| The ideas developed in von Neumann's study grew to become cellular automata,
and more recently this has evolved into Artificial Life. |
| Though mostly
concerned with virtual life and the evolution of computer programs, there are
some more physical manifestations. |
| As mentioned in the November 2000 issue of
Scientific American, Hod Lipson and Jordan Pollack of Brandeis University have built a
robot that builds other robots. |
| The mother robot is a program running a
genetic algorithm that evolves robot plans and builds them
with a 3-dimensional printer. |
| The children robots are propelled by little pistons
and guided by neural nets. See
http://golem03.cs-i.brandeis.edu/results.html for animations. Here are pictures of some
of the baby robots. |
|
