Artificial life (ALife or A-Life)

Artificial life, also called ALife or A-Life, refers to the use of technology to imitate living beings and investigate the nature of what constitutes "life." Different sources have different standards of what qualifies as artificial life. The strictest standards say artificial life must be a machine that can operate, make decisions, and think independently, while looser definitions label any technology that can mimic key aspects of biological systems as artificial life.

The study and advancement of artificial life has helped humans' understanding of biology, mechanics, and computer science. People have used living creatures and biological systems as the basis for machines and data-processing systems. Meanwhile, efforts to replicate life have helped people learn more about different aspects that make up living organisms. Proponents suggest that artificial life also has much potential to aid society, since robots are capable of navigating environments unsafe for living creatures, and computers can perform calculations that are either impossible or extremely time-consuming for humans. The concept has also raised ethical and moral questions, such as whether artificial lifeforms have rights.

History

Humans have used lifeforms as the basis for creations for thousands of years. Ancient Egyptians created human-shaped statues that they moved with hydraulics. During the Renaissance, educated people of the time had developed an understanding of animal biology and anatomy but did not yet realize the complexity of many species' brains. The commonly held view of the time was that animals were essentially machines, instinctively carrying out the tasks that their forms were specifically designed to do. This led to increased interest in artificial life. As robotics developed over the centuries, it became a valuable way to study biology.

In the 1700s, French engineer Jacques de Vaucanson created several figures that could perform different actions. His most famous were a humanoid that could play multiple songs on a flute and a duck that seemed to go through the digestive process. The versatility of his creations helped fuel more interest in artificial life during the nineteenth century.

The development of computers in the twentieth century vastly increased the possibilities for artificial life. It meant that artificial lifeforms could be programmed and could potentially possess intelligence. Artificial life no longer needed to have a physical form at all, as creators could focus entirely on imitating the mental aspect of life.

However, interest in creating different physical forms of artificial life was stronger than ever. After all, mechanical engineering and technology had continued to improve, and humans' understanding of biology had increased. Artificial life could replicate even more species of animals and more accurately than before, helping scientists further understand biology while also learning what traits were ideal for a robot that could move under its own power. Another motivation for continuing to create artificial life for diverse forms was the workforce. In the twentieth century, technology reached a point where machines could perform some tasks more efficiently or safely than human workers could.

The creation of computers—and later, the internet—did not reduce the emphasis on diverse forms in machines and artificial life, but it did allow creators to specialize. Projects that emphasized complex intelligence could proceed independently of projects emphasizing a mobile humanoid robot. Discoveries in the different projects could benefit each other and lead to creations that used traits from both. Since artificial intelligences do not need "bodies," both types of projects could develop without holding each other back. Other novel ideas also emerged. For instance, some researchers experimented with the potential to create artificial life in basic forms, such as viruses, that could be used to treat diseases in humans.

Impact

The development of the World Wide Web in the late twentieth century, as well as its continued improvement in the twenty-first century, has greatly expanded the potential for artificial life. Artificial intelligences can interact with complex digital environments and large amounts of information. This lets researchers observe them in many more situations than what was previously available.

As artificial life—particularly artificial intelligence—grows more advanced, various people and groups have posed ethical questions. The nature of life—and the question of whether a being must be made of organic, carbon-based matter to be called "living"—is one of them. Religious groups have grappled with the possibility of humans creating life unlike anything described in religious texts. The use of robots to perform labor has caused controversy, with many citizens fearing that companies will attempt to hire fewer human employees in favor of using machines. Some of the issues are hypothetical and rely on technology advancing further before becoming immediate concerns. These include the creation of robots that come increasingly close to accurately resembling humans and how society would react to them. There are also questions of exactly how much self-awareness and control artificial beings will potentially develop and how they should be treated if they display a capacity for independent thought or decision-making.

Artificial life has been a common subject of popular culture for centuries. Author Isaac Asimov wrote numerous works of fiction depicting a world where robots coexisted with humans and described the many societal and ethical conflicts that he imagined would arise from such a culture. Asimov developed the laws of robotics as a reaction to the many previous stories written about robots turning against their masters. These laws prevented robots from harming humans or themselves and instructed them to assist and obey humans whenever possible. Asimov's laws have influenced many real-life efforts to construct artificial intelligence.

Throughout the twentieth century, it was common to use fictional robots and other artificial life to explore themes and messages about the nature of humanity. A common debate was whether biological systems were necessary for something to be intelligent, have compassion, have emotions, or have self-interest. 2001: A Space Odyssey, AI: Artificial Intelligence, the Alien series of films, Blade Runner, and Star Trek: The Next Generation are some of the more popular fiction works that featured artificial beings and depicted how they relate to humanity. Artificial intelligence technology has been used in the development of other forms of entertainment, particularly in video games.

Bibliography

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