What Makes a Good Artificial Life Simulation?

This talk is about creating life with code. From micro-organisms up to city-scale social webs, Artificial Life (or ALife) is the study of living systems through simulation; mimicking the natural world so we can examine it, tear it apart and see what happens if we put it back together just a bit differently. Well before ‘LLMs’ entered the fray, ‘agents’ were the inhabitants of these simulations. I’ll open with a history of the field, beginning with parasitic computer viruses. I’ll then dig into what happens when the agents get bodies and have to learn to walk and co-operate. Finally, I’ll arrive at the modern day: LLM-powered virtual humans with memories, relationships, routines and grudges.But however impressive the technology gets, every generation of Alife research tries to answer the same question: what's actually needed for something lifelike to emerge? And what does ‘lifelike' even mean?

About Tom Appleyard:
Tom Appleyard is a Solutions Architect and Developer Advocate. He's spent most of his career translating technical information for businesspeople and engineers alike; providing intuitions they can think with, tangible skills they can build with and how to present & communicate it all themselves. This has spanned everything from crash courses to paid workshops at community meetups and major conferences.