Navigating Hyperspace

ELECTRIC SHEEP

The name Electric Sheep comes from Philip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. It realizes the collective dream of sleeping computers from all over the Internet. Electric Sheep is a distributed screen-saver that harnesses idle computers into a render farm with the purpose of animating and evolving artificial life-forms. The project is an attention vortex. It illustrates the process by which the longer and closer one studies something, themore detail and structure appears.

Each variation, called a “Sheep,” is created by the combination of 150 different variables, so the permutations are many. Using a central server, each instance of the software submits its own sheep to a pool where it recombines with other sheep, in a process not unlike sexual reproduction.

The most successful sheep (determined by humans who press the up arrows to vote for their favorite sheep) are more likely to reproduce, so over time the pool of sheep has become quite wonderful and beautiful.

The Electric Sheep project's main page
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