Alife

/ə'laɪf/ noun

Definition

Short for 'artificial life,' a field of computer science studying simulated living systems that exhibit lifelike behaviors and evolution.

Etymology

From 'artificial' + 'life,' a neologism coined in the late 1980s by computer scientists studying digital organisms. The term evolved as researchers created programs that reproduce, mutate, and evolve like biological creatures.

Kelly Says

Alife is wild—scientists create digital organisms that breed, compete, and die in computer simulations, discovering that evolution doesn't need to be biological. Some of these creatures develop unexpected solutions that seem more clever than the programmer intended.

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