co-evolution

Definition

Two or more parties improving against each other, where each side's progress raises the difficulty facing the other — a proposer and a solver, a generator and a discriminator, agents competing in a shared environment. The appeal is an automatic curriculum: no external source of harder problems is required. The failure mode is instability, where one side outpaces the other and the training signal degenerates.

Explainers using this term

• Paper Walkthrough — J-Zero: Growing the Challenger, the Solver, and the Judge Together from Zero DataJ-Zero: Unified Challenger--Solver--Judge Co-Evolution from Zero Data
• Paper Explained: Co-Evolution in Agentic Systems — Three Stages Toward Self-Directed EvolutionCo-Evolution in Agentic Systems: Toward Self-Directed Evolution Beyond Human Design