I’ve mentioned this sort of thing previously – my favorite being the post on artificial fish inside the Second Life virtual simulation (reLink). Now comes news via the 3pointD blog of something a bit different: an artificial world for only artificial people (no jokes please). According to 3pointD’s source, an article on Science A Go-Go (Link), it’s much more ambitious than most AI projects. From the article:

A fascinating experiment into personality and social interaction in which millions of software agents will potentially evolve their own culture is about to be switched on by five European research institutes. The NEW TIES project will be a virtual world populated by randomly generated software beings, capable of developing their own language and society.

Food for thought. But this is a buffet:

The computer scientists on the other hand want to develop and study machine collaboration, with an eye on future applications in robotics,” he added.

Imagine if one of these artificial creatures fabs itself. Will it be a classified as a “living” thing? If not, could it split into a kirkyan? Interesting stuff.

What will tomorrow’s parties bring?