1986

Artificial life

• Information, energy, matter flow
• as in natural living systems
• or as in alien worlds
• teeming in infinity.
• We can simulate life
• with a computer or game algorithm,
• we can manufacture life
• with robots or other mechanical systems,
• and we can synthesize life
• with biochemistry.
• Artificial life,
• soft, hard, or wet,
• can help us understand
• the processes of living systems.

Artificial mashups

• 1.
• Here we simulate
• robots of the future
• controlled by synthetic DNA.
• 2.
• We implement neural networks
• with generically engineered bacteria
• designed to perform advanced reasoning.
• 3.
• We let randomly tweaked genetic codes
• evolve in special yeast cells
• to behave in industrially useful ways.
• 4.
• We marry the strength and scale
• of mechanical systems and the sensitivity
• and adaptability of biological systems.
• 5.
• We design DNA sequences implementing algorithms.
• We clone them into bacteria by the thousands
• and let them cross-breed to solve math problems.
• 6.
• We implement thought experiments
• from which agents of superior life-forms
• will gradually evolve.
• 7.
• Our exoplanetary rovers replicate themselves
• from materials available in space
• to explore new worlds in unexpected ways.
• 8.
• Our rovers have begun to communicate
• among themselves in a language
• that frankly we don’t understand.

The word

• About the word, we can argue
• whether it’s only a simulation
• or the essence of life itself.
• We may speculate what existed
• at the beginning, perhaps with God
• and coincidentally also God.