Creatures : The Quest to Create Artificial Life Grand, Stephen

Grand, Stephen

ISBN 10: 0297643916 / ISBN 13: 9780297643913

Published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2000

About this Item

Seller Inventory # RCF4-1-0058

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Creatures : The Quest to Create Artificial Life Grand, Stephen
• Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
• Publication Date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0297643916
• ISBN 13: 9780297643913
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Mankind now has within its grasp the power to synthesize true artificial life, playing out Dr Frankenstein's dream in both cyberspace and the real world. In this book, Steve Grand, a leading exponent of artificial life, provides the first authoritative and comprehensive tour of the frontiers of this burgeoning new creation. He surveys what has been achieved so far and looks at future possibilities for generating autonomous, intelligent, even conscious living things. The fundamental questions he tackles range widely: what is life? What should the minds, brains and bodies of these new life forms be like? What philosophical guidelines and computational frameworks are necessary? How much can we learn from the evolution of natural life forms? What are the practical, social and ethical implications of this research? At the heart of this brilliantly accessible and thought-provoking book is the author's unique imaginative vision - a vision based on his experience of making some of the most adv anced artificial life currently available. The secret of success, he argues, lies in emulating nature's way and working from the bottom up. This groundbreaking book reveals the details of how to do this and challenges how we think about the meaning of life.

About the Author

Steve Grand was cofounder and director of technology at the UK-based CyberLife Technology. He left last year to start up Cyberlife Research, where he is attempting to build the world's first conscious machine. He is the inventor of the groundbreaking computer game 'Creatures'. A former visiting research fellow at the University of Sussex and columnist for a leading journal on artificial intelligence, he has written numerous articles and lectures widely on the topic of artificial life. He was nominated by The Sunday Times as one of 'The Brains Behind the 21st Century', and received a CBE in the millennium honours list for his contribution to the computer games industry.