I contributed technical content to an article titled “Researchers Demonstrate the Creation of Artificial Life” on the October 2024 edition of the Pure AI web site. See https://pureai.com/Articles/2024/10/02/Researchers-Demonstrate-the-Creation-of-Artificial-Life.aspx.

The article describes an academic paper where researchers were able to create a digital environment where artificial life (in the form of tiny, self-replicating computer programs) spontaneously generate without direct human intervention.

The research experiments are relatively simple, and are based on a special, super-simple programming language called BFF. Unlike most programming languages such as C++ and Python which have dozens of keywords, instructions, and operations, BFF has just 10 instructions. Each instruction is a single punctuation symbol. The complete 10-symbol instruction set symbols, and their numeric encodings are: less-than = 0, greater-than = 1, left-curly-brace = 2, right-curly-brace = 3, minus-sign = 4, plus-sign = 5, left-square-bracket = 6, right-square-bracket = 7, period = 8, comma = 9.

A BFF program is a sequence of instructions. For example, the 32 random BFF instructions (in numeric form):

00645471220335454616887079591082

form a BFF program. A key idea is that a BFF program can modify itself via the minus-sign (4), plus-sign (5), period (8) and comma (9) instructions.

A primordial digital soup of 2^17 = 131,072 random BFF programs, each with 64 instructions was initialized. The simulated environment repeatedly selects two adjacent 64-instruction programs and combines them into a 128-instruction program, which is then allowed to run, possibly modifying itself. When the 128-instruction program finishes, it is split into two 64-instruction programs, which are returned into the digital soup, replacing their source programs.

The somewhat astonishing result is that from random instructions, self-replicating programs — ones that can make a copies of themselves — arise and quickly dominate the simulated world. A computer program that can self-replicate is one possible definition of artificial life.

Cellular automata are close cousins to tiny programming languages like BFF. Here is one called the Langon Loop. Cell State Colors: 0 = black, 1 = blue, 2 = red, 3 = green, 4 = yellow, 5 = magenta, 6 = white, 7 = cyan.

4.) At time t = 127, the new loop connects to the original loop. 5.) At time t = 128, the new loop separates from the original loop. 6.) At time t = 150, the replication is one step away from completion. 8.) At time t = 151, the new loop is an exact copy of the original loop, and the original loop has rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise.

At first thought, systems such as those studied by the Google researchers, may seem like nothing more than an interesting curiosity. However, these systems have surprising practical applications to the fields of anthropology, political science, sociology, and economics. The idea that self-replicating systems can emerge spontaneously may be useful, but that’s yet to be determined.

Researchers creating artificial life doesn’t bring to mind mad scientists in a laboratory. Pulp science fiction magazines were very popular from the 1930s through the 1950s. Here are three examples where it looks like artificial life might be involved in some way.

Right: “Amazing Stories”, January 1942. Cover art by Malcolm Smith.