Artificial Life created

[myata]

Dr Venter institute has reported creation of bacteria species controlled entirely by artificial DNA:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science_and_environment/10132762.stm

This sounds like stuff right off sci fi shelf. It's sure to spark discussions in many disciplines.

[wyly]

Dr Venter institute has reported creation of bacteria species controlled entirely by artificial DNA:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science_and_environment/10132762.stm

This sounds like stuff right off sci fi shelf. It's sure to spark discussions in many disciplines.

artificial intelligence, artificial DNA...man creating self aware life is only a few steps away...will that make us Gods?...

[myata]

artificial intelligence, artificial DNA...man creating self aware life is only a few steps away...will that make us Gods?...

Not gods, for sure, as we're almost certain to find a way to screw it up. But it'll sure add more fun into the equation... even if we don't really need any more, busy as we are sorting out what was already created before us.

[wyly]

Not gods, for sure, as we're almost certain to find a way to screw it up. But it'll sure add more fun into the equation... even if we don't really need any more, busy as we are sorting out what was already created before us.

it's something I contemplate...if man creates a self aware computer or life form do we have the right to terminate them and not call it murder?..if they're self aware are we creating slaves?

[myata]

it's something I contemplate...if man creates a self aware computer or life form do we have the right to terminate them and not call it murder?..if they're self aware are we creating slaves?

"Right" in what sense? Since the times of great apes (and probably long before them, maybe even as a basic principle of life) "right" really means "can". So, we either terminate them (and call it something, like e.g. "harvest of intelligence"). Or, the other way around. Either way, the fittest will survive and life advances.

[Bonam]

1. Man created the concept of god, so what does that make us?

http://xkcd.com/676/

2. Creating bacteria is a long way from creating self-aware lifeforms, though of course accelerating technological progress will allow us to reach that level within a few decades probably.

3. If we do create intelligent self-aware lifeforms they will inevitably have to be given (or will take for themselves) rights of some sort, but I would expect there would always be a far greater demand for inherently subservient artificial lifeforms, that are programmed that way and do not have the capacity to think otherwise. For example, think of all the applications of the bacteria mentioned in the article - they can be immensely useful and them being bacteria, there are no moral questions of free will, slavery, or morality to be considered.

[Bonam]

"Right" in what sense? Since the times of great apes (and probably long before them, maybe even as a basic principle of life) "right" really means "can". So, we either terminate them (and call it something, like e.g. "harvest of intelligence"). Or, the other way around. Either way, the fittest will survive and life advances.

There really is no "us and them" when it comes to artificial lifeforms. Humans live in symbiosis with the machines that we create. This will continue as our creations become more advanced, and we will form a joint human-machine civilization (some would argue we already have). Don't forget that techniques for artificial intelligence, genetic manipulation, etc, can be applied just as much to humans as to other lifeforms.

Why live with a weak biological immune system when you can augment it with engineered lifeforms floating through your bloodstream? If a new disease comes along, all you need is a wireless software update and your immune system is ready to go after it.

Why deal with the slow computational speeds of natural neurons, when they can be replaced with artificial ones based on computational substrates that can operate millions of times more quickly, making you orders of magnitude more intelligent?

[GostHacked]

It's both interesting/encouraging and scary at the same time.

As long as this means I can live for a couple hundred years, i'll be for it!!

[Bonam]

It's both interesting/encouraging and scary at the same time.

As long as this means I can live for a couple hundred years, i'll be for it!!

I'd guess that anyone whose natural life doesn't end before 2040-2050 is very likely to have the opportunity to live forever.

[WIP]

Dr Venter institute has reported creation of bacteria species controlled entirely by artificial DNA:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science_and_environment/10132762.stm

This sounds like stuff right off sci fi shelf. It's sure to spark discussions in many disciplines.

No, it was just a matter of time before one of the labs working on this problem, found the right combination of complex protein molecules to be completely independent, self-replicating organisms. They've solved parts of this puzzle previously, but the really exciting aspects are the implications for Abiogenesis - studying how life evolves from self-organizing amino acids.

