Finding a Mate With No Social Skills

Sexual reproductive behavior has a necessary social coordination component as willing and capable partners must both be in the right place at the right time. While there are many known social behavioral adaptations to support solutions to this problem, we explore the possibility and likelihood of solutions that rely only on non-social mechanisms. We find three kinds of social organization that help solve this social coordination problem (herding, assortative mating, and natal philopatry) emerge in populations of simulated agents with no social mechanisms available to support these organizations. We conclude that the non-social origins of these social organizations around sexual reproduction may provide the environment for the development of social solutions to the same and different problems.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, GECCO'1

Social Learning and Cultural Evolution in Artificial Life

We describe the questions and discussions raised at the First Workshop on Social Learning and Cultural Evolution held at the Artificial Life Conference 2016 in Cancun, Mexico in July 2016. The purpose of the workshop was to assemble artificial life researchers interested in social learning and cultural evolution into one group so that we could focus on recent work and interesting open questions. Our discussion related to both the mechanisms of social learning and cultural evolution and the consequences and influence of social learning and cultural evolution on living systems. We present the contributions of our workshop presenters and conclude with a discussion of the more important open questions in this area