Workgroup

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1 Objectives
- 1.1 Defined Objectives
- 1.2 Original Email Correspondence
2 Audio
3 Mailing List
4 Members

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Objectives

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Defined Objectives

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Solve the Value Problem

Translate the artificial life community's understanding of the value of artificial life into real-world value (ie value that can be established by an external observer).

Communicate this value in responses to real-world issues and intellectual/scientific/technological movements.

Workgroup: Value-SIG

Mailing List: http://lists.ccon.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/value

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Assist the Teaching

Establish a list of academic institutions currently teaching artificial life courses.

Develop support material for these courses and assist in the unification of artificial life teaching.

Workgroup: Teaching-SIG

Mailing List: http://lists.ccon.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/teaching

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Industry Outreach

Establish a list of industrial uses of artificial life including examples of companies using artificial life (both explicitly and implicitly).

Develop support material for these industries and assist in the development of artificial life for industry.

Workgroup: Industry-SIG

Mailing List: http://lists.ccon.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/industry

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Media Outreach

Plan press approaches for things like Forty Years of Conway's Life and other related media contact events.

Workgroup: Media-SIG

Mailing List: http://lists.ccon.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/media

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Artificial Life Art Community Outreach

Workgroup: Art-SIG

Mailing List: http://lists.ccon.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/art

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Original Email Correspondence

The aim of this workgroup comes from an email sent from Tom Barbalet to Mark Bedau in May 2009.

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The Value Problem

... the most important problem that needs to be solved is the question of the value of artificial life for an external observer and how we can translate the collective community's knowledge and sense of the value in artificial life and translate that into real-world value.

... this problem is really about definition and representation. There are a number of real-world value examples from the artificial life community which have either failed to translate back into value in the community or have been exploited through lack of definition and representation.

iRobot is a good example of this. iRobot is fundamentally a hard artificial life company that is phenomenally successful. Whilst it produces a number of ethical questions about its military robotics, it still should be an active contributor back into the artificial life community. Yet it is not.

Last year, I talked with Ed Seufert on Biota Live over a few episodes. Ed works at Eli Lily and uses artificial life algorithms to match compounds with potential research avenues. Thus producing more novel and considerably faster results than could be achieved by a traditional human-centric approach. This, again, should be heralded as artificial life in industry and actively contribute back into the artificial life community. Yet it does not.

I think what I proposed to you is still a good method even with the current economic situation which seems to see more of the community unemployed and certainly a substantial majority not earning a living from their artificial life related knowledge. As you may recall I proposed a unification in the teaching of artificial life in universities the world over and also an active interest from ISAL in finding, documenting and publicizing the use of artificial life in industry. This is done with the view that these industries would also see the value and potentially contribute back to ISAL or strengthen their own recognition of artificial life.

It is not that artificial life doesn't have immense value that contributes both to academia and industry, it is that this value is currently hidden through lack of organization. I think that's the challenge to ISAL and the broader artificial life community.

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Academic Teaching

1) Create a list of all courses taught internationally featuring artificial life or artificial life themes

2) Contact the academics teaching these courses and establish if they are members of ISAL. Ideally get the non-members to join.

3) Begin dialogue with these academics to generate a shared artificial life curriculum. This should be done at the same time as the industry uses of artificial life are identified so the course work both strengthens the academic and industrial use of artificial life.

4) Publish (online) the shared curriculum definition (possibly as a draft for further feedback) and consider approaching a text book publisher to begin to publish text books for use in artificial life courses.

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Use in Industry

1) Create a list of all possible uses of artificial life in industry and identify companies using artificial life in this way.

2) Approach companies as an industry organization looking to document and improve their use of artificial life with the connection to academia.

3) At the same time as 2) is underway, look to add/translate some of the mission of ISAL to acknowledge and assist uses of artificial life in industry. This may require a corporate membership addition that would provide the journal and a special recognition of the engineering/science staff using artificial life.

4) Provide continued assistance to strengthen the use of artificial life in industry.

As the dot points show, my sense of the industry use is slightly more fluid but from doing Biota and through my experiences with Noble Ape, I have a good sense of the companies that are currently using artificial life and there may be many more that could be highlighted following a formal shift in ISAL to also assist the use in industry.

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