No one knows the exact pathway that organic molecules organized into chains of amino acids that eventually led to DNA-based life today, but the mostly likely explanation is that an RNA World pre-existed the development of DNA. When self-replicating RNA molecules evolved into the first DNA, it was likely because of its durability for chemical storage. There has only been one form of DNA life that we are aware of. But there were likely a multitude of RNA combinations that developed and perished before DNA came along.

[Michael Hardner]

Just came over the wire that Pamela Anderson married it.

[Oleg Bach]

DNA is a mechnical device..it does not think--life thinks..artifical or natural DNA are machines..so anything created via this process is a machine..not a life---do you hear me Mr. Spock?

[Remiel]

Why deal with the slow computational speeds of natural neurons, when they can be replaced with artificial ones based on computational substrates that can operate millions of times more quickly, making you orders of magnitude more intelligent?

They might do something to you, but it is far too soon to describe it as, "making people more intelligent". Just because we could make artificial neurons that operate faster does not mean that they would operate the same way. There is a lot that we do not know about how the brain processes information that could preclude that sort of augmentation while still keeping the result meaningfully human, or even animal. Tri-Level Hypothesis and all that...

[Remiel]

I'd guess that anyone whose natural life doesn't end before 2040-2050 is very likely to have the opportunity to live forever.

I doubt it. On more levels than just the scientific.

[Bonam]

They might do something to you, but it is far too soon to describe it as, "making people more intelligent". Just because we could make artificial neurons that operate faster does not mean that they would operate the same way. There is a lot that we do not know about how the brain processes information that could preclude that sort of augmentation while still keeping the result meaningfully human, or even animal. Tri-Level Hypothesis and all that...

I didn't mean to say that neural augmentation is viable right now with present technology and science. But I do think it will be possible within the near future, as in within a decade or two or three.

I doubt it. On more levels than just the scientific.

On levels other than the scientific I'm sure you could be right: there are lots of social, political, religious, etc, issues that would be associated with the advent of effective immortality in humans. However, scientifically, I think we'll definitely get there by 2050. Remember that there are many ways to achieve it, not necessarily related to permanently maintaining the youth of your original physical body and brain.

[Remiel]

Remember that there are many ways to achieve it, not necessarily related to permanently maintaining the youth of your original physical body and brain.

I am not sure that there are many ways in which you could not maintain the original brain and still have it be philosophically the same person. Perhaps if you found some way in which for the brain to be gradual taken over by artificial neurons mimicking the normal process of replacement (if neurons even replace the way other cells do), but other than that... I think you need some sort of continuity in a cohesive substance for it to count as the same person.

[Bonam]

I am not sure that there are many ways in which you could not maintain the original brain and still have it be philosophically the same person. Perhaps if you found some way in which for the brain to be gradual taken over by artificial neurons mimicking the normal process of replacement (if neurons even replace the way other cells do), but other than that... I think you need some sort of continuity in a cohesive substance for it to count as the same person.

It's not really the physical material of the brain or any other part of the body that is important. Individual cells are created and destroyed all the time, individual atoms are constantly moving around. What matters is that the pattern remains consistent. In my opinion all it would take is the ability to link the brain with an artificial neural network such that you can use the hardware of that network to think, and then you could do precisely the gradual process you spoke of. Expanding the brains of biological organisms with artificial neural networks has already been demonstrated:

A recent experiment at San Diego's Institute for Nonlinear Science demonstrates the potential for electronic neurons to precisely emulate biological ones. Neurons (biological or otherwise) are a prime example of what is often called "chaotic computing." Each neuron acts in an essentially unpredictable fashion. When an entire network of neurons receives input (from the outside world or from other networks of neurons), the signaling amongst them appears at first to be frenzied and random. Over time, typically a fraction of a second or so, the chaotic interplay of the neurons dies down, and a stable pattern emerges. This pattern represents the "decision" of the neural network. If the neural network is performing a pattern recognition task (which, incidentally, comprises the bulk of the activity in the human brain), then the emergent pattern represents the appropriate recognition.

