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and not responding to the requirements of human “users”. The output of a genera-
tively creative virtual ecosystem can be of direct aesthetic value, through the genera-
tion of inherently fascinating patterns and behaviours, in the same way that the prod-
ucts of natural evolution are an endless source of aesthetic fascination. This is based
on the assumption that complex structure and behaviour geared to an emerging pur-
pose, one that is generated from within the system, is meaningful and compelling.
This may require the hands of a skilled artist to be fully realised. It may also be pos-
sible to develop methodologies that allow creative design to become more tightly
coupled with simulated ecosystemic processes, so that someone working within a
creative domain can apply ecosystemic tools in order to generate novel outputs that
are appropriate to that domain.
Given the generatively creative potency of natural evolution, artificial evolution-
ary ecosystems, if successful, might demonstrate computational generative creativ-
ity applicable to artistic outputs. But more commonplace generative creativity can
be found in existing approaches to creative computing (Whitelaw 2004 ), for exam-
ple in which stochastic processes can be used to generate infinite variations on a
theme. A common practice in electronic music production is to implement rich gen-
erative processes that exhibit constant variation within given bounds and then either
search the parameter space of such processes for good settings which can be used as
required, or record the output of the process for a long time and select good sections
from this recording as raw material. In both cases, a generative creative process (one
which is in no way coupled to the outside world of value, and also, in most cases,
has no internal value system either) is itself a creative output, but also plays the role
of a tool for generating useful output. Such systems can only be involved in adap-
tively creative processes with an adaptively creative individual masterminding this
process.
Multi-agent approaches such as the ecosystemic approach discussed here, and
attempts at creative social models, such as those of Miranda et al. ( 2003 ), are also
different in that they do contain a notion of value internal to the system. This means
that they can potentially be generators of adaptive creativity, and that potentially
we may be able to find ways to couple the value system found within a model to
that found in the outside world. One solution has been proposed by Romero et al.
( 2009 ) in their Hybrid Society model, in which human and artificial users interact
in a shared environment.
14.4.2 Adaptive Creative Systems Can Be Useful to Others
Individual adaptive creativity can be useful to others in two ways: firstly many indi-
vidual innovations, such as washing food, are innovations that are both immediately
useful to the individual that makes the innovation, and also to others who are able
to imitate the behaviour. In this way, imitation and creativity are linked by the fact
that the more adaptively creative one's conspecifics are, the more valuable it is to
imitate their behaviour. They are likely to have discovered behaviours that are useful
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