A-life

In difference to a standard AI, an a-life is not only a program that exhibits intelligent-seeming rule-based behaviour, but has, within the confines of its parameters, the ability to rewrite itself for efficiency. In other words, the defining difference between artificial intelligence and artificial life is the ability to self-rewrite.

The programming paradigm behind self-writing concepts requires a certain flavour of thought, making it a highly specialised area of expertise that only few indulge in.

Most a-life projects end in tears even in sandbox development. Projects that survive beyond early testing stages frequently make whole branches of coding obsolete, so there is little interest by classic programmers to flock to this technology.

An instinctual understanding of recursion is the most basic trait of any a-life programmer.

Copyright

A-life programs start out as very small pieces of code that grow themselves. They're called seeds. Because they can re-write themselves, copyright is something of a debated issue on the resulting programs - copyright is largely considered to only be had on the actual seeds and extremely early development, not on the evolving program.

To avoid this being exploited, most nations have a clause that disallows the decompiling of a-life programs on ethical grounds. Simple copying of the binary code cannot be disallowed and is not disallowed, but since a program continually evolves and there is no final stage, few companies try to profit from copied binaries.

Notable projects

Aeonis's genAesis seed is considered a prime example of a functioning, stable a-life.