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\begin{center}
{\LARGE {\bf Second Tierra Workshop Report}}
\end{center}

\section{When and Where}

The Second Tierra Workshop took place at the Santa Fe Institute on
February 2-4, 1996.

\section{Who}

The workshop was attended by the following persons:

\LP

Hayward R Alker\\
Santa Fe Institute\\
1399 Hyde Park Rd\\
Santa Fe, MN 87501\\
alker@santafe.edu\\
505-984-8800\\
After June:\\
VKC330, School of International Relations\\
University of Southern Californa\\
Los Angeles, CA 90089-0043\\
phone: 213-740-2152\\
fax: 213-742-0281\\
e-mail: alker@rcf.usc.edu\\

Manor Askenazi\\
Santa Fe Institute\\
1399 Hyde Park Road\\
Santa Fe, NM  87501\\
phone: 505-984-8800, fax:   505-982-0565\\
manor@santafe.edu\\
http://www.santafe.edu/\verb$~$manor/\\
Parallel Platforms, Subversion\\

Jeremy Bruestle\\
11825 16th Ave. NW\\
Rice, MN 56367\\
612-393-2213\\
melvin@cloudnet.com\\
PC, DOS, Linux\\

Jennifer Cobb\\
3 Main Street\\
Chatham, NY  12060\\
Phone: (518)-392-7634\\
Fax:   (518)-392-6456\\
jcobb@taconic.net\\
Sacred Technology\\

Tarek Elaydi\\
Advanced Network Applications\\
NASA Ames Research Center\\
Mail Stop N233-18\\
Moffett Field, CA 94035-1000\\
Office: (415)-604-1079\\
Fax:    (415)-604-6999\\
Tarek@Atlas.ARC.NASA.gov\\
Networking\\

Linda Feferman\\
298 S. 15th St.\\
San Jose, CA  95112\\
(408) 288-6334 office\\
(408) 288-6333 home\\
(408) 298-2073 fax\\
14 Alcalde Rd.\\
Santa Fe, NM 87505-8721\\
505 466-3292 phone\\
505 466-4911 fax\\
fef@santafe.edu\\
Tierra Video Chronicle\\

Simon Fraser\\
Santa Fe Institute\\
1399 Hyde Park Road\\
Santa Fe, NM  87501\\
phone: 505-984-8800, fax:   505-982-0565\\
smfr@santafe.edu\\
http://www.santafe.edu/\verb$~$smfr/\\
Independent MacTierra\\

Gilly Furse\\
Microsoft Corp\\
Consumer Division\\
One Microsoft Way\\
Redmond, WA 98052-6399\\
phone  (206) 936-7637\\
fax  (206) 936-7329\\
gillyf@microsoft.com\\
Internet Evolution\\

Joseph F. Hart\\
3008 Madison Avenue\\
Niagara Falls, N.Y.  14305\\
Phone:  (716) 284-1871\\
vishart@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu\\
Amiga, VMS\\

Jan Hauser\\
Sun Microsystems Inc.\\
2550 Garcia Ave\\
MS UMIL06-07\\
Mountain View, CA 94043-1100\\
Day (408) 276-3454\\
Hm. (408) 353-4727\\
Jan.Hauser@EBay.Sun.COM\\
Unix\\

Matt Jones\\
Database and Info Specialist\\
Nat'l Center for Ecological Anal. and Synthesis\\
735 State St., Suite 300\\
Santa Barbara, CA 93101\\
Phone: (805)892-2508\\
Fax: (805)892-2510\\
jones@nceas.ucsb.edu\\
Mac\\

Tsukasa Kimezawa\\
Advanced Systems Co., Ltd.\\
ATR Human Information Processing\\
Research Laboratories\\
2-2 Hikaridai Seika-cho Soraku-gun\\
Kyoto 619-02 Japan\\
kim@hip.atr.co.jp\\
Tel. 07749-5-1090\\
Fax. 07749-5-1008\\
Unix\\

