A Brief Look at ALife

What is artificial life, also known as ALife? Briefly, it is a rapidly growing, multidisciplinary field that spans biology, chemistry, physics, and computer science in order to understand the fundamentals of life itself. Many scientists in the field take a constructivist approach to this question - to understand by trying to build life and life-like behaviors, either in vitro or in silico.

Using ALife concepts expands and diversifies the frameworks of computational systems, including AI systems, by shifting the focus from representing the world with precise symbols (like a blueprint or an MLP classifier) to behaviors grounded in the environment through dynamic and adaptive processes. This enables systems to deal with complexity and respect non-binary entanglements. A simple example of this would be a flocking algorithm. ALife provides a foil for binary distinctions such as sentient vs mechanical, organism vs machine. Such distinctions only serve to suppress deep unification concepts. In short, ALife:

• Models known behaviors (flocking, swarming, mycelial growth)
• Asks “what if” - simulates imagined behaviors or forms; i.e. "Life as it could be."
• Embraces concepts of self-replication, adaptation, open-ended evolution, emergence, diverse intelligences.

Here is a breakdown of how the fields of AI and ALife intersect:

ALife has many applications in biomedicine, robotics, and has been embraced by visual artists for decades. Among musicians, there has been less widespread engagement, but some individuals have made notable contributions. More about that on an upcoming page!

Some links for further reading:

The International Society for ALife: https://alife.org/

Official publication of ALife at MIT Press: https://direct.mit.edu/artl

ALife in education: https://alife-edu.github.io/