Artificial Life: A Report from the Frontier Where Computers Meet Biology

Author - Steven Levy ... [Goo?] [Posters]

This Paperback Book item from Vintage was reviewed on 3-Nov-2008.

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1) Paperback Book Artificial Life: A Report from the Frontier Where Computers Meet Biology by Vintage. AL is popular science writing of the first order: informative, clear, fascinating, and entertaining. My only disappointment is that it was published in 1992, and thus does not touch on developments in the field since then. I´d love to know how these have panned out, and whether scientists remain enthusiastic about the possibilities of A-Life. Judging from the textbooks on A-life that have been published since 1992, the field is alive, at least, and I can only assume it is well to boot. I´ll have to hunt for bibliography elsewhere. My thanks to Levy for sending me on this hunt. AL is a book to fire the imagination. I´d give it 10 stars!

A note on the metaphysical material in AL that bears on the question of whether present iterations of ´artificial life´ are, or whether future iterations may one day be, sufficiently complex that they should be considered true LIFE: throughout, Levy stresses the essential link between an (´)organism(´) (wet or dry) and its environment. Yet, it seems to me, in discussing the question of the LIFE-status of in-silico ´organisms´, he considers the ´organisms´ alone. I wonder whether this apparent preference reflects his own bias, or a bias on the part of the scientists he profiles? From the perspective of emergent behavior and the capacity to evolve, etc., AL ´creatures´ self-evidently bear a striking resemblance to biological creatures. It strikes me, however, that a key consideration in the wet-life as LIFE versus dry-´life´ as LIFE argument -- is that wet-life organisms express emergent behavior and evolve, etc., in environments that are, throughout, rife with other life, whereas dry-´life´ ´organisms´ do the same in environments that are otherwise sterile (by the standards that A-Life scientists themselves would apply). Some consideration of how environments contribute to the LIFE-status of particular (´)organism(´)s, and of any definition of LIFE (wet or dry) itself, seems to be of the essence. Yet another thought to pursue -- though doubtless ethologists, philosophers, and A-Life scientists have beaten me there. Proof positive that AL is a highly thought-provoking book. Read it!¤

2) Paperback Book Artificial Life: A Report from the Frontier Where Computers Meet Biology by Vintage. I just loved this book. It gives the novice a very good sampling of the future of Artificial Intellegence and Artificial Life. I particularly enjoyed the chapter on the discovery of machine virus´. Somewhat dated, but an extremely good read.¤

3) Paperback Book Artificial Life: A Report from the Frontier Where Computers Meet Biology by Vintage. I have read this book.

It is about artifical intelligence. If you have a computer you will know exactly what I mean. When you hook up a computer, it acts alive, and you gotta interact with it like it is artifically intelligent.

Like when I hook up the voice-recognition thing where you speake into the mikerofone, it acts like it hears you too, and does what it is told to do. Sometimes that is to write a letter, or to tell it to go onto the net.

I told my computer to go onto the net once thru the mike, and it did it, as it was spoken and said what to do.

So if you read and buy this book you will learn to do this, and hook it up yourself. The book has plans and charts to do all this stuff. When you read it, pass it onto a friend, and they may help you once they read it themselves.

I gave this book 5-stars, because it was a very good one, and I will now know how my computer is so smart. I told it what to do, and it help me with this revue to. So buy it but just one time, because a friend and other people will be able to read this for free, once you give it to them.

Engines are my hobbie, and so are electronic power supplys, so I plan to use this book for that to. I will design new ones that are faster than sound, and my computer will be smart and help me with that.

So buy this book, once, and you will like it along with all the friendly people that you knowe.That´s my revuiew, but I will do anew one when a new adition of the book comes out to the press.

I do recomend that you buy this one time for the people who wanto know about how artifical intelligent computers get smarter and help you with life-things you need to do, but not all by yourselfe, but with a computer.¤

4) Paperback Book Artificial Life: A Report from the Frontier Where Computers Meet Biology by Vintage. While the concept of artificial life has been around at least since humans developed self-awareness, the commensurate decline of religion and rise of the scientific method was necessary for it to become a point of real debate. However, it was not until September 1987 when the event occurred that established a-life as an academic discipline, namely a conference devoted to its study. This work uses that event as a starting point, and does a superb job of presenting nearly all perspectives, including historical.
Like its counterpart, artificial intelligence, the discipline of a-life suffers from a lack of definition. There is no agreement on what life or intelligence are. Additional disagreement arises over the following distinctive descriptions of life.

(a) Objects such as rocks can be assigned a life (intelligence) value of zero and as we move upward to humans and beyond, the measure of life (intelligence) characteristics is described by a smooth, continuous function where the first derivative never becomes very large, but is always positive. There is no clearly discernible boundary between life and non-life.

(b) Starting from the same initial position as (a), the derivative stays close to zero for some time, and then suddenly becomes unbounded, as the matter now possesses the fundamental essence of life (intelligence). That point of the vertical derivative is the boundary point between animate and inanimate objects.

Much of this book deals with cellular automata and the algorithms used to create them. Like so many new, perhaps revolutionary disciplines, the major players tend to be free spirits. Many of the people described here bounced around before finding their ecological niche in a-life. With the exception of the originators, John von Neumann and John Horton Conway, those who established the study of cellular automata as an academic discipline were academic outsiders who literally created it from nothing. The explanation of that is very well done. While most of the work has been done by computer, no previous knowledge is necessary to understand the text.
One item could have been better handled, but that is largely due to the problems with definitions. Like the workers in chaos, a-lifers tend to see what they want to see. For example, simple rules are used to create an image that either looks or acts like something known to be alive and this is used to argue that life is being created or that the rules that create life are simple. Which is an extremely weak argument. What is being created are items that human eyes interpret as looking like life, and as all psychologists know, the human brain processes images with a bias towards previous experience. The devil´s advocate against is a shadow here. However, it is difficult to argue in the negative when you are aiming at a nebulous target.
Whatever your interest in a-life, you will find something of value in this book. Biologists and philosophers who teach general education courses will also find a good deal of discussion material. The hypothetical qualification has been removed form the debate, as there are now objects to argue about.

Published in Journal of Recreational Mathematics, reprinted with permission¤

5) Paperback Book Artificial Life: A Report from the Frontier Where Computers Meet Biology by Vintage. I read this more than three years ago, before I started my undergraduate studies. I knew I was going to study computer science, but after reading this book I knew I would forever be drawn to the multidisciplinary fields of biology and computer science. From the question of the origin of life to intelligence, the book convinced me that a new approach is needed to solve these old mysteries.

It´s not a masterpiece of literature, but it was interesting enough to forever change my research career.¤

6) Paperback Book Artificial Life: A Report from the Frontier Where Computers Meet Biology by Vintage. Even as molecular biologists attempt to reproduce life in vitro, another group of scientists is creating life--or something very close to it--in silico, using computers to produce "organisms" that can move, see, feed, reproduce, and die. Photos.¤

Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 1-Dec-2008, 06797438989780679743897, 610-120-400-980-680-541-8

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