Mark S. Meadows\\
Creative Director\\
Construct Internet Design\\
448 Bryant St.\\
San Francisco, CA 94107\\
pighed@construct.net\\
Phone: (415) 512-3975 x111\\
  Fax: (415) 357-2170\\
Visualization\\

Tom Ray\\
ATR Human Information Processing Research Laboratories\\
2-2 Hikaridai Seika-cho Soraku-gun\\
Kyoto 619-02 Japan\\
81-7749-5-1063 (phone), 81-7749-5-1008 (fax)\\
ray@hip.atr.co.jp ray@santafe.edu ray@udel.edu\\
http://www.hip.atr.co.jp/\verb$~$ray\\
Unix, DOS\\

Will Rose\\
850 State Street \#215\\
San Diego, CA 92101\\
 (619) 231-7531\\
 (619) 238-5320 (days)\\
cwr@cts.com\\
OS/2\\

Walter Tackett\\
Neuromedia Studios\\
298 4th Ave Suite \#400\\
San Francisco, CA 94118-2468\\
Phone: 415-386-9258 (home/office, SF)\\
Fax: (415)386-0114\\
tackett@flamingo.stanford.edu\\
Windows95\\

Kurt Thearling\\
Pilot Software\\
1 Canal Park\\
Cambridge, MA 02141\\
(617) 374-1117\\
(617) 374-5555 fax\\
(800) 950-PILOT x1117 toll-free\\
kurt@santafe.edu\\
Parallel Platforms\\

\eLP

This report was drafted by Tom Ray, and revised in light of the
comments offered by Matt, Simon, Manor, Tsukasa, Linda, Gilly,

The participants were funded by the Tierra Workshop from
Santa Fe Institute funds, except: Gilly Furse, Jan Hauser, Tarek Elaydi,
Linda Feferman, Jennifer Cobb, Hayward R Alker, Manor Askenazi, and
Simon Fraser.

The main topics discussed were:

\section{Selection for the evolution of complexity}

Several persons expressed doubts that the network environment
by itself, would be adequate to provide selective forces for
the evolution of complexity.  Manor stated it as the difficulty
of competing against small fast replicators like the 22 byte
creature.  Several suggestions were made as to how features
could be added to create selective pressures for evolution
toward increased complexity:

Simon suggested using the left-over bits in the soup (in the case
of the five bit instruction set, there are three unused bits per
byte) to represent some environmental quality, or resource quantity,
and to allow the creatures to modify these bits.  So the
creatures could develop strategies to modify these bits to make
the environment where they are located more desireable, and perhaps
to attempt to degrade the environment of others.  Subsequently,
during implementation of these ideas in MacTierra, he found that
it was computationally simpler to use a parallel ``environment''
soup, which provides eight bits per byte to play with.

Tarek suggested linking a senescence rate to the real time clock
(rather than to the virtual instruction count).  This would cause
creatures in sleeping soups to degrade an die, further favoring
movement.

Manor suggested periodically taking down Tierra, or otherwise killing all
ceatures in each soup, in order to select against non-mobile creatures.

Walter suggested (after the workshop) that creatures that receive
messages from their offspring on other nodes would be favored,
perhaps my manipulating their positions in the reaper queue.
This would favor creatures that generate offspring across the net.

Tom suggested that we get some results with evolution in the
network environment first, in order to determine if these additional
hacks are really needed.  Tom favors Manor's suggestion if anything,
because it is simple, clean, and would absolutely select for network
mobility.

Tom also explained his conception as to how patterns of resource
availability on the net could drive evolution to higher complexity.
Noise alone probably does not help, since evolution learns patterns,
and there is no pattern in noise.  But where there are patterns,
such as temporal or spatial patterns in the availability of spare
CPU cycles, selection could favor behavior that responds by migrating
across the net to where and when spare cycles can be expected.
However, noise in the form of nodes going down would definetly favor
migrational behavior, or at least distributing offspring across the
net.  Also, the default settings for the network experiment will
include a size neutral slicer mechanism, which removes some of the
advantage to the small fast replicator that Manor warned about.

