The Allure of Machinic Life Cybernetics, Artificial Life, and the New AI John Johnston The Allure of Machinic Life Cybernetics, Artificial Life, and the New AI John Johnston In The Allure of Machinic Life, John Johnston examines new forms of nascent life that emerge through technical inter- actions within human-constructed environments —“machinic life” —in the sciences of cybernetics, artificial life, and artificial intelligence. With the development of such research initiatives as the evolution of digital organisms, computer immune sys- tems, artificial protocells, evolutionary robotics, and swarm systems, Johnston argues, machinic life has achieved a com- plexity and autonomy worthy of study in its own right. Drawing on the publications of scientists as well as a range of work in contemporary philosophy and cultural theory, but always with the primary focus on the “objects at hand” — the machines, programs, and processes that constitute ma- chinic life— Johnston shows how they come about, how they operate, and how they are already changing. This under- standing is a necessary first step, he further argues, that must precede speculation about the meaning and cultural implications of these new forms of life. Developing the concept of the “computational assem- blage” (a machine and its associated discourse) as a frame- work to identify both resemblances and differences in form and function, Johnston offers a conceptual history of each of the three sciences. He considers the new theory of machines proposed by cybernetics from several perspectives, includ- ing Lacanian psychoanalysis and “machinic philosophy.” He examines the history of the new science of artificial life and its relation to theories of evolution, emergence, and complex adaptive systems (as illustrated by a series of experiments carried out on various software platforms). He describes the history of artificial intelligence as a series of unfolding con- ceptual conflicts— decodings and recodings—leading to a “new AI” that is strongly influenced by artificial life. Finally, in examining the role played by neuroscience in several con- temporary research initiatives, he shows how further success in the building of intelligent machines will most likely result from progress in our understanding of how the human brain actually works. John Johnston is Professor of English and Comparative Litera- ture at Emory University in Atlanta. He is the author of Carnival of Repetition and Information Multiplicity. Cover image: Joseph Nechvatal, ignudiO gustO majOr, computer-robotic-assisted acrylic on canvas, 66” x 120”. Photo courtesy Galerie Jean-Luc & Takako Richard. © 2003 Joseph Nechvatal. A Bradford Book The MIT Press Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142 http://mitpress.mit.edu 978-0-262-10126-4 Johnston The Allure of Machinic Life “John Johnston is to be applauded for his engaging and eminently readable assessment of the new, interdisciplinary sciences aimed at designing and building complex, lifelike, intelligent machines. Cybernetics, information theory, chaos theory, artificial life, autopoiesis, connection- ism, embodied autonomous agents— it’s all here!” — Mark Bedau, Professor of Philosophy and Humanities, Reed College, and Editor-in-Chief, Artificial Life Of related interest How the Body Shapes the Way We Think A New View of Intelligence Rolf Pfeifer and Josh Bongard How could the body influence our thinking when it seems obvious that the brain controls the body? In How the Body Shapes the Way We Think, Rolf Pfeifer and Josh Bongard demon- strate that thought is not independent of the body but is tightly constrained, and at the same time enabled, by it. They argue that the kinds of thoughts we are capable of have their foun- dation in our embodiment— in our morphology and the material properties of our bodies. What Is Thought? Eric B. Baum In What Is Thought? Eric Baum proposes a computational explanation of thought. Just as Erwin Schrödinger in his classic 1944 work What Is Life? argued ten years before the dis- covery of DNA that life must be explainable at a fundamental level by physics and chemistry, Baum contends that the present-day inability of computer science to explain thought and meaning is no reason to doubt that there can be such an explanation. Baum argues that the complexity of mind is the outcome of evolution, which has built thought processes that act unlike the standard algorithms of computer science, and that to understand the mind we need to understand these thought processes and the evolutionary process that produced them in computational terms. computer science/artificial intelligence The Allure of Machinic Life THE ALLURE OF MACHINIC LIFE Cybernetics, Artificial Life, and the New AI John Johnston A Bradford Book The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England 6 2008 Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. For information about special quantity discounts, please email special_sales@mitpress.mit .edu This book was set in Times New Roman and Syntax on 3B2 by Asco Typesetters, Hong Kong. Printed and bound in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Johnston, John Harvey, 1947– The allure of machinic life : cybernetics, artificial life, and the new AI / John Johnston p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-262-10126-4 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Cybernetics. 2. Artificial life. 3. Artificial intelligence. I. Title. Q310.J65 2008 003 0 .5—dc22 2008005358 10987654321 For Heidi Contents Preface ix Introduction 1 I FROM CYBERNETICS TO MACHINIC PHILOSOPHY 23 1 Cybernetics and the New Complexity of Machines 25 2 The In-Mixing of Machines: Cybernetics and Psychoanalysis 65 3 Machinic Philosophy: Assemblages, Information, Chaotic Flow 105 II MACHINIC LIFE 163 4 Vital Cells: Cellular Automata, Artificial Life, Autopoiesis 165 5 Digital Evolution and the Emergence of Complexity 215 III MACHINIC INTELLIGENCE 275 6 The Decoded Couple: Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science 277 7 The New AI: Behavior-Based Robotics, Autonomous Agents, and Artificial Evolution 337 8 Learning from Neuroscience: New Prospects for Building Intelligent Machines 385 Notes 415 Index 453 Preface This book explores a single topic: the creation of new forms of ‘‘machinic life’’ in cybernetics, artificial life (ALife), and artificial intelligence (AI). By machinic life I mean the forms of nascent life that have been made to emerge in and through technical interactions in human-constructed