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Harmless artificial life forms are loose on the Internet; computer
viruses and even robots are now able to evolve like their biological counterparts.
British Telecom is sending small packets of software to go forth and multiply
to cope with ever-increasing telephone traffic. Protein-based computers are on
the agenda and a team in Japan are building an organic brain as clever as a kitten.
Welcome to the startling world of Artificial Life. Artificial
Life scientists are taking inanimate materials such as computer software and robots
and making them behave just like living organisms. In the process they are discovering
much about what drives evolution and just what it means to say that something
is alive. Virtual Organisms traces the origins
of this field from the days when it was practised by a few maverick scientists
to the present day and the current boom in ALife research. Now ALife is beginning
to help us understand not only what it means to be alive but also what it means
to be human. The book begins with a survey of current
ideas about the origins of life and the engines of evolution. It takes the insights
of this work and shows how ALife researchers are taking them up and moving them
on. It traces the main themes in ALife research, focuses on key researchers and
details seminal experiments. Virtual Organisms shows
how the convergence of technology with biology has big implications. Artificial
Life today is evolving beyond even its designers' control. Despite
having the dullest name in journalism, Mark Ward has managed to make a career
out of writing about technology. He began in 1992 as a trainee reporter on the
trade magazine Computer Weekly and now has progressed via New Scientist
to the Daily Telegraph. He is constantly amazed that people will pay
him to write about the subjects that fascinate him. |