\section{The status of ports of Tierra to the different platforms}

Most of the developers reported that the network version of Tierra
had been fully implemented on their platform.  These platforms
included: Unix, Linux, Amiga, Mac, VMS.  As Walter had just joined
the group he had not had the opportunity to complete the Windows95
port, but it can be expected in the next few months.  Walter has
also agreed to support Windows NT.  Will Rose had gotten the non-network
version to run under OS/2.  Most developers demonstrated Tierra
running on their platform.

As an experiment, we tried to get network Tierra running simultaneously
on as many platforms as possible.  We were able to run it on Unix, Mac
and VMS.  We discovered that the Mac version could send messages to
other platforms, but could not receive them.  Matt is looking into the
problem.

\section{Demonstration of new Tierra frontend}

Tsukasa-san demonstrated the new Tierra frontend which he has developed.
It runs as a separate process, and communicates with the Tierra process
via sockets.  It provides all the functionality of the Tierra basic
frontend, in terms of the ability to both control and observe the Tierra
process.  In addition, it includes the overview display, and some
new observational abilities.

As it is an independent program we have decided to name it Beagle.
It is considered to be a replacement for the original DOS Beagle program.
Although it presently has none of the same functionalities of the
original DOS Beagle, it will eventually absorb all of those functions.

We intend to drop the overview tool, and remove its code from Tierra,
as it functionality has been replaced by Beagle.

\section{How to generalize the Tierra interface across platforms}

The new Beagle program uses Tcl/Tk to provide its GUI, because
Tcl/Tk is free software, and has been ported to all of the major
platforms.  However, most of the developers expressed a preference
for implementing the GUI with the tools native to their system.
So it was agreed to proceed in that manner.  Tsukasa-san agreed to
work with Will and to attempt to create a clearly defined API for
Beagle by the end of March.  This API will specify an interface that
governs how a frontend sends and receives data from a running Tierra
kernel, and should be generic enough to permit both local and remote
communications with a frontend program.  Once that work is complete,
each developer will begin the task of porting Beagle to their platform
using their native GUI tools.  Many of the important analytical tools
developed in the DOS Beagle program will be ported to a
fully portable, ANSI C library of routines that can be used by frontend
developers for consistency of data presentation among platforms.

\section{How to generalize the socket calls across platforms}

It was agreed that the code in both Tierra and Beagle that
communicates across the net to other Tierras or Beagles
should be modified into an API, so that developers could
replace the socket calls with other forms of communication,
where appropriate.  For example, on the Mac, the sockets between
Tierra and Beagle might be replaced by function calls, while on UNIX a
local node of Tierra may opt to use named pipes to communicate.

\section{Manor Askenazi's efforts to subvert Tierra}

Manor has taken up the challenge of developing methods to subvert the
biodiversity reserve for digital organisms by attempting to industrialize
it.  He is looking for ways to replace the wild digital organisms in the
reserve with application code, a potential security threat first pointed
out by Tsutomu Shimomura at the first Tierra Workshop.

Manor is not interested in using the technique suggested by Tom, of
setting up a trojan node that would flood the net with application code.
Rather he is interested in what he considers to be the more elegant
technique originally suggested by Tsutomu, that hand crafted digital
organisms carrying application codes could be introduced that would be
able to out-compete and replace the wild organisms.

Manor has been working with an approach of first preparing the ground,
by bull-dozing out the wild organisms.  He is using highly optimized fast
replicators that will out-compete any wild organisms, and then commit
suicide, leaving empty soups into which the application burdened organisms
can move unchallenged.

However, he has discovered that under natural conditions, behaviors such
as suicide evolve out before the subversion can be comleted.  So far the
strategy has not been successful.

\section{Simon Fraser's independent MacTierra}

Simon Fraser demonstrated his MacTierra, which he developed from scratch
in Object Pascal on the Macintosh, based on the description of Tierra
in the Artificial Life II proceedings.  Information on this
program is available at: 

http://www.santafe.edu/\verb$~$smfr/mactierra.html

Fraser's MacTierra has a frontend which is far superior to the
frontend of the official Tierra, including the new Beagle frontend.
It includes all kinds of drag and drop and point and click capabilities.
Together with Manor, they demonstrated how easily serious experiments
with Tierra (Manor's subversion efforts) could be done while working in
this environment.

