PACE IT Potential:
(Artificial) Chemistry meets Software Agents?

Barry McMullin

Dublin City University

PACE IT Potential Workshop
ECLT, 3-5 Mar 2005
(FoilTeX Presentation)

Context: Network Software Agents

• Loosely coupled network of processing nodes.
• Paradigm case: the Internet.
• Software agents execute on the nodes.
• Agents can communicate by message passing.

Replicating Agents: Intra-node

• Intra-node Agent replication commonly used to dynamically adapt to service demands.
• Examples:
  • Apache httpd pool
  • PSQL postmaster pool
  • firefox threads (tabs, windows)
  • etc.

• Replication is intrinsically ``dangerous''
• Tightly constrained (obviously!?)

Replicating Agents: Inter-node

• Any good/benign examples?
• Embedded java/javascript etc.? (sometimes benign at least)
• Usually only one step propagation(?)
• SETI at home? Bittorrent? etc. (do these qualify?)
• Best known examples of autonomously propagating agents are generally malicious:
  • Worms/viruses
  • Adware
  • Spyware
  • Trojans
  • etc.

Two complementary challenges

• Combat malicious propagating agents
• Exploit autonomous propagating agents for constructive purposes

What has this to do with PACE?

A suggested level of analogy (possible influences in both directions?):

• (bio-)molecule -- software agent
• Somatic time cell co-ordination and regulation -- agent ensemble co-ordination and regulation
• Cellular closure(s) -- agent ensemble closure(s)
• ... and evolutionary time? major transitions?

Model systems

Very high level; computationally efficient; but tenuous biological relationships:

• Holland α-Universes
• Coreworld
• Tierra
• Avida
• Alchemy

but not (?):

• Genetic Algorithms
• Genetic Programming
• ANN

Some Current Directions...

• Tierra:
  • Optimisation (execution speed)
  • Specialisation/diversification
• Beyond Tierra:
  • Compartmentation?
  • Regulation?
  • Evolution?

Related Online Resources

• Presentation slides:
  • http://www.eeng.dcu.ie/~alife/talks/bmcm-pace-it-potential-2005/

• DCU Alife Laboratory:
  • http://www.eeng.dcu.ie/~alife/

• Research Institute for Networks and Communications Engineering (RINCE):
  • http://www.rince.ie/

Copyright

This work is copyright ©2005 by Barry McMullin.

Permission is hereby granted to private individuals to access, copy and distribute this work, for purposes of private study only, provided that the distribution is complete and unmodified, is accompanied by this copyright notice, and that no charges are levied. The work may not be accessed or copied, in whole or in part, for commercial purposes, except with the prior written permission of the author.

All other rights reserved.

Copyright © 2005 All Rights Reserved.
Timestamp: 2005-03-03