So the question addressed by the San Diego researchers was whether electronic neurons could engage in this chaotic dance alongside biological ones. They hooked up their artificial neurons with those from spiney lobsters in a single network, and their hybrid biological-nonbiological network performed in the same way (i.e., chaotic interplay followed by a stable emergent pattern) and with the same type of results as an all biological net of neurons. Essentially, the biological neurons accepted their electronic peers. It indicates that their mathematical model of these neurons was reasonably accurate.

http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0134.html?printable=1

That experiment was "recent" about 10 years ago. I'm sure it's advanced a lot since.

The first steps in life extension will be by eradicating diseases through biotechnology and nanotechnology, repairing cell damage associated with aging, replacing failing organs with artificially grown genetically compatible ones, etc. This will extend the lifespan of humans in their natural bodies. But the revolutionary step is basically "brain uploading", where your consciousness exists simultaneously in a physical body as well as in a secure computer bank somewhere (these would be linked wirelessly as part of the same consciousness). If your physical body is destroyed, the consciousness, without loss of continuity, continues to exist, and can then be linked with a new physical body, produced as needed. In this way, you could even have multiple physical bodies at once, and your artificially augmented intelligence would be able to control them all simultaneously.

Open's up some interesting possibilities... for example simultaneously inhabiting a male and female body and doing what you want... ;p

Edited May 21, 2010 by Bonam

[GostHacked]

DNA is a mechnical device..it does not think--life thinks..artifical or natural DNA are machines..so anything created via this process is a machine..not a life---do you hear me Mr. Spock?

Then we are nothing but machines, creations of a 'god'. You hear me Oleg Bach?

Edited May 21, 2010 by GostHacked

[Remiel]

That experiment was "recent" about 10 years ago. I'm sure it's advanced a lot since.

I am not sure that that study really reports everything it is important. Why it says, basically, is that the way the network computes results is the same in both the biological and hybrid cases. It did not really say anything about what was computed, at least as I read it. What I want to know is, " What is hyrbid lobster doing? "

The first steps in life extension will be by eradicating diseases through biotechnology and nanotechnology, repairing cell damage associated with aging, replacing failing organs with artificially grown genetically compatible ones, etc. This will extend the lifespan of humans in their natural bodies. But the revolutionary step is basically "brain uploading", where your consciousness exists simultaneously in a physical body as well as in a secure computer bank somewhere (these would be linked wirelessly as part of the same consciousness). If your physical body is destroyed, the consciousness, without loss of continuity, continues to exist, and can then be linked with a new physical body, produced as needed. In this way, you could even have multiple physical bodies at once, and your artificially augmented intelligence would be able to control them all simultaneously.

Open's up some interesting possibilities... for example simultaneously inhabiting a male and female body and doing what you want... ;p

See, this is the problem as I see it. You have posited that the subject, let's call them, " You, " will be able to simultaneously inhabit multiple bodies connected by a single server. However, what if the connection to the server is lost? Which of the resulting bodies is You? Are none of them You? Is You dead? Was this setup even You to begin with? Did You die/cease to exist during its inception? I am inclined to believe that this last possibility would be the case. If all of this actually comes to happen... it will be both a good and bad time to be a lawyer. Property rights will become a " shit storm, " if I may use the vernacular.

[Bonam]

See, this is the problem as I see it. You have posited that the subject, let's call them, " You, " will be able to simultaneously inhabit multiple bodies connected by a single server. However, what if the connection to the server is lost? Which of the resulting bodies is You? Are none of them You? Is You dead?

Each individual body is not you, they would merely be components of a whole. What if the connection between your finger and your brain is lost? Between your arm and your brain? Are you any less you? No, you have merely lost a part of your body. An artificially augmented human being whose intellect spans (among other things) numerous bodies would be as far above what we now consider to be a human as we are above our components, like fingers or arms.

