Roli Andrea, Kauffman Stuart A
Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna, Campus of Cesena, I-47522 Cesena, Italy.
European Centre for Living Technology, I-30123 Venezia, Italy.
Entropy (Basel). 2020 Oct 16;22(10):1163. doi: 10.3390/e22101163.
Since early cybernetics studies by Wiener, Pask, and Ashby, the properties of living systems are subject to deep investigations. The goals of this endeavour are both understanding and building: abstract models and general principles are sought for describing organisms, their dynamics and their ability to produce adaptive behavior. This research has achieved prominent results in fields such as artificial intelligence and artificial life. For example, today we have robots capable of exploring hostile environments with high level of self-sufficiency, planning capabilities and able to learn. Nevertheless, the discrepancy between the emergence and evolution of life and artificial systems is still huge. In this paper, we identify the fundamental elements that characterize the evolution of the biosphere and open-ended evolution, and we illustrate their implications for the evolution of artificial systems. Subsequently, we discuss the most relevant issues and questions that this viewpoint poses both for biological and artificial systems.
自维纳、帕斯克和阿什比早期进行控制论研究以来，生命系统的特性一直受到深入研究。这项工作的目标包括理解和构建：寻求抽象模型和一般原则来描述生物体、它们的动态以及产生适应性行为的能力。这项研究在人工智能和人工生命等领域取得了显著成果。例如，如今我们拥有能够在高度自给自足、具备规划能力且能够学习的情况下探索恶劣环境的机器人。然而，生命与人工系统的出现和进化之间的差距仍然巨大。在本文中，我们确定了表征生物圈进化和开放式进化的基本要素，并阐述了它们对人工系统进化的影响。随后，我们讨论了这一观点给生物系统和人工系统带来的最相关问题。