envi- ronments. Thus the webs of connection that sustain machinic life are material (or virtual) but not directly of the natural world. Although au- tomata such as the eighteenth-century clockwork dolls and other figures can be seen as precursors, the first forms of machinic lif e appeared in the ‘‘lifelike’’ machines of the cyberneticists and in the early programs and robots of AI. Machinic life, unlike earlier mechanical forms, has a capac- ity to alter itself and to respond dynamically to changing situations. More sophisticated forms of machinic life appear in the late 1980s and 1990s, with computer simulations of evolving digital organisms and the construction of mobile, autonomous robots. The emergence of ALife as a scientific discipline—which o‰cially dates from the conference on ‘‘the synthesis and simulation of living systems’’ in 1987 organized by Christo- pher Langton—and the growing body of theoretical writings and new research initiatives devoted to autonomous agents, computer immune systems, artificial protocells, e volutionary robotics, and swarm systems have given the development of machinic life further momentum, solidity, and variety. These developments make it increasingly clear that while machinic life may have begun in the mimicking of the forms and pro- cesses of natural organic life, it has achieved a complexity and autonomy worthy of study in its own right. Indeed, this is my chief argument. While excell ent books and artic les devoted to these topics abound, there has been no attempt to consider them wi thin a single, overarching theoretical framework. The challenge is to do so while respecting the very significant historical, conceptual, scientific, and technical di¤erences in this material and the diverse perspectives they give rise to. To meet this [...]... specialized and general readers alike At first view, there are obvious relations of precedence and influence in the distinctive histories of cybernetics, AI, and ALife Without the groundbreaking discoveries and theoretical orientation of cybernetics, the sciences of AI and ALife would simply not have arisen and developed as they have In both, moreover, the digital computer was an essential condition of possibility... vehicle by means of which Introduction 19 they disseminate and proliferate A recent version of this narrative can be seen in Harold J Morowitz’s The Emergence of Everything, which sketches in twenty-eight instances of emergence the origin of the physical universe, the origin of life, and the origin of human mind.44 Yet none of these narratives of ‘‘becoming’’ envision the extension of life and intelligence... and reinscribing the logic of life in a medium other than the organic medium of carbon-chain chemistry, the new ‘‘sciences of the artificial’’ have been able to produce, in various ways I explore, a completely new kind of entity.5 As a consequence these new sciences necessarily find themselves positioned between two perspectives, or semantic zones, of overlapping complexity: the metaphysics of life and. .. importantly, life processes) and computation, or information processing For example, W Ross Ashby, one of the foremost theorists of the cybernetic movement, understood the importance of the computer in relation to ‘ life ’ and the complexity of dynamical systems in strikingly radical terms: Introduction 9 In the past, when a writer discussed the topic [of the origin of life] , he usually assumed that the generation... contemporary life The rapid innovation and evolution of computer technology and the changes brought about as a result—what the popular media refer to as ‘ the digital tidal wave’’—are part of this larger movement These developments, and the constellation of dynamic processes driving them, cannot be understood simply as the fabrication and widespread usage of a new set of tools Unlike the telescope and microscope,... technical system, the latter actually consists of a multiplicity of di¤erent computational assemblages, each of which must be described and analyzed in its material and discursive specificity At the same time, we should not ignore certain transformations and rearticulations that occur at the general level of the technical system Specifically, the advent of the computer and the birth of machinic life mark a... biology—as the most contemporary form of the science of life and the history of technical objects And I have begun to suggest that a new, nonstandard theory of computation provides the conceptual bridge that allows us to discuss all three within the same framework At this point there is no need to return to Stiegler’s analysis of Jacob in order to understand that life as defined by molecular biology is neither... own form of intelligent life, is self-organizing in this sense Why we have failed to recognize this fact is that until recently we have had no experience of systems of medium complexity; either they have been like the watch and the pendulum, and we have found their properties few and trivial, or they have been like the dog and the human being, and we have found their properties so rich and remarkable... considering the limits of the first phase of ALife research and the new research initiatives represented by ‘‘living computation’’ and attempts to create an artificial protocell Part III takes up the history of AI as a series of unfolding conceptual conflicts rather than a chronological narrative of achievements and failures I first sketch out AI s familiar three-stage development, from symbolic AI as exemplified... representational terms In other words, they are usually directed toward ‘ life ’ as the ultimate reference and final arbiter: how well do these machines model or simulate life and thereby help us to understand its (usually assumed) inimitable singularity? Thus if a mobile robot can move around and avoid obstacles, or a digital organism replicate and evolve, these activities and the value of the machinic life in question . The Allure of Machinic Life Cybernetics, Artificial Life, and the New AI John Johnston The Allure of Machinic Life Cybernetics, Artificial Life, and the New AI John Johnston In The Allure of. single topic: the creation of new forms of ‘ machinic life ’ in cybernetics, artificial life (ALife), and artificial intelligence (AI) . By machinic life I mean the forms of nascent life that have. the evolutionary process that produced them in computational terms. computer science/artificial intelligence The Allure of Machinic Life THE ALLURE OF MACHINIC LIFE Cybernetics, Artificial Life,