AI and generalization · 2019

When learning redirects evolution

Learning can change which inherited traits evolve, as well as how quickly they spread. Using simulated foraging agents and a mathematical model, this paper studies environments where food availability changes in cycles. Rapid change can favour an inherited generalist starting point even when individuals learn specialised behaviour. These are results from an abstract model, not observations of biological evolution.

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Aptitude distributions across simulation time compare long and short seasons; the short-season distribution concentrates near intermediate inherited aptitude. — Inherited aptitude over simulation time for long and short seasons. Height is population frequency; “k” denotes thousands of abstract time units. Original Figure 2.
Aguilar, Bennati and Helbing, Figure 2, DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0219502. Cropped from PDF page 10. Source · CC BY 4.0. Cropped the original PDF around the complete figure; rasterized without changing scientific content.
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Journal article

How learning can change the course of evolution

Leonel Aguilar, Stefano Bennati, Dirk Helbing

PLoS ONE · 2019

Summary based on Publisher version, PLOS ONE 14(9):e0219502, 5 September 2019, PDF pages 1, 2, 3, 10.

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0219502