Here’s an article on a virtual life experiment in the “online world” Second Life. To AI folks, it’s nothing groundbreaking: fish with flocking algorithms, fine-tuned by some artificial selection (upcoming plans seem to include sexual reproduction and natural selection). What’s really interesting is the social context. Second Life is a subscriber system providing a 3D world for interaction, gaming, and just plain messing around with stuff. It’s got its own scripting language and some tools for making in-system objects, and that’s what Surina Skallagrimson used to create her fishes.

What this means is, if you’re a SL subscriber you can visit these fish in their natural environment. The artifishies (sorry, couldn’t resist) are hanging out in a shared public virtual space. I don’t know if this is unique, but it’s the first ALife project I’ve heard about that doesn’t reside in its own purpose-built sandbox.

There is a SL group devoted to ALife, but you’ve got to be a subscriber to even view the forums :-( Still, this looks pretty promising. It costs, which counts me out at the moment (not much, but I could also see it devouring time). I’d hope to see more of this sort of thing in the coming years though, when *sigh* I have an income.

(Found via the excellent blog collision detection.)