Artificial Life, Artificial Culture
& Evolutionary Design
 Syllabus [image of digits]
Honors 69 - Spring 2002 - Nick Gessler gessler@ucla.edu
 

PROJECT

SIMULATIONS

INDEX

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"Science is what we understand well enough to teach to a computer. Art is everything else."
Donald Knuth

"Computer Science is not about computers. It is about the kind of complex systems that we are."
Marvin Minsky

Revised 18 February 2002

  

Tuesday: Lecture/Lab 10:00 - Noon, Noon - 1:00
 Thursday: Lecture/Lab 10:00 - Noon; Office Hour Noon - 1:00
Additional Office Hours After Class - CLICC Lab, Northern Lights or Lavalle Commons

CLICC PC Classroom C (Powell 320)

ARTIFICIAL LIFE, ARTIFICIAL CULTURE AND EVOLUTIONARY DESIGN
 is a seminar in the ground-breaking fields of artificial life, artificial culture, artificial intelligence, virtual environments, and evolutionary computation which have revolutionized our thinking about science and our place in the universe. We will take a critical look at these practices through writings, videos and movie clips on artificial worlds and practical hands-on engagement with multi-agent simulations and games. Field trips will be arranged whenever possible. Here are just a few of the issues we will discuss:

Software to Enhance Your Creativity

You will have your own Web page up in the first week. You can use use some of this software in your presentations and in your project, or even as your project. I will go over all of it once lightly and will spend extra time with those who have a deeper interest.

A Project to Match Your Interests

The course project is your opportunity to explore a domain of artificial worlds close to your own interests. It may include a search of library and web resources, field research, critiques of popular culture, and/or a simulation written by you. Your project should be presented as a paper, web, powerpoint document and/or a Windows application.

No Prerequisites

There are no prerequisites other than an interest in artificial (and natural) worlds. You will have an advantage if you are comfortable working with PCs, browsing the Web, computer games, and sending and receiving E-mail. We will spend some time on these skills and you will have your own website up and running by the end of the first week. Make sure to contact Bruin-On-Line to get your own identification, password, email and website. Please familiarize yourself with the services (including classes) that they offer. Programming is optional to succeed in this course. We will introduce you to new visual tools with drag-and-drop components. It is really not that difficult. Check out the participant reviews and the instructor's profile.

Please arrive on the first day of class with:

Readings:

Good books on this subject are few and far between. They are usually expensive, have low print runs and go out of print quickly. I do not know if ASUCLA Textbooks can get these or what their price will be. If they don't come in or if they are unreasonably expensive, I will simply Xerox articles for you to read. I will likely assign each of you one article per week to report on in class. So if there are, for example, five articles in one week, I will divide you up into five groups and have each group report on one article. That way we can get through the readings without it being a burden.

required
readings

These will form the primary basis for critiques and discussions in the class. In order to air the ideas and their implications we will probably divide the readings among several groups of participants.

REQUIRED: Current articles and handouts including Computer Models of Cultural Evolution, by Nick Gessler.

These will be available on the Web or from the instructor.

REQUIRED: Evolutionary Design by Computers, by Peter Bentley (Editor)
List Price: $62.95

amazon.com = $62.95 plus shipping and handling
available from ASUCLA

This book will also be available on reserve.

REQUIRED: Artificial Life, by Christopher G. Langton (Editor)
List Price: $35.00

amazon.com = $35.00 plus shipping and handling
available from ASUCLA

This book will also be available on reserve.

 

suggested
readings

These will inspire your class discussions, challenges and quarter project.
Anyone who wants to write a simulation as a class project should buy the guide.

RECOMMENDED: The Pattern on the Stone – The Simple Ideas that Make Computers Work, by Danny Hillis. Basic Books, New York (1998). An easy and enjoyable read.

