Abstract
A population of artifacts that increase the energy extracted from the environment by the individuals that use them evolves through selective reproduction of artifacts and the addition of randomly generated new variants. In a series of simulations we explore the consequences of adopting different criteria for selecting artifacts for reproduction and the effects of importing better quality artifacts from a technologically more adavanced population to a less advanced one. The main results are: (a) the best selection strategy is to have individuals with the same energy extraction capacity test all the artifacts; (b) artifacts tend to amplify interindividual differences in extracted energy; (c) better imported artifacts accelerate technological progress only if they are not too few in number; in any case the acceleration effect appears to be temporary.
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© 1999 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Ugolini, M., Parisi, D. (1999). Simulating the Evolution of Artifacts. In: Floreano, D., Nicoud, JD., Mondada, F. (eds) Advances in Artificial Life. ECAL 1999. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 1674. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-48304-7_67
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-48304-7_67
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-66452-9
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