> But I do have a feeling that in order to get something truly novel and interesting it's going to have to "evolve" in an "environment" and the challenge will b

> But I do have a feeling that in order to get something truly novel and interesting it's going to have to "evolve" in an "environment" and the challenge will be in identifying whether a particular instance of primordial soup is on its way to developing more complex structures. I thought that way for a long time too which is why I chased the cellular automata ideas and eventually implemented many varieties. But nowadays, I think its all mostly torched by magnitudes. The closest chance we have is not relying on the magnitudes. Instead of trying to evolve a universe, or variety of entities - we need to focus on a single entity. I thought AI had a flawed premise, like you mention: attempting to develop single individual is directly antithetical to how life normally develops. None the less, my mind is changed since my automata dabblings. Single individual engineering is the only method that has the slimmest chance in hell.