Herself’s Artificial Intelligence

There are several tutorials and examples on the source forge site.

JGAP (pronounced “jay-gap”) is a Genetic Algorithms and Genetic Programming component provided as a Java framework. It provides basic genetic mechanisms that can be easily used to apply evolutionary principles to problem solutions. See the examples for a demonstration or watch out the graphical tree that can be created with JGAP for found solutions of genetically evolved programs.

JGAP was designed to be very easy to use “out of the box”, while also designed to be highly modular so that more adventurous users can easily plug-in custom genetic operators and other sub-components.

Download and more information at JGAP at SourceForge

More information:
Traveling Salesman problem solved with JGAP ( pdf )
A Genetic Algorithm Based Mobile Sensor Network Deployment Algorithm ( pdf )

Ah and we take another step closer to cylons and the world of Cory Doctrow.

Look at your computer setup and imagine that you hooked up a 3D printer. Instead of printing on bits of paper this 3D printer makes real, robust, mechanical parts. To give you an idea of how robust, think Lego bricks and you’re in the right area. You could make lots of useful stuff, but interestingly you could also make most of the parts to make another 3D printer. That would be a machine that could copy itself.

RepRap is short for Replicating Rapid-prototyper. It is the practical self-copying 3D printer shown on the right - a self-replicating machine. [ read more from the RepRap home page]

More information:
RepRap blog has available kits to build your own RepRap.
Documentation

And see also:
Five ways to print your own 3d objects ( SciAm slide show )

The Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation thinks religion is just a part of evolution. How totally fitting is it that those least likely to believe the theory of evolution because of religious beliefs do so because of evolution?

The reason this is here on the AI blog is because this was tested using sims. The code is open source. You can download a copy of “Evogod” and read the papers ‘Is Religion an Evolutionary Adaptation? for yourself.

If you are interesting in building sim worlds this this is a great place to start.