ABSTRACT
The eminent mathematician John von Neumann studied self-reproducing automata in 1946, shortly before his death. He found that self-reproduction is possible with 29 cell states, and proved that a machine could not only reproduce itself, but could also build machines more complex than itself. The research stopped because of his death; however, in 1966, Arthur Burks edited and published von Neumann’s manuscripts. John Conway, a British mathematician, expanded on the work of von Neumann and, in 1970, introduced the Game of Life, which attracted immense interest. Some people became “Game of Life hackers,” programmers and designers more interested in operating computers than in eating; they were not the criminal hackers of today. Hackers at MIT rigorously researched the Game of Life, and their results contributed to advances in computer science and artificial intelligence. The concept of the Game of Life evolved into the “cellular automaton” (CA), which is still widely studied in the field of artificial life. Most of the research on artificial life shares much in common with the world where hackers played in the early days of computers.
