neural networks research group
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Artificial Life
Artificial life is a broad field that involves imitating life in software, hardware, and biochemistry. Our work in this area focuses on computational modeling of behavior in simulated agents and teams of agents. In many cases, the behavior is modeled using neural networks and developed using neuroevolution. Specific topics include hierarchical and multimodal behaviors, social behavior, cooperation and competition, and communication.
Publications
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Domain-Independent Lifelong Problem Solving through Distributed Alife Actors Babak Hodjat, Hormoz Shahrzad, and Risto Miikkulainen Artificial Life, 30:359-276, 2024. 2024
Neuroevolution Risto Miikkulainen To Appear In Dinh Phung, Claude Sammut and Geoffrey I. Webb, editors, Encyclopedia of Machine Lea... 2022
DIAS: A Domain-Independent Alife-Based Problem-Solving System Babak Hodjat, Hormoz Shahrzad, Risto Miikkulainen In Proceedings of the 2022 Conference on Artificial Life, 2022. 2022
Evolution of Complex Coordinated Behavior Padmini Rajagopalan, Kay E. Holekamp and Risto Miikkulainen In 2020 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC), July 2020. 2020
Factors that Affect the Evolution of Complex Cooperative Behavior Padmini Rajagopalan, Kay E. Holekamp and Risto Miikkulainen In The 2019 Conference on Artificial Life (ALIFE 2019), 333--340, July 2019. 2019
Enhanced Optimization with Composite Objectives and Novelty Selection Hormoz Shahrzad, Daniel Fink and Risto Miikkulainen In Proceedings of the 2018 Conference on Artificial Life, Tokyo, Japan, 2018. 2018
Evolving Artificial Language Through Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning Xun Li and Risto Miikkulainen In Proceedings of the Fifteenth International Conference on the Synthesis and Simulation of Livin... 2016
Machines Are Becoming More Creative Than Humans Risto Miikkulainen VentureBeat, 2016/04/03, 2016. 2016
Evolving Deep LSTM-based Memory networks using an Information Maximization Objective Aditya Rawal and Risto Miikkulainen To Appear In Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO 2016), Colorado, USA, 201... 2016
Distributed Age-Layered Novelty Search Babak Hodjat, Hormoz Shahrzad, and Risto Miikkulainen To Appear In Proceedings of the Fifteenth International Conference on the Synthesis and Simulatio... 2016
Neuroevolution Risto Miikkulainen In Sammut, C. and Webb, G. I., editors, Encyclopedia of Machine Learning, 2nd Edition, Berlin... 2015
Enhancing Divergent Search through Extinction Events Joel Lehman and Risto Miikkulainen To Appear In Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO 2015),... 2015
Trading Control Intelligence for Physical Intelligence: Muscle Drives in Evolved Virtual Creatures Dan Lessin, Don Fussell, Risto Miikkulainen To Appear In Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO) 2014,... 2014
Adapting Morphology to Multiple Tasks in Evolved Virtual Creatures Dan Lessin, Don Fussell, Risto Miikkulainen To Appear In Proceedings of The Fourteenth International Conference on the Synthesis and Simulati... 2014
The Evolution of General Intelligence Padmini Rajagopalan, Kay E. Holekamp and Risto Miikkulainen In Proceedings of The Fourteenth International Conference on the Synthesis and Simulation of Livi... 2014
General Intelligence through Prolonged Evolution of Densely Connected Neural Networks Padmini Rajagopalan, Aditya Rawal, Kay E. Holekamp and Risto Miikkulainen In Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO 2014), Vancouver... 2014
Evolution of Communication in Mate Selection Aditya Rawal, Janette Boughman and Risto Miikkulainen To Appear In Proceedings of The Fourteenth International Conference on the Synthesis and Simulati... 2014
Evolved Virtual Creatures as Content: Increasing Behavioral and Morphological Complexity Dan Lessin PhD Thesis, Computer Science Department, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, December ... 2014
Open-Ended Behavioral Complexity for Evolved Virtual Creatures Dan Lessin, Don Fussell, Risto Miikkulainen In Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO) 2013, 2013. 2013
Accelerating Evolution via Egalitarian Social Learning Wesley Tansey, Eliana Feasley, and Risto Miikkulainen In Proceedings of the 14th Annual Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO 2012) 2012
Task decomposition with neuroevolution in extended predator-prey domain Ashish Jain, Anand Subramoney, Risto Miikkulainen In Proceedings of Thirteenth International Conference on the Synthesis and Simulation of Living S... 2012
Evolution of a Communication Code in Cooperative Tasks Aditya Rawal, Padmini Rajagopalan, Risto Miikkulainen and Kay Holekamp In Artificial Life (13th International Conference on the Synthesis and Simulation of Living Syste... 2012
Evaluating Modular Neuroevolution in Robotic Keepaway Soccer Anand Subramoney Masters Thesis, Department of Computer Science, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, 2012.... 2012
Evolving Multimodal Networks for Multitask Games Jacob Schrum and Risto Miikkulainen In Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence and Games (CIG 2011), 102... 2011
The Role of Reward Structure, Coordination Mechanism and Net Return in the Evolution of Cooperation Padmini Rajagopalan, Aditya Rawal, Risto Miikkulainen, Marc A. Wiseman and Kay E. Holekamp In Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence and Games (CIG 2011), Seo... 2011
Constructing Competitive and Cooperative Agent Behavior Using Coevolution Aditya Rawal, Padmini Rajagopalan and Risto Miikkulainen In IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence and Games (CIG 2010), Copenhagen, Denmark, A... 2010
Coevolution of Role-Based Cooperation in Multi-Agent Systems Chern Han Yong and Risto Miikkulainen IEEE Transactions on Autonomous Mental Development, 1:170--186, 2010. 2010
The Necessity of Separating Control and Logic When Grounding Language Using Neuroevolution Yonatan Bisk Technical Report HR-09-05, Department of Computer Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin, 2009. 2009
People
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Yonatan Bisk Undergraduate Alumni ybisk [at] yo-tech com
Eliana Feasley Former Ph.D. Student elie [at] cs utexas edu
Brad Fullmer Undergraduate Alumni
Babak Hodjat Collaborator babak [at] cognizant com
Kay E. Holekamp Former Collaborator holekamp [at] msu edu
Dan Lessin Ph.D. Alumni dlessin [at] cs utexas edu
Xun Li Ph.D. Alumni xun bhsfer [at] cs utexas edu
Risto Miikkulainen Faculty risto [at] cs utexas edu
Padmini Rajagopalan Postdoctoral Alumni padminir [at] utexas edu
Aditya Rawal Ph.D. Alumni aditya [at] cs utexas edu
Wesley Tansey Former Collaborator tansey [at] cs utexas edu
Chern Han Yong Masters Alumni cherny [at] nus edu sg
Projects
The Role of Emotion and Communication in Cooperative Behavior 2013 - 2016
Learning Strategic Behavior in Sequential Decision Tasks 2009 - 2014
Cooperative Coevolution of Multi-Agent Systems 2000 - 2007
Demos
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Software/Data
NEAT C++ The NEAT package contains source code implementing the NeuroEvolution of Augmenting Topologies method. The source code i... 2010
ESP JAVA 1.1 The ESP package contains the source code for the Enforced Sup-Populations system written in Java. This package is a near... 2002
ESP C++ The ESP package contains the source code for the Enforced Sup-Populations system written in C++. ESP is an extension t... 2000
SANE-C The SANE-C package contains the source code for the Hierarchical SANE system, written in C. This package has been rewrit... 1997
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