Intelligence and Complex Environments

My principal interests are in understanding the evolution of intelligence in biological and digital systems. To this end, I propose to work on evolving complex animal-like behavior in silico. I want to design and test digital systems which are open-ended and which generate complex behavior. In other words, computer generated ecologies which change over time in response to organisms capable of evolution and speciation. These digital worlds will provide an ever-changing environment forcing the organisms to continually evolve to deal with new problems and exploit new niches. I believe that this type of system will be an incubator capable of developing complex animal-like behavior and in the long term intelligence.