Emergence of Collective Escaping Strategies of Empathic Caribou Agents in Wolf-caribou Predator-prey Problem

We investigate an approach of applying Genetic Programming for evolution of optimal escaping strategies of a team of caribou agents in the wolfcaribou predator prey problem (WCPPP). The considered case of WCPPP comprises a team of eight caribou agents that attempts to escape from a single yet superior (in terms of sensory abilities, raw speed, and energy) wolf agent in a simulated twodimensional infinite toroidal world. We empirically verified our hypothesis that the incorporation of empathy in caribou agents significantly improves both the efficiency of evolution of the escaping behavior and the effectiveness of such a behavior. This finding could be seen as a verification of the survival value of empathy and the resulting compassionate behavior of the escaping caribou agents. Moreover, considering the fact that a single caribou could never escape from the superior wolf, the ability of the team of empathic caribou agents to escape could also be viewed as an illustration of the emergent nature of successful escaping behavior ? in that the team-level properties are more than a mere sum of the properties of its individual entities.