Culture can be broadly defined as shared behaviours, values, beliefs, adaptive strategies, traits, or ideas that are passed from generation to generation via social learning. In particular, culture is not fixed but evolves over time in response to external and internal pressures, including transmission biases, cognitive transformation, and social structures and processes. Examples of cultures evolved in natural systems include vocal learning (e.g., bird or whale songs), nest building, tool manufacture and use, foraging behaviour, and movement.

Cultural evolution, therefore, is a powerful metaphor and framework to model and design adaptation mechanisms in complex systems across scales. It offers the potential to evolve the individual agents through quasi-global cultural knowledge. Falling under the branch of evolutionary algorithms, there are also intriguing links to artificial creativity and open-ended learning. For example, creative mediums such as music and language have evolved through the substrate of culture in animals.

We are interested in the relationship between biological and artificial cultures: can the cultural models evolved in robot swarms produce a plausible model for animal systems? On the other hand, can insights from how culture evolves in animal systems help us harness cultural evolution as a tool for learning and creativity in robot swarms? These are some of the questions we aim to highlight in an interactive and informal workshop setting. We hope to find synergies and spark collaboration between disciplines in the context of cultural evolution.

Please submit abstracts to planetx.alife2025@gmail.com

Deadline for submission: 12th September [Extended] 20th September

Notifications of acceptance will be sent on a rolling basis (final date: 20th 27th September)