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Publication details
On Self-Reproduction and Evolvability
Tim Taylor
1999
Abstract
Von Neumann’s architecture for self-reproducing, evolvable machines is described. From this starting point, a number of issues relating to self-reproduction and evolution are discussed. A summary is given of various arguments which have been put forward regarding the superiority of genetic reproduction over self-inspection methods. It is argued that programs in artificial life platforms such as Tierra reproduce genetically rather than by self-inspection (as has previously been claimed). However, the distinction is blurred because significant parts of the reproduction process in Tierran programs are implicitly encoded in the Tierran operating system. The desirable features of a structure suitable for acting as a seed for an open-ended evolutionary process are discussed. It is found that the properties of such a structure are somewhat different to those of programs in Tierra-like platforms. These analyses suggest ways in which the evolvability of individuals in artificial life platforms may be improved, and also point to a number of open questions.
Full text
Author preprint: pdf
On publisher's website: via DOI
Reference
Taylor, T. (1999). On Self-Reproduction and Evolvability. In D. Floreano, J.-D. Nicoud, & F. Mondada (Eds.), Advances in Artificial Life. ECAL 1999 (pp. 94–103). https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-48304-7_15
BibTeX
@inproceedings{taylor1999selfreproduction,
title = {On Self-Reproduction and Evolvability},
author = {Taylor, Tim},
year = {1999},
booktitle = {Advances in Artificial Life. ECAL 1999},
series = {Lecture Notes in Computer Science},
volume = {1674},
pages = {94-103},
editor = {Floreano, Dario and Nicoud, Jean-Daniel and Mondada, Francesco},
doi = {10.1007/3-540-48304-7_15},
publisher = {Springer},
address = {Berlin},
category = {conference},
keywords = {selfrep, cosmos}
}
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@article{taylor2024afterword,
author = {Taylor, Tim},
title = {An Afterword to "Rise of the Self-Replicators": Placing John A. Etzler, Frigyes Karinthy, Fred Stahl, and Others in the Early History of Thought About Self-Reproducing Machines},
journal = {Artificial Life},
year = {2024},
volume = {30},
number = {1},
pages = {91-105},
publisher = {{MIT} Press Journals},
doi = {10.1162/artl_a_00424},
issn = {1530-9185},
category = {journal},
keywords = {history, selfrep}
}
Taylor, T. (2020). What Am I For? Self-Purpose and Self-Reproduction in Rossum’s Universal Robots (Samoúčelnost a samoreprodukce u Rossumových univerzálních robotů). In J. Čejková (Ed.), ROBOT 100: Sto rozumů (pp. 178–180). Prague: Kosmas.
@book{taylor2020rise,
title = {Rise of the Self-Replicators: Early Visions of Machines, AI and Robots That Can Reproduce and Evolve},
author = {Taylor, Tim and Dorin, Alan},
publisher = {Springer},
year = {2020},
isbn = {978-3-030-48233-6},
address = {Cham},
category = {book},
keywords = {history, selfrep}
}
Taylor, T., & Dorin, A. (2018). Past Visions of Artificial Futures: One Hundred and Fifty Years under the Spectre of Evolving Machines. In T. Ikegami, N. Virgo, O. Witkowski, M. Oka, R. Suzuki, & H. Iizuka (Eds.), ALIFE 2018: Proceedings of the Artificial Life Conference 2018 (pp. 91–98). https://doi.org/10.1162/isal_a_00022
@inproceedings{taylor2018past,
author = {Taylor, Tim and Dorin, Alan},
title = {Past Visions of Artificial Futures: One Hundred and Fifty Years under the Spectre of Evolving Machines},
booktitle = {ALIFE 2018: Proceedings of the Artificial Life Conference 2018},
editor = {Ikegami, Takashi and Virgo, Nathaniel and Witkowski, Olaf and Oka, Mizuki and Suzuki, Reiji and Iizuka, Hiroyuki},
year = {2018},
publisher = {{MIT} Press},
pages = {91--98},
doi = {10.1162/isal_a_00022},
category = {conference},
keywords = {history, selfrep}
}
McMullin, B., Taylor, T., & von Kamp, A. (2001). Who Needs Genomes?Proceedings of the Atlantic Symposium on Computational Biology and Genome Information Systems and Technology, CBGIST 2001, 250–254. Duke University, USA.
@inproceedings{mcmullin2001who,
author = {McMullin, Barry and Taylor, Tim and {von Kamp}, Axel},
title = {Who Needs Genomes?},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the Atlantic Symposium on Computational Biology and Genome Information Systems and Technology, CBGIST 2001},
year = {2001},
pages = {250-254},
month = mar,
address = {Duke University, USA},
category = {conference},
keywords = {selfrep}
}
Taylor, T. (2000). Some Representational and Ecological Aspects of Evolvability. In C. L. Nehaniv (Ed.), Proceedings of the Evolvability Workshop at the the Seventh International Conference on the Simulation and Synthesis of Living Systems (Artificial Life 7) (pp. 41–44). Retrieved from http://homepages.herts.ac.uk/ comqcln/al7ev/cnts.html
@inproceedings{taylor2000some,
author = {Taylor, Tim},
title = {Some Representational and Ecological Aspects of Evolvability},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the Evolvability Workshop at the the Seventh International Conference on the Simulation and Synthesis of Living Systems (Artificial Life 7)},
year = {2000},
editor = {Nehaniv, Chrystopher L.},
pages = {41-44},
url = {http://homepages.herts.ac.uk/~comqcln/al7ev/cnts.html},
month = aug,
category = {workshop},
keywords = {selfrep, oee}
}
Taylor, T. (1999). Creativity in Evolution: Individuals, Interactions and Environments. In P. J. Bentley & D. W. Corne (Eds.), Proceedings of the AISB’99 Symposium on Creative Evolutionary Systems (pp. 8–17). The Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour.
