Evolution and Collective Intelligence of the Electric Sheep by Scott Draves

This article, released in the book The Art of Artificial Evolution, showcases Draves’s innovative use of distributed computing via a screensaver that animates and evolves fractal art, the Electric Sheep that Draves began in 1999. These sheep are created and evolved through a genetic algorithm influenced by the preferences of thousands of users across a network of 40,000 computers. Users can vote on, modify, and even design sheep, integrating human creativity with artificial evolution. This ongoing project, inspired by the SETI@Home distributed screensaver, melds technology with participatory art, offering a dynamic exploration of aesthetics through collective user engagement and sophisticated algorithmic processes. The work also anticipates much of the neural-network based AI art of today and was based on the ideas of Karl Sims. The system reached its peak in this decade with 450,000 participants.