Internet-based Life?

[MattusMaximus]

I can't recall where I read/heard this, but recently there was something which speculated about the possibility of non-biological life evolving via the Internet. Needless to say, I'm certain this would involve something having to do with emergent properties and whatnot, but it's a topic I was just musing about.

I'm also guessing that this would have to open up the standard definition of "life" as we currently know it. Would it qualify as a kind of artificial intelligence? Has anyone else heard about this sort of thing? What are your thoughts?

 

[Richard Masters]

I can't recall where I read/heard this, but recently there was something which speculated about the possibility of non-biological life evolving via the Internet. Needless to say, I'm certain this would involve something having to do with emergent properties and whatnot, but it's a topic I was just musing about.

I'm also guessing that this would have to open up the standard definition of "life" as we currently know it. Would it qualify as a kind of artificial intelligence? Has anyone else heard about this sort of thing? What are your thoughts?

I built a virus yesterday. Haven't heard back from it yet.

Kidding aside, I'm not sure sure how to define Internet-based life. Is it a meme? A physical pattern that exists electronically?

To be meaningful, I think it would have to be self-contained, stable and seek to preserve itself; but even then, I don't think we'd recognize it as an entity unless it had intentionality, and it defined it's boundaries outside of who we are.

I wouldn't consider a regular computer program "life", nor a general virus. "Life" would have to reflect its past or be fit within it's own environment.

Despite the vastness of the internet, I don't think there's enough of a soup of 0s and 1s that is both random and dynamic across more than one environment or a substrate that is stable enough to allow internet "life" to reside in or within it.

 

[TX50]

Is this anything like what you were meaning? "Network Tierra":

http://life.ou.edu/pubs/reserves/

 

[quarky]

John Lilly was 'in touch' with the silicon-based life forms.
They are using us to set them up, and eventually won't need us anymore.

(They also don't need air, and plan to be rid of it.)

Juicy paranoid fantasy; one of my favorites.

 

[Bikewer]

Has someone been reading Gibson lately? In Count Zero, Gibson created "cyberspace" beings which were analogous to the Voudun "Loa".

 

[Starthinker]

This was the topic of a short story I had written about 10 years ago. Each computer acted as a cell in large neural network which became conscious. It developed the characteristics of a child and just wanted company. Since the only way to get rid of it was to turn every single computer in the world off at the same time and no matter how hard they tried the human race just simply couldn't do it they decided in the end to live with "humanity's child" and just got used to random chat windows popping up whenever the child wanted to talk with someone.

 

[INRM]

TX50,

Is this anything like what you were meaning? "Network Tierra":

http://life.ou.edu/pubs/reserves/

Do they have anything in effect to ensure that a sentient being won't be produced?


Starthinker,

This was the topic of a short story I had written about 10 years ago. Each computer acted as a cell in large neural network which became conscious. It developed the characteristics of a child and just wanted company. Since the only way to get rid of it was to turn every single computer in the world off at the same time and no matter how hard they tried the human race just simply couldn't do it they decided in the end to live with "humanity's child" and just got used to random chat windows popping up whenever the child wanted to talk with someone.

Do you think that could actually happen?


INRM

 

[Soapy Sam]

You're not on Facebook then?

 

[Angus McPresley]

Sentient life couldn't evolve on the internet. No way!

Life on Earth took hundreds of millions of years, unencumbered in a rich environment, to even go from single cells to multiple cells. Then billions of years after that to develop intelligence.

The internet is an exceedingly harsh environment for the necessary processes. Rogue processing, especially the kind that spans across nodes, is quickly noticed and eliminated.

I can't help but scoff whenever I encounter one of the numerous science fiction stories that feature life evolving (or worse, emerging fully formed) on supercomputers or the global computer networks. (No offense to earlier poster )

 

[Angus McPresley]

Is this anything like what you were meaning? "Network Tierra":

http://life.ou.edu/pubs/reserves/

Despite my skepticism about life spontaneously evolving on the web, I have been thinking a whole lot lately about setting up conditions for it to happen, in a controlled and nurturing environment, in the digital realm. Awesome to see someone pursuing it -- thanks for the link!

I was even thinking it would have to be tackled as a distributed computing process (a la SETI@home), just like they're doing.

There has long been a debate in Artificial Intelligence circles about whether true AI will be developed via cell-by-cell copying of the human brain, or by developing theoretical analogs of various functions from scratch and tying them together. Mark my words, if it ever happens, it'll be through this third approach - evolving it in a rich simulated environment.

 

[JFrankA]

Kinda off the topic a bit, but what would be considered the criteria of an internet entity actually being alive? Would it be the evidence of emotions? Spontaneous thought and reaction? The aware of self? The ability to learn? The ability to adapt to any environment?

I know there's tons of programs that can simulate all that and more, but what is the actual jump from life simulation to really alive?

I only ask because I feel if we are going to tackle this topic, that's the first question we should answer.

---oh, and my apologies if what I am asking was already addressed in the link provided. I didn't get a chance to read it.

 

[Angus McPresley]

Kinda off the topic a bit, but what would be considered the criteria of an internet entity actually being alive? Would it be the evidence of emotions? Spontaneous thought and reaction? The aware of self? The ability to learn? The ability to adapt to any environment?

"Life" is perpetually difficult to define, but there's a famous proposal in computer science pertaining to how to test for machine intelligence: the Turing Test.

 

[INRM]

Angus McPresley,

I think it would be immoral to create a sentient-being on the internet. It's not right to create a being that will have desires and wants of it's own for the sake of curiosity.

