Digital Red Queen: Adversarial Program Evolution in Core War with LLMs

4 months ago

Core War is a competitive programming game where assembly-like programs called 'warriors' fight for control of a virtual computer.
The Digital Red Queen (DRQ) algorithm uses LLMs to evolve warriors through adversarial self-play, leading to increasingly robust strategies.
Warriors employ tactics like self-replication, data bombing, and multithreading to dominate opponents.
DRQ demonstrates convergent evolution, where independently evolved warriors develop similar high-performing behaviors despite different implementations.
Core War serves as a sandbox for studying Red Queen dynamics, offering insights into real-world adversarial scenarios like cybersecurity.
The environment is Turing-complete, allowing for complex, self-modifying code dynamics.
DRQ's minimal self-play loop reveals complex strategies, suggesting broader applications in AI-driven discovery and competitive multi-agent systems.
Sakana AI is advancing this research, exploring AI-driven discovery beyond adversarial programming.

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