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A.K. Dewdney wrote an article in his column "Computer Recreations" called "Simulated Evolution: wherein bugs learn to hunt bacteria" (Scientific American, May 1

A.K. Dewdney wrote an article in his column "Computer Recreations" called "Simulated Evolution: wherein bugs learn to hunt bacteria" (Scientific American, May 1989, pp 138-141) describing a simple algorithm for virtual bugs to evolve movement patterns where they would find increasingly efficient ways to find "food". A lot of people put this into code and had fun playing with it. I think it influenced quite a few peoples' perception of genetic algorithms because it was just so easy to understand, implement and tweak. We had fun adding "predators" and all sorts of other things into it. Looks like there is a website dedicated to it here: http://www.simulatedevolution.com/ http://www.simulatedevolution.com/

jjwiseman 11y ago
That was probably the seminal article in my computer career. It was the first serious program I wrote, in 1989. The pseudocode for the essential routines were relatively straightforward for me to translate into Commodore BASIC on my C64, but getting acceptable speed to see evolution happen was a challenge. I started out by using the standard tricks I knew (e.g. "." in place of "0", because it's significantly faster in CBM BASIC) but ended up using one of the BASIC compilers for a really big speed boost. I let it run overnight, and when I woke up in the morning and turned on the monitor (a CBM 1701), there they were: Bugs traveling in straight lines to efficiently gather microbes/food. It blew my mind. At that point I decided I could write any program I thought of! It only took me a couple more months to realize that wasn't true. I ended up majoring in Computer Science, taking a class in AI, going to the University of Chicago's Ph.D. program in AI, dropping out of grad school to work on natural language interfaces for NASA robots, and I've been in and out of AI since then and am currently working on a speech interface for drones: http://lemondronor.com/blog/indexphp/2013/3/electric-familiar http://lemondronor.com/blog/indexphp/2013/3/electric-familia... I feel like I owe a lot of the fun and satisfaction I've gotten from programming to A. K. Dewdney and his lucid and compelling Computer Recreations articles. (For A. K. Dewedney's spiritual successor, see Brian Hayes' Computing Science articles for American Scientist magazine.)
wintermouse 11y ago
Simulatedevolution.com is actualy my site and I wrote this program based on that article. In 2009 I was actually contacted by Mike Palmiter who the original article was all about. He has since retired and is still working on related projects such as one called “Darwin’s Aquarium”. -John Nash

jjwiseman 11y ago

That was probably the seminal article in my computer career. It was the first serious program I wrote, in 1989. The pseudocode for the essential routines were relatively straightforward for me to translate into Commodore BASIC on my C64, but getting acceptable speed to see evolution happen was a challenge. I started out by using the standard tricks I knew (e.g. "." in place of "0", because it's significantly faster in CBM BASIC) but ended up using one of the BASIC compilers for a really big speed boost. I let it run overnight, and when I woke up in the morning and turned on the monitor (a CBM 1701), there they were: Bugs traveling in straight lines to efficiently gather microbes/food. It blew my mind. At that point I decided I could write any program I thought of! It only took me a couple more months to realize that wasn't true. I ended up majoring in Computer Science, taking a class in AI, going to the University of Chicago's Ph.D. program in AI, dropping out of grad school to work on natural language interfaces for NASA robots, and I've been in and out of AI since then and am currently working on a speech interface for drones: http://lemondronor.com/blog/indexphp/2013/3/electric-familiar http://lemondronor.com/blog/indexphp/2013/3/electric-familia... I feel like I owe a lot of the fun and satisfaction I've gotten from programming to A. K. Dewdney and his lucid and compelling Computer Recreations articles. (For A. K. Dewedney's spiritual successor, see Brian Hayes' Computing Science articles for American Scientist magazine.)

wintermouse 11y ago

Simulatedevolution.com is actualy my site and I wrote this program based on that article. In 2009 I was actually contacted by Mike Palmiter who the original article was all about. He has since retired and is still working on related projects such as one called “Darwin’s Aquarium”. -John Nash