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A Commentary on Nils Aall Barricelli's "Esempi Numerici di Processi di Evoluzione" (1954)
1Monash University, Department of Data Science and AI, Independent Researcher. tim@tim-taylor.com.
Abstract:
The Italian-Norwegian scientist Nils Aall Barricelli conducted pioneering work on the evolution of digital organisms in the 1950s and 1960s. His paper Esempi Numerici di Processi di Evoluzione (Numerical Examples of Evolutionary Processes), published in the Italian journal Methodos in 1954, is, to the best of our knowledge, the first publication describing experiments in computational evolution and artificial life. Had the paper been more widely known when the field of Artificial Life coalesced as a recognised discipline in the 1980s, there is little doubt that it would have greatly influenced early research directions and established Barricelli as a founding father of the discipline. However, despite the historical significance of the paper, it has until now remained a fairly obscure publication-Methodos ceased publication in 1964, and copies of the paper are hard to find online. In publishing an English translation of the paper in this issue of the Artificial Life journal, we aim to provide a much more widely accessible version of the work. In this accompanying commentary, we provide some scientific and biographical context for the paper, discuss how it relates to Barricelli's earlier and later publications, comment on the process of translating the work and issues that arose in the process of doing so, and reflect on the legacy and significance of the work today.
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