List price $13.

available from instructor = $10.00

RECOMMENDED: C++ Guide. BarCharts, Quick Study - Computer. A six-page cheat sheet on the C++ programming language.
List Price = 5.95

available from instructor = $4.00

RECOMMENDED: Growing Artificial Societies – Social Science from the Bottom Up, by Joshua Epstein and Robert Axtell. MIT Press, Cambridge (1996). A quick read for the overall strategy by week three. More in-depth reading will be assigned.
List Price = out of print

amazon.com = $24.00 plus shipping and handling
available from instructor = $25.00

RECOMMENDED: ATLAS OF CYBERSPACE
Martin Dodge & Rob Kitchin
List Price = 39.99

amazon.com = $27.99 plus shipping and handling
available from instructor = $30.00

RECOMMENDED: The Computational Beauty of Nature – Computer Exploration of Fractals, Chaos, Complex Systems, and Adaptation, by Gary William Flake. MIT Press, Cambridge (1999). Readings will be assigned each week.

amazon.com = 32.95 plus shipping and handling
available from instructor = $30.00

MIT Press Website
Java Applets and more...

RECOMMENDED: Blondie24, by David Fogel. Morgan Kauffman (2001). Tells the story of a computer that taught itself to play checkers far better than its creators ever could by emulating the principles of Darwinian evolution and discovering innovative ways to approach the game.

amazon.com = 17.46 plus shipping and handling

Grading Formula:

8 Weekly Challenges: 5% each = 40% Class Participation: (30%) Class Project (30%)

Challenges will be mostly simulations for you to write, explore, and enhance in code, pseudocode and procedural ideas. Please keep your own copies since I will not return what you turn in. I wish to keep them to impress my colleagues with your work. I will return comments separately, or better yet meet me over coffee (my treat).

Please turn in the following for each programming challenge:

  1. Label everything with your name and challenge number.
  2. Cover Sheet - A printout of the screen image of your application (with your name, class and assignment number).
  3. Source Code - A printout of your source code (e.g. the unit1.cpp file).
  4. Floppy with your executable and 6 project files (yes, they will all fit):

Includes:

  1. Postings to the Web on the weekly readings.
  2. Discussions in the classroom, via email, during office hours and over coffee.
  3. Help you may provide your fellow participants.

We are always interested in epistemological issues (how do we know what we think we know), the evolution of representations (simulations and models), and what may be possible just around the corner. We would always like our discussions grounded in technological fact.

  1. Can computers think?
  2. Is my brain a computer?
  3. Why do I hate computers?
  4. Why are computers stupid?
  5. Is reality itself a simulation?
  6. Can we bring coffee to class?
  7. Are characters in a computer game alive?
  8. Can computers have feelings and emotions?
  9. Is the world deterministic but unpredictable?
  10. Can we build computers out of DNA or RNA?
  11. Are we simply agents running on some enormous computer game?
  12. What are the issues raised by the movies DARK CITY, THE THIRTEENTH FLOOR and AI? How close is fact to fiction?
  13. If what we know of the world is represented by an image on our retina which in turn is represented by neurons firing in our brains, how many levels of representations are there between ourselves and the external world? Can we ever know that world directly?

 

Your topic should be designed around your own interests after consulting with me. Please keep your own copies since I will not return what you turn in on paper, floppy and/or Zip disk.

Some ideas:

  1. Design and write your own Windows application.
  2. The life and contributions of a prominent artificial worlder...
  3. The evolution of some domain of artificial world...
  4. Detailed critique of some film, narrative or collection of works...
  5. The work of the SFI, ICT, Military, Movie and/or Gaming Industries.
  6. The work in academic disciplines...

Some reflections:

  1. Description
  2. Exploration
  3. Critique
  4. Explanation
  5. Understanding
  6. Knowledge
  7. Entailments
  8. Prediction
  9. Accuracy, Precision & Repeatability
  10. Representation & Referrent
  11. Object & Process

 

PLAGIARISM is passing off someone else's work as your own. When you use an important part of someone else's work provide a proper citation. Plagiarized work will not be accepted. I'm interested in your ideas about what others think and do. Reflect on other peoples' ideas but it is your critique of their work that determines your success in this class. Do us all a favor and don't plagiarize...