A.
Artificial life (often abbreviated 'ALife' or 'A-Life') is a field of study wherein researchers examine systems related to natural life, its processes, and its evolution, through the use of simulations with computer models, robotics, genetics, and biochemistry.
B.
Artificial life studies the fundamental processes of living systems in artificial environments in order to gain a deeper understanding of the complex information processing that define such systems.
C.
The discipline was named by Christopher G. Langton, an American theoretical biologist from Los Alamos National Laboratory, in 1986.
D.
There are three main kinds of alife, named for their approaches: soft, from software; hard, from hardware (robotics); and wet, from biochemistry (i.e. synthetic biology).