An open-ended evolutionary (OEE) system, conceived to be part of artificially intelligent systems (biological or otherwise), has been vaguely defined as one capable of producing a continual stream of novel organisms, rather than one settling on some quasi-stable state beyond which nothing fundamentally new occurs. The first OEE workshop, organized at the University of York during 2015, makes an attempt to carve out a new perspective for OEE by creating a common framework for evaluating research and to catalyze further progress in this direction.

The York workshop on OEE consisted of two major sessions: the first contained a total of 14 short presentations followed by a second session involving open discussion. There was very little in common in the 14 different short presentations, all of which attempted to provide clarity on the concept of OEE by trying to define the perspective, by setting out its future goals, or by chalking out its boundaries.

The open discussions involved researchers from a wide cross-section of domains like those working with analytical models, computer models, laboratory experimental systems, and even natural biological communities. These discussions, in a limited, heterodoxical sense, managed to bring convergence to the concept by accepting pluralism as one of the attributes of OEE. Those arguing for diverging views about OEE were required to be precise in their definitions by avoiding conjectures that couldn’t be precisely defined.

The workshop, however, came out with an initial list capturing two significant behavioral hallmarks of OEE. Ongoing adaptive novelty was proposed as one, and ongoing growth of complexity was identified as its companion. The first workshop on OEE concluded by announcing the themes and objectives to be discussed at the second workshop on OEE, in Mexico, which took place in July 2016.

Upon examining the proceedings, I found a session on open-ended evolution with four papers featured at the 2016 Cancun Conference, which published a total of 108 papers under 19 sessions involving artificial life systems, signaling the entry of a new sub-domain of research interest involving the evolution of artificial systems. This brief compilation on the July 2015 workshop, therefore, would be of interest to anyone who would want to learn about the origins of open-ended evolution.