Was this setup even You to begin with? Did You die/cease to exist during its inception? I am inclined to believe that this last possibility would be the case.

Why would that have been the case?

If all of this actually comes to happen... it will be both a good and bad time to be a lawyer.

Heh it kind of already is.

Anyway, I think there are much more interesting implications than those on the lawyer profession.

Edited May 22, 2010 by Bonam

[Remiel]

Each individual body is not you, they would merely be components of a whole. What if the connection between your finger and your brain is lost? Between your arm and your brain? Are you any less you? No, you have merely lost a part of your body. An artificially augmented human being whose intellect spans (among other things) numerous bodies would be as far above what we now consider to be a human as we are above our components, like fingers or arms.

Your analogy fails. What you are suggesting is that You is originally just a Hand, and somehow transcends to become a whole person with many different parts besides a single Hand, and retains the identity of the Hand. However, this cannot be the case. You is in the beginning a whole You, not part of a You. If You were to somehow become part of a whole MechaYou later on, MechaYou still cannot be the same thing as You. If you start with just a hand... Well, you have a dead hand, and that is it.

Why would that have been the case?

Okay, I may have erred slightly on this one. Either You is part of MechaYou, and could be seperated from the whole later on to continue on independantly as You, assuming You never ceased functioning during its time as a part of a composite entity. Or, You must have died during the process, Yous body having been disconnected from MechaYou and thus the location all the mental processes that characterized You now taking place in a location that is definitely not where You was.

I will admit that the issue is tricky enough that I would like to confer at some point with some of my friends whos realm this is, but I am fairly certain that identity is not as fluid as you make it out to be.

Edited May 22, 2010 by Remiel

[Bonam]

Your analogy fails. What you are suggesting is that You is originally just a Hand, and somehow transcends to become a whole person with many different parts besides a single Hand, and retains the identity of the Hand. However, this cannot be the case. You is in the beginning a whole You, not part of a You. If You were to somehow become part of a whole MechaYou later on, MechaYou still cannot be the same thing as You. If you start with just a hand... Well, you have a dead hand, and that is it.

I think we are thinking about this in completely different ways. To me, having your intelligence simultaneously control multiple physical entities is completely natural and already happens. For example, in computer games, where you control avatar(s) that can perform actions at your command. This is simply an extension of that, where the avatar, rather than existing in a virtual world, exists in the real world, and has a larger range of possible actions. I think our society is already headed in this direction and looking back in history 40 or 50 years in the future it will be very hard to pinpoint the moment where humans became capable of simultaneously existing in multiple physical manifestations controlled by a single unified intellect.

The issue of maintaining your identity throughout this process also seems to me a non-issue. Migrating your thought processes to a more powerful computational medium, possibly located outside of a natural human body, is again a process that is already on its way. Are you any less human, less you, because rather than thinking about something for yourself you decide to find the answer by using Google? Are you any less you when your calculations for some project are handled by a computer rather than your brain? Would you be any less you if your optical processing happened not in your brain but in a cybernetic implant? Would you be any less you if your memories were backed up on computer memory in addition to existing in your brain? Would you be any less you if you could directly control with your mind some object outside of your physical body?

I say the answer to all of these questions is no. You are still you even as your capabilities are expanded by our ever growing range of technologies.

[Remiel]

I think we are thinking about this in completely different ways. To me, having your intelligence simultaneously control multiple physical entities is completely natural and already happens. For example, in computer games, where you control avatar(s) that can perform actions at your command. This is simply an extension of that, where the avatar, rather than existing in a virtual world, exists in the real world, and has a larger range of possible actions. I think our society is already headed in this direction and looking back in history 40 or 50 years in the future it will be very hard to pinpoint the moment where humans became capable of simultaneously existing in multiple physical manifestations controlled by a single unified intellect.

