Alan Dorin, Susan Stepney

Artificial Life (2024) 30 (1): 1–15.

The field called Artificial Life (ALife) coalesced following a workshop organized by Chris Langton in September 1987 (Langton, 1988a). That meeting drew together work that had been largely carried out from the 1950s through to the 1980s. A few years later, Langton became the founding editor of this journal, Artificial Life, which started its life with Volume 1, Issue 1_2 in the (northern) winter of 1993/1994.1 This current issue therefore begins the 30th volume and 30th year of Artificial Life. We think this is a milestone worth celebrating!
In the proceedings of that first workshop, Langton famously defined ALife as the study of “life as it could be,” of “possible life,” in contrast to biology’s study of “life as we know it to be” (on Earth). His stated aim was to derive “a truly general theoretical biology capable of making universal statements about life wherever it may be found and whatever it may be made of ” (Langton, 1988b, p. xvi).

Read the full article at: direct.mit.edu

• Papers