A new artificial life formalization model: a worm with a Bayesian brain

Abstract

This paper shows an application of Bayesian Programming to model a simple artificial life problem: that of a worm trying to live in a world full of poison. Any model of a real phenomenon is incomplete because there will always exist unknown, hidden variables that influence the phenomenon. To solve this problem we apply a new formalism, Bayesian programming, which has previously been used in autonomous robot programming. The proposed worm model has been used to train a population of worms using genetic algorithms. We will see the advantages of our method compared with a classical approach. Finally, we discuss the emergent behaviour patterns we observed in some of the worms and conclude by explaining the advantages of the applied method.