\section{Time Line}

Kurt suggested that Tom present a time line for Tierra development.
Tom presented a only a little in response, and fleshed it out a bit
for this report:

\begin{itemize}

\item March 1996:

Release of Tierra V4.3 incorporating the many innovations
introduced by Joseph, and the latest code from all the developers.

\item April 1996:

Jeremy and Tom cooperate in writing the first network ancestor.
Note: Due to visa problems, Jeremy's arrival in Japan has been
delayed, so Tom will attempt to meet this goal alone, but some
delay can be expected.

Tsukasa and Will cooperate in creating an API for Beagle, the new
Tierra frontend.

\item May 1996:

Artificial Life V conference in Nara, Japan, May 16-18.\\
http://www.hip.atr.co.jp/departments/Dept6/ALife5.html/

Jeremy Bruestle and Joseph Hart arrive in Japan to begin working
full-time on the network Tierra project.

Tests of evolution in a 100+ CPU global network environment begin.

All other developers are invited to design network ancestors.
This should be done ``blind'', without looking at the network
ancestors designed by others, in order to assure a maximum
diversity of design.

The developers begin implementing the new Beagle on their respective
platforms, with native GUI tools.

\item June 1996:

Attempts to recruit more CPUs for the network experiment begin,
but this recruitment will be restricted to those sites that
agree to provide accounts to the Tierra development team.
This restriction is necessary because frequent re-installation is
anticipated during the first year of network testing and development.

\item July 1996:

Efforts begin to move the tools of the old DOS Beagle to the new
network Beagle.

Development begins of new observational tools in response to new
observational needs emerging from the network experiments.

\item Remainder of 1996:

It is expected that the network version of Tierra will be tested for
as much as a year before it is released to the public.  This might
mean a public release in April 1997.

\end{itemize}

\section{Linda Feferman's Presentation of the Tierra Video}

Linda showed the new twenty-two minute Tierra video which she recently
completed.  For information on ordering the video see:
http://www.hip.atr.co.jp/\verb$~$ray/tierra/video.html

Linda indicated her determination to continue to chronicle the development
of the Tierra project.  To this end she conducted video interviews with
many workshop participants.

\section{Tom Ray's Presentation of the Status of the Instruction Sets}

Tom presented the current status of the instruction set with the intent
of partially preparing the developers for the task of writing network
ancestors.  The instruction sets, is the one part of Tierra for which
Tom has reserved the task of coding exclusively to himself.  This is
a bit odd as he is probably the least qualified for the job.

The instruction set code has been developed over a period of years.
Therefore preparation for this presentation required that he review
the code to refresh his memory.  This review process revealed a number
of bugs, inconsistencies and confusions, which were (hopefully)
corrected.  However, there are many new instruction that have never
been put to use, and so no doubt more bugs remain which will only
be revealed when the new instructions are used.

\section{Mark Meadows' Presentation of the VRML Visualization of the
         Tierra Network}

Together with James Waldrop, Mark Meadows developed a visualization
tool for network Tierra.  This tool use the VRML web browser as it's
frontend.  A network Tierra node, sends the data in it's complete
TPing data array, via email, to a script which formats the data so
that it can be visualized by the VRML browser.  A complete description
of the tool, as well as the visualization itself is available at:

http://www.construct.net/tierra/ 

\section{Future workshops}

The Santa Fe Institute has not made a commitment to fund future
Tierra workshops.  However, the possibility exists.  If they will
support it, there will probably be another workshop in about one
year.

\section{Signed by}

Tom Ray,
Hayward R Alker,
Manor Askenazi,
Jennifer Cobb,
Tarek Elaydi,
Linda Feferman,
Simon Fraser,
Gilly Furse,
Joseph Hart,
Jan Hauser,
Matt Jones,
Tsukasa Kimezawa,
Will Rose,
Walter Tackett,
Kurt Thearling,

\end{document}
