Deliberate Evolution in Multi-Agent Systems

Evolution in societies of agents is a challenging phenomenon, both from a fundamental perspective and from an applied perspective. In the literature often genetic programming approaches are used and relatively simple agents are considered, which have no deliberate influence on the direction of the process of evolution; e.g., [Cetnarowicz et al., 1996]; [Numaoka, 1996]. This results in agents that have limited autonomy viewed on a time scale covering several generations: the agents are passive with respect to the evolution process, evolution just happens. From a historical biological perspective all species have always been subject to non-autonomous evolution (with the exception of influence by selective breeding strategies). Nowadays the acquistion of knowledge on the relation between DNA structures and properties of individuals, and techniques to manipulate DNA structures opens the perspective of deliberately influencing the direction of evolution, at least partially. This perspective introduces serious, unresolved ethical dilemmas when applied to the natural society.