The Emergence of Ontogenic Scaffolding in a Stochastic Development Environment

Evolutionary designs based upon Artificial Ontogenies are beginning to cross from virtual to real environments. In such systems the evolved genotype is an indirect, procedural representation of the final structure. To date, most Artificial Ontogenies have relied upon an error-free development process to generate their phenotypic structure. In this paper we explore the effects and consequences of developmental error on Artificial Ontogenies. In a simple evolutionary design task, and using an indirect procedural representation that lacks the ability to test intermediate results of development, we demonstrate the emergence of ontogenic mechanisms which are able to cope with developmental error.