A computational evolutionary approach to evolving game strategy and cooperation

This paper describes an approach to the co-evolution of competing virtual creatures. Pairs of individuals enter one-on-one contests in which they contend to establish contact with a common resource. The individuals are subjected to competitive fitness functions. In each tournament one type of organism implements a game rule based on a set of basic cognitive capabilities. The second type of contestant genetically determines its game strategy. Interesting strategy patterns are identified when this evolutionary process is simulated on populations of competing individuals. These experiments show how cooperation emerges in order to improve both individual and collective game performances.