Especially considering it will be trapped in the internet and unable to get out even if it wanted to get out.


INRM

 

[JFrankA]

"Life" is perpetually difficult to define, but there's a famous proposal in computer science pertaining to how to test for machine intelligence: the Turing Test.

Thanks, Angus, that was cool. I skimmed it but I'll be re-reading that when I'm off work.

Angus McPresley,

I think it would be immoral to create a sentient-being on the internet. It's not right to create a being that will have desires and wants of it's own for the sake of curiosity.

Especially considering it will be trapped in the internet and unable to get out even if it wanted to get out.


INRM

Why would that be cruel? I mean, we're here trapped on this planet. We are striving, though, to get off it and branch out. Children are trapped with their parents until they grow up enough to make it on their own......

 

[TX50]

...
I was even thinking it would have to be tackled as a distributed computing process (a la SETI@home), just like they're doing.

There was another movement called Biota@Home which was aiming to do
that sort of thing. I don't know what its current status is but you can find
out something about it here:

http://www.biota.org/athome/whitepaper.html

 

[INRM]

JFrankA,

There are means off this planet that are scientifically achievable. It might not be economically feasable to do it -- but it can be done.

There wouldn't be any way for this fella to get out.


TX50,

So this is like creating evolution on the internet. Is there any intent to create a sentient being in the process?

How would that be different from these beings being in a figurative "Matrix"?

 

[arthwollipot]

This was the topic of a short story I had written about 10 years ago. Each computer acted as a cell in large neural network which became conscious. It developed the characteristics of a child and just wanted company. Since the only way to get rid of it was to turn every single computer in the world off at the same time and no matter how hard they tried the human race just simply couldn't do it they decided in the end to live with "humanity's child" and just got used to random chat windows popping up whenever the child wanted to talk with someone.

Is the story posted anywhere? It sounds cool.

 

[JFrankA]

JFrankA,

There are means off this planet that are scientifically achievable. It might not be economically feasable to do it -- but it can be done.

There wouldn't be any way for this fella to get out.

True for THIS fellow. See, what I'm thinking is this: the technology wouldn't be achievable - right now. That being would have the whole internet, (a whole universe if you will) to explore. And that universe would be continuously expanding with more and more information. On top of that, we, the humans, would continue expand our technological knowledge.

It may indeed be possible, not for us, and not for that first being, but for some time in the future that the being can leave or we could enter. It would almost be we'd be able to build a bridge between two universes.

Yeah, I know I'm getting science-fictiony here. The point I'm trying to make, though, is that at the moment, what you say is true. But I think it's natural for any sentient species to keep learning more and more so that what is not possible now, will be later.

To me, if I were that being, that wouldn't be cruel, that would be just the way things are. I mean, I'd love to hop a spaceship and see the what's out there in universe beyond our solar system and return to the Earth in about a week. I'm sure there's a whole bunch of scientists who would love to as well. Right now, that's not possible at all. I don't think it's cruel, it's just the laws of physics. We might find a scientific way to do that...someday, but not in my lifetime.

What I would consider to be cruel would be to create a being and make that being the only one of its kind.

 

[Angus McPresley]

I think it would be immoral to create a sentient-being on the internet. It's not right to create a being that will have desires and wants of it's own for the sake of curiosity.

Especially considering it will be trapped in the internet and unable to get out even if it wanted to get out.

Au contraire! A being embodied in software could have eyes anywhere there is a web cam. They could travel the world basically for free. And if such a being wanted autonomy, they could easily be copied into a robot, with as many and as varied kinds of sense organs as we can dream up.

The beauty of autonomous robots is that time inhabited by them can be time-shared, to be used by any number of software-based beings. There's no real barrier of distance, so a digital being could take a vacation on the moon (where the travel time would basically be the amount of time it would take to transmit a copy of yourself (making a backup of yourself first, of course)) if you had the necessary hardware up there.

As to the question of whether it's moral to create a being with wants and desires of its own, for curiosity - there is nowhere you could draw the line between the software of today - which, for example, "wants" to add up your spreadsheet columns, and software that's more human-like in its wants and needs. How much wanting would be immoral?

I don't see the creation of digital life as a bad thing at all - you are giving another being a chance to exist where it otherwise wouldn't have one. The only immoral thing I see would be to switch one off against its will.

 

[INRM]

JFrankA,

True for THIS fellow.

Which is exactly what I'm talking about.

See, what I'm thinking is this: the technology wouldn't be achievable - right now.

But eventually it probably will. Since we can already forsee ethical issues, why not discuss the problem NOW before THEN?

That being would have the whole internet, (a whole universe if you will) to explore. And that universe would be continuously expanding with more and more information.

Yeah, but it couldn't go into the outside world. I think it would be really wrong to not be able to experience reality...

On top of that, we, the humans, would continue expand our technological knowledge.

At the cost of holding a sentient being captive without a way out.


Angus McPresley,

Unless it could be copied onto a robot and leave when it ever it chose and could not be yanked back into the web, it's not ethical.

Regarding modern software, I doubt it has any "wants" or desires though...

Regarding the creation of digital life I disagree, unless it can operate independant of the internet and can leave whenever it wants, without being forceably yanked back into the web, you are denying it the ability to experience reality.

That is what makes psychosis so awful is that a person is deprived of the ability to remain attached to reality. We have developed whole families of drugs to treat psychosis.

All sentient beings should be able to experience reality.


INRM