@inproceedings{taylor1999creativity,
author = {Taylor, Tim},
title = {Creativity in Evolution: Individuals, Interactions and Environments},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the AISB'99 Symposium on Creative Evolutionary Systems},
year = {1999},
editor = {Bentley, Peter J. and Corne, David W.},
pages = {8-17},
publisher = {The Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour},
isbn = {1902956036},
category = {conference},
keywords = {creativity, cosmos}
}
Taylor, T. J. (1999). From Artificial Evolution to Artificial Life (PhD thesis). School of Informatics, College of Science and Engineering, University of Edinburgh.
@phdthesis{taylor1999artificial,
author = {Taylor, Timothy John},
title = {From Artificial Evolution to Artificial Life},
school = {School of Informatics, College of Science and Engineering, University of Edinburgh},
year = {1999},
uri = {http://hdl.handle.net/1842/361},
category = {dissertation},
keywords = {selfrep, oee, cosmos}
}
Taylor, T., & Hallam, J. (1998). Replaying the Tape: An Investigation into the Role of Contingency in Evolution. In C. Adami, R. K. Belew, H. Kitano, & C. E. Taylor (Eds.), Artificial Life VI: Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Artificial Life (pp. 256–265). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
@inproceedings{taylor1998replaying,
title = {Replaying the Tape: An Investigation into the Role of Contingency in Evolution},
author = {Taylor, Tim and Hallam, John},
pages = {256-265},
booktitle = {Artificial Life VI: Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Artificial Life},
editor = {Adami, Christoph and Belew, Richard K. and Kitano, Hiroaki and Taylor, Charles E.},
publisher = {MIT Press},
address = {Cambridge, MA},
year = {1998},
category = {conference},
keywords = {cosmos}
}
Taylor, T., & Hallam, J. (1997). Studying Evolution with Self-Replicating Computer Programs. In P. Husbands & I. Harvey (Eds.), Fourth European Conference on Artificial Life (pp. 550–559). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
@inproceedings{taylor1997studying,
title = {Studying Evolution with Self-Replicating Computer Programs},
author = {Taylor, Tim and Hallam, John},
pages = {550--559},
booktitle = {Fourth European Conference on Artificial Life},
editor = {Husbands, Phil and Harvey, Inman},
publisher = {MIT Press},
address = {Cambridge, MA},
isbn = {0262581574},
year = {1997},
category = {conference},
keywords = {cosmos, selfrep}
}
Taylor, T. (1997). The COSMOS Artificial Life System (Departmental Working Paper No. 263). Department of Artificial Intelligence, University of Edinburgh.
@techreport{taylor1997cosmos,
author = {Taylor, Tim},
title = {The COSMOS Artificial Life System},
institution = {Department of Artificial Intelligence, University of Edinburgh},
year = {1997},
type = {Departmental Working Paper},
number = {263},
month = oct,
category = {techreport},
keywords = {cosmos},
note = {Version 2.0: May 1999}
}
Taylor, T. (1996). PhD Proposal: A Study of Evolution in Self-Replicating Parallel Computer Programs (Departmental Discussion Paper No. 169). Department of Artificial Intelligence, University of Edinburgh.
@techreport{taylor1996study,
author = {Taylor, Tim},
title = {PhD Proposal: A Study of Evolution in Self-Replicating Parallel Computer Programs},
institution = {Department of Artificial Intelligence, University of Edinburgh},
year = {1996},
type = {Departmental Discussion Paper},
number = {169},
month = jun,
category = {techreport},
keywords = {cosmos}
}
Taylor, T. (1996). The COSMOS Environment and REPLiCa Programming Language (Departmental Working Paper No. 259). Department of Artificial Intelligence, University of Edinburgh.
@techreport{taylor1996cosmos,
author = {Taylor, Tim},
title = {The COSMOS Environment and REPLiCa Programming Language},
institution = {Department of Artificial Intelligence, University of Edinburgh},
year = {1996},
type = {Departmental Working Paper},
number = {259},
month = jun,
category = {techreport},
keywords = {cosmos}
}
Taylor, T. (1996). On the Incorporation of a Developmental Process in a System of Self-Replicating Programs (Departmental Working Paper No. 258). Department of Artificial Intelligence, University of Edinburgh.
@techreport{taylor1996incorporation,
author = {Taylor, Tim},
title = {On the Incorporation of a Developmental Process in a System of Self-Replicating Programs},
institution = {Department of Artificial Intelligence, University of Edinburgh},
year = {1996},
type = {Departmental Working Paper},
number = {258},
month = jan,
category = {techreport},
keywords = {cosmos}
}