Artificial life?

Question

Given the development of artificial intelligence and the definition of life as the ability to reason & reproduce, when would a PC virus technically become l'ife jim but not as we know it'?

Answer 1

You need to start with a distinction between a simulation of life, and an actual living organism. This is not always a clear and easy distinction, but it is an essential one. The fundamental difference is between genuine self-organizing matter, and a simulation of self-organizing matter. Matter is deeply mysterious stuff – far more mysterious than most people realize. If string theory is correct, then most of our ordinary daily assumptions about space, time, and matter are radically mistaken. In fact, even if string theory is wrong, whatever takes its place will no doubt have similar implications.

Computer architecture as we know it today can simulate the emerging patterns of self-organizing matter, but ultimately the computer is still programmed. It can demonstrate the principles of self-organizing systems, but material components of the computer are not actually self-organizing. When we learn to engineer neural networks that learn to interact with the world though embodied form (we are beginning to build robots that can actually do this),then the definitions of life begin to become truly blurred, as you suggest. The key to whether the robot is truly LIVING in our ordinary sense of the term, and EXPERIENCING the world, will depend on the underlying engineering principles employed in creating the robot's "nervous system".

I believe that the material of the robot's nervous system will need to be genuinely self-organizing, not just simulating self-organizing processes. For genuine self-organization, the robot's physical elements must be chaotic (what we describe mathematically as a chaotic system is the basis of genuine self-organization). This chaotic nature must spring from the ultimate chaotic/self-organizing nature of the underlying strings which compose the subatomic elements and forces which, in turn, compose the macroscopic material that we perceive. In effect, the material of the robot's construction must ALLOW matter to self-organize of its own accord (rather than just simulating self-organization via underlying complex rules.). The line between simulation and the real deal becomes blurry once a system becomes complex enough, but the bottom-line test is this: If a system that has begun operating can be reinitialized to a certain starting state, then I would say that it is a mere simulation, and not a genuinely self-organizing system. This is because a genuinely self-organizing system exhibits actual emergent properties, and actual emergent properties cannot be reduced to their underlying elements. If we can, even in principle, "rewind" the system, then its properties are not truly emergent, but merely simulations. Or to put it another way, if the only way to rewind the system is to retrace the steps of the underlying quantum mechanical systems, then in fact we CANNOT rewind it at all because quantum uncertainty is a fundamental property of matter at the quantum scale. If this quantum uncertainty is merely simulated by the robot's nervous system (e.g., employing randomizing programs), then in principle it can be rewound (and thus it is not truly a living system), but if the engineering of the robot's body allows actual quantum uncertainty to play a role in the underlying chaotic groundwork of the robot's nervous system, then I think we have good reason to call it living, and we have good reason to assume that if it acts like it is actually experiencing life, then it is indeed experiencing life.

And then Dr. McCoy can say "My God Jim, it's alive! It's not life as we know it, but it's life!"

Answer 2

AI is tricky but I like reason and reproduce...
But lets take nano tech which will also to reproduce and to some extent 'think' but what about reason.
Reason is tricky it's not just 'thinking' through a process as a method of determining an action like a smart pc would do.
Reason implies some sort of awareness which as yet I think remains the main stumbling block for AI....
The whole idea of machine life is for me a bit of a oxymoron,
in my opinion to be a form of advanced life implies to some extent some sort of conscious awareness which is way beyond A I atleast so far....

Answer 3

I think the main reason why artificial intelligence( in PC viruses, robots etc) is not regarded as life is because it has a limited ability to learn (i.e. it can only learn if we tell it how to learn) which usually means it can only learn in a very simple way.

I don't think PC viruses contain much AI since they are usually just programmed to reproduce and annoy people.

Answer 4

It depends what you mean by life. A computer or machine can become 'self aware' but only in electrical and mechanical terms. A computer can only do the required functions that it's programmer programmed it to do only. Or can it? I am currently having a discussion with a friend. It's basically the possibility that some time in the near future computer programmers will allow machines to access the internet and how to use this information. Also that they could programme machines or robots to learn how to programme themselves. This could be devestating. My friend is a Computer Programmer and he is currently contemplating the possibility.

Let's face it, technology has increased an extraordinary amount in the last 30 years, i just feel that one day this will come back to bite us in the ***.

Answer 5

The definition of life is not "the ability to reason and reproduce" otherwise that would exclude anything that couldn't reason. this definition would mean that only a few vertebrates and celaphods would actually count as living. The definition of what counts as life is difficult, the most common one (claiming that the attributes for life are movement, reproduction, sensitivity, growth, respiration, excretion and nutrition) would exclude any non organic form of life.

Answer 6

isn't it purely outstanding that those scientists that have not got faith in introduction can no longer decide how God did it - those are certainly astounding people who've been working in this for years. in the event that they ever create a stay cellular, it relatively is purely one cellular with somewhat basic movements, purely think of what it might take to create a human. God created hundreds of thousands, perchance billions styles of existence, as properly, He created the solar, moon, and so on. Scientists have not created something stay. How can anybody have confidence those scientists whilst they say there's no God?~

Answer 7

i love that some peops are too young to know jim!
makes me feel real old...ta :(
prob but then the government would take it away to a secret location, dissect and examin it then deny all knowledge of it.
not a bad thing.. cos they would invent super dooper prog to get rid of them!

Answer 8

What a difficult question????

Answer 9

jim?