[clue-talk] The Coming Storm? Nano/AI/Skynet

[Jed S. Baer]

Had a great conversation over at Gibby's after the CLUE meeting. Wound up
getting into one of my favorite topics, although my knowledge of it is
pretty superficial -- artificial life. This is an extremely interesting
discipline, and covers areas such as cellular automata, machine
intelligence, and emergent behavior. Nano tech comes into play too, since
a swarm of nanobots could exhibit emergent behavior. If you've ever looked
at Conway's "Game of Life", you've seen a cellular automata. Anyways, one
of the names that always comes to my mind when thinking about the future
of computing is Ray Kurzweil. So I thought I'd toss out a few links.

http://www.kurzweiltech.com/aboutray.html
http://www.kurzweilai.net/
http://www.cio.com/archive/101504/interview.html

His book, "The Age of Spiritual Machines" is pretty heady stuff.
http://www.penguinputnam.com/static/packages/us/kurzweil/excerpts/exmain.htm
and I recommend it for anyone who has an interest in the future of
technology.

Also of interest: Steven Levy's "Artificial Life: The Quest for a New
Creation" http://www.forum2.org/tal/books/alife.html

Not as good as Levy, but a quick read: "Virtual Organisms" by Mark Ward:
http://www.generation5.org/content/2000/vo_ward.asp

jed
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