Perhaps. I think we are perhaps disagreeing on what things count as part of your identity. To me, it would be a fundamental flaw to suggest that the avatar in a game, or even if it were a physical body, is part of you. It is merely your tool. So, when you suggest that a person, an identity, could be on a computer controlling multiple bodies out in the real world, well, that could happen. But, if those " avatars " could continue to operate as persons if the central processor ceased to exist and the connection were severed, then I say that they are in fact distinct agents merely enslaved to the will of the central controlling identity, and that to consider them as part of the identity of the computer mind would be in error. This is not the case with an avatar in a game. It is merely a thing that I can control and a representation the computer projects, but it does not have its own identity and is not capable of being an agent.

The issue of maintaining your identity throughout this process also seems to me a non-issue. Migrating your thought processes to a more powerful computational medium, possibly located outside of a natural human body, is again a process that is already on its way. Are you any less human, less you, because rather than thinking about something for yourself you decide to find the answer by using Google? Are you any less you when your calculations for some project are handled by a computer rather than your brain? Would you be any less you if your optical processing happened not in your brain but in a cybernetic implant? Would you be any less you if your memories were backed up on computer memory in addition to existing in your brain? Would you be any less you if you could directly control with your mind some object outside of your physical body?

I say the answer to all of these questions is no. You are still you even as your capabilities are expanded by our ever growing range of technologies.

See, you cannot precisely migrate your thoughts to a seperate medium because your thoughts and the medium are a unified whole. The thoughts are part of the medium. To replicate the thoughts in another medium (which is what transferring is; there is only duplication and erasure) is to create a distinct thought/medium whole. I think most of your questions are completely irrelevant to the subject at hand. The cybernetic implant might be interesting, but ultimately I do not think anyone would ever confuse the implant as truly being part of themselves. With the memory back up... you have fundamentally the wrong question. The question is not, " Are you less you because there is a copy of your mind on a computer? " the question is " Is the copy part of you? "

Anyway, I know I there there a couple times in this discussion where I use words that often have a demeaning connotation to them, like, " irrelevant " , " mistaken " , " fundamentally wrong " and such, but I merely mean them descriptively. I am quite pleased with our debate.

[Bonam]

Perhaps. I think we are perhaps disagreeing on what things count as part of your identity. To me, it would be a fundamental flaw to suggest that the avatar in a game, or even if it were a physical body, is part of you. It is merely your tool.

See, I disagree here. Again, let me go back to my earlier analogy. Is your hand a part of you, or is it merely your tool? Now, besides the purely philosophical issue, there is the more pertinent issue of how people perceive and think of such avatars. Consider MMORPGs for example, where players invest thousands of hours into building their avatars and in-game reputations. When people post on forums about these games, they don't say, "you killed my avatar", they say "you killed me". They don't say "I hate your avatar", they say "I hate you". Psychologically, people respond to whatever representation of another individual they are interacting with as some embodiment of that individual.

So, when you suggest that a person, an identity, could be on a computer controlling multiple bodies out in the real world, well, that could happen. But, if those " avatars " could continue to operate as persons if the central processor ceased to exist and the connection were severed, then I say that they are in fact distinct agents merely enslaved to the will of the central controlling identity, and that to consider them as part of the identity of the computer mind would be in error.

First, why should the individual bodies necessarily be capable of acting without the presence of the controlling intelligence? Second, the controlling intelligence would realistically be a distributed computational system, with parts of its processes going on in each computer bank, brain, etc, which is part of the whole. Think of your computer and the network it is connected to. The network forms a whole, with part of its processes, computations, etc, occurring on each individual computer. But each individual computer can still function on its own, and yet when it is connected to the network it does not become its "slave", rather it makes use of the network's resources and the network makes use of its resources, in something of a symbiotic relationship if anything.

It is hard to conceive of how exactly such things would function when the entities in question are essentially some form of modified humans because it is currently so far outside of our frame of reference, but when the technology exists to enable it, the reality will be self-evident. Philosophical arguments of identity will be trumped by the reality that we will see before our eyes.

