Artificial Life

Artificial life (commonly called a-life) is the term applied collectively to attempts being made to develop mathematical models and computer simulations of the ways in which living organisms develop, grow, and evolve. Researchers in this burgeoning field hope to gain deeper insights into the nature of organic life as well as into the further possibilities of COMPUTER science and robotics (see ROBOT). A-life techniques are also being used to explore the origins and chemical processes …

…computer scientist John Holland of the University of Michigan in the 1970s, are comparable to L-systems. A computer worker trying to answer some question about a-life sets up a system-an algorithm-by which the computer itself rapidly grades the multiple possible answers that it has produced to the question. The most successful of the solutions are then used to develop new software that yields further solutions, and the cycle is repeated through several "generations" of answers.