacteria which rain down from above. Natural selection is used to specialize their behaviour over time.

Artificial Termites is a demonstration of autonomous agents and an example of simple artificial life. The banner at the top of this page is a screenshot of the termites at work.