This is not the case with an avatar in a game. It is merely a thing that I can control and a representation the computer projects, but it does not have its own identity and is not capable of being an agent.

Software advances have already allowed in-game avatars to act on your behalf within virtual worlds while you are not directly controlling them (i.e. while you are logged off). This will only continue, with more and more complex and intelligent behaviours becoming possible. At what point do these entities become your "agents" (as you put it) within that virtual world?

See, you cannot precisely migrate your thoughts to a seperate medium because your thoughts and the medium are a unified whole. The thoughts are part of the medium. To replicate the thoughts in another medium (which is what transferring is; there is only duplication and erasure) is to create a distinct thought/medium whole.

I disagree here. The physical matter of the medium (your brain) is constantly being replaced. I see no reason to believe that replacing that matter with other forms of matter that can perform all of the same functions, but better and more quickly, and also expand your range of capabilities, would in some way destroy your original identity.

I think most of your questions are completely irrelevant to the subject at hand.

The questions were meant to illustrate a continuum of progress, from things that are already widespread and happen everyday, to the near future, to the slightly farther future. Already, much of our thinking, communication, observation, etc, is done for us by computers. Such technology is pervasive in our society. This process will simply continue naturally with our evolving technology to eventually open up the possibilities I spoke of as well as many others that we cannot fathom, just as the idea of the internet would have been unfathomable to someone 100 years ago.

Anyway, I know I there there a couple times in this discussion where I use words that often have a demeaning connotation to them, like, " irrelevant " , " mistaken " , " fundamentally wrong " and such, but I merely mean them descriptively. I am quite pleased with our debate.

Yes I too enjoy this sort of debate. You could perhaps be somewhat more polite with your choice of words but whatever, at least it is an interesting topic of discussion with some thought put into it.

Now, the discussion has revolved around the rather abstract philosophical aspects of all this for the last little bit. But really, I find the technological implications more interesting. If your thought processes can be scanned and migrated into a computer while your physical body is about to die, and then those processes can be loaded into a new physical body, and then your new physical body wakes up and claims that it is indeed "you", and it acts like you and talks like you and has all your memories, who is going to disagree? Perhaps on a philosophical level there would have been some kind of discontinuity, but practically what would be the difference?

[WIP]

Back to the thread opener for a moment, it appears that the new artificial life isn't completely unique, since it was sequenced from a copy of an existing natural bacteria. But it is a synthetic copy nevertheless; so now they can tinker around and create a unique genome and make completely new forms of life....I guess that's the scary part!

This will be the ultimate in genetic engineering, since they can control all of the parameters for the cell's development. It could be used for beneficial purposes such as creating new medicines and food crops, or someone is almost certainly to take a look at the biowarfare capabilities. Imagine a new anthrax that's 100% lethal, but expires in 72 hours, so that all an infantry has to do is go in three days later and collect the dead bodies!

At the Edge Reality Club, Freeman Dyson observes that once the genome of a bacteria cell can be synthesized, there's nothing standing in the way of moving on to more complex strands of DNA and creating Neanderthals, mammoths, or the tasmanian wolf(although he sees a problem in finding host cells to obtain that DNA code). I'm surprised he didn't mention dinosaurs too, because the first thing I thought of was Jurassic Park:

Will the new techniques described in the paper allow us to bring extinct species back to life? Here are three examples of three possible stages after the production of a bacterial cell: 1. generating a human, i.e. a Neanderthal; 2. generating a woolly mammoth; 3. generating a tasmanian wolf.

Generating a Neanderthal, giving the recent mapping, seems to be feasible, but it will raise ethical hackles. Don't hold your breath waiting for someone to try it. Generating a woolly mammoth will not be an ethical problem but it also seems feasible by using an elephant's placenta: inject mammoth DNA into a modern elephant egg from which elephant DNA has been removed, then import the elephant egg into an elephant. A real challenge will be to generate a truly extinct species such as a Tasmanian wolf for which no host cells exist.