Darwin Among The Machines: The Evolution Of Global Intelligence (Helix Books) - Softcover

Dyson, George B.

3.87

390 ratings by Goodreads

9780738200309: Darwin Among The Machines: The Evolution Of Global Intelligence (Helix Books)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0738200301 ISBN 13: 9780738200309

Publisher: Basic Books, 1998

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Darwin Among the Machines retraces the steps that led us into the digital wilderness, no less wild for being a universe of our own device. Introducing a cast of known and unknown characters, George B. Dyson traces the course of the information revolution, illuminating the lives and work of visionaries-from the time of Thomas Hobbes to the time of John von Neumann-who foresaw the development of artificial intelligence, artificial life, and artificial mind. This deep and elegant book derives both its title and its outlook from Samuel Butlers 1863 essay Darwin Among the Machines. Observing the beginnings of miniaturization, self-reproduction, and telecommunication among machines, Butler predicted that natures intelligence, only temporarily subservient to technology, would resurface to claim our creations as her own. Updating Butlers arguments, Dyson has distilled the historical record to chronicle the origins of digital telecommunications and the evolution of digital computers, beginning long before the time of Darwin and exploring the limits of Darwinian evolution to suggest what lies beyond. Weaving a cohesive narrative among his brilliant predecessors, Dyson constructs a straightforward, convincing, and occasionally frightening view of the evolution of mind in the global network, on a level transcending our own. Dyson concludes that we are in the midst of an experiment that echoes the prehistory of human intelligence and the origins of life. Just as the exchange of coded molecular instructions brought life as we know it to the early earths primordial soup, and as language and mind combined to form the culture in which we live, so, in the digital universe, are computer programs and worldwide networks combining to produce an evolutionary theater in which the distinctions between nature and technology are increasingly obscured. Nature, believes Dyson, is on the side of the machines.

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Review:

"In the game of life and evolution, there are three players at the table: human beings, nature and machine. I am firmly on the side of nature," writes George Dyson, "but nature, I suspect, is on the side of machines." In his challenging book, Dyson surrounds contemporary topics related to emerging information networks with historical context, illustrating an evolutionary dance between intelligence, nature and machines. Taking its title from an essay written by Samuel Butler in 1863, Dyson's story blends the antiquarian thinking of Thomas Hobbes, Erasmus Darwin and Gottfried Leibniz with modern research on neural networks and artificial intelligence. Dyson's perspective is unique and his style is deft, ensuring the readability of Darwin among the Machines: The Evolution of Global Intelligence. --Amazon.com

Review:

One of the most original and intriguing books of the last two decades (John Naughton Guardian)

A very deep and important book, beautifully written (Oliver Sacks)

A book that can be read as literature, whether or not you have any interest in computers and machine intelligence . . . satisfying, edifying and accessible (John Gribbin)

An extraordinarily exciting, intriguing and very idiosyncratic book (Nature)

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