[alife] GreyThumb San Francisco/Silicon Valley, July 29th, 2008

[tom at nobleape.com]

When: Tuesday, July 29th, 2008

Topics:
What Daedalus Told Darwin: artificial life & simulated futures - Zann Gill
VatLife - Scott Schafer

Time: 7:00pm
Where: SRI International, Menlo Park - we will meet at Building-E  
Visitors' lobby and move to one of our conference rooms.
Directions: http://www.ai.sri.com/visiting/
Cost: Free

Please be on time - we need to close doors at 7:15.
Also, please RSVP by sending me an email (yadgar at ai.sri.com) - it is  
very important for us to have a right headcount upfront!

Zann and I will have a coffee at Borrone Cafe  
(http://www.cafeborrone.com/) that is 5 minutes walk from SRI.  
Everyone is welcome to join us for coffee and chitchat.

Abstracts:
What Daedalus Told Darwin: artificial life & simulated futures - Zann Gill

Daedalus, the mythical artificer, was first responsible for the  
genetic experiment that produced the Minotaur. He was then  
commissioned to design a labyrinth to cage the beast. Finally, he  
ended up imprisoned in that labyrinth and designed wings to escape.  
This parable about how we trap ourselves in our own designs is the  
jumping off point for a talk about whether artificial life is a  
threat, a tool for problem-solving, or both.

Zann Gill will present ideas from her near-finished book, What  
Daedalus told Darwin (see  http://zanngill.com) and describe her early  
work at NASA toward an ? "Is it alive?" competition, and results from  
the panel she co-chaired at ALife X, which generated a range of  
concepts for alife competitions. This talk will be followed by a  
brainstorming session on design of an "Is it alive?" competition.

VatLife: An Interoperability Framework for Mad Scientists

Inspired by and complementary to the EvoGrid, VatLife is a framework  
for artificial life development that imposes a plug-and-play layer of  
abstraction between artificial life controllers and their  
environments. This abstraction layer should allow for faster  
development of both simulated environments and evolvable controllers,  
while eliminating the need for encapsulation when artificial life  
forms migrate from one environment to another.

Scott Schafer will present the rationale, current design and a simple  
proof of concept. After the presentation, he hopes for a lively  
discussion on its overall design, feasibility for hosting a variety  
ALife simulations and controllers, and its integration with the EvoGrid.