Product Description

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 advanced 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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #459412 in Books
• Published on: 2000-11-09
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Steve Grand OBE is not a man bereft of ambition. His goal in this smart, wide-ranging and intellectually effervescent book is to describe, from the perspective of the computer boffin and Artificial Life expert, what constitutes the conscious essence of existence, what is intelligence, even "how we can make a soul". As Grand himself is responsible for one of the closest available approximations to Artificial Life, the cyberspatial entities called Norns who star in Creatures (the wildly popular computer game he programmed), it is hard to imagine someone better equipped to lead the layman through this challenging philosophical landscape.

The subjects covered are sometimes bewilderingly diverse. From cloud formation to neurochemistry to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, Grand devours, digests and regurgitates facts and concepts that help build towards his central premise, that Artificial Intelligence is not just a computer geek's wet-dream-it is with us already, and about to change the way we live. If the material seems occasionally a bit thrown together, and the ideas and notions almost too profuse, the author's animated, chatty, button-holing style ensures the reader never entirely loses the plot. Creation is arguably one of the most important science books of the year; it is certainly one of the most stimulating. --Sean Thomas

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.

Customer Reviews

A DIY kit for life - indispensible
Creation - Life and how to make it by Steve Grand

If God wrote a book about the way he put the universe together, why the laws of physics were the way they were, how he came to design humans and all the other life forms on Earth, and why they are interdependent with each other and with the planet it would be a lot like 'Creation - Life and how to make it' by Steve Grand. Steve is a self confessed digital god. And he can prove it: there are over a million lifeforms created by him running around in computers all over the world. They live in their own world of Albia within the computer game 'Creatures'. These are not your run-of-the-mill scripted non-player-characters common in computer games - these little creatures aren't programmed to behave - their behavior emerges from the way they are. They are artificial life or ALife.

This is a lightly written mind-bendingly deep book. As light and refreshing as sparkling wine but with a kick like a mule. When you realize you have been smooth talked into abandoning the last fifty years of AI research and development along with the majority of current thinking on ALife you know the Grand philosophy has gotten into your blood.

'Creation' isn't just about the inhabitants of a game, it's about what makes something exist at all and what it is to be alive and even more important to humans, what is intelligence? what is a conscious mind and can machines have them too? Steve's challenge to himself was to make life within a computer, not just low life but intelligent life. In this book he describes how to do it from first principles. It's not a book about exactly how to write the code instead it's about how to think about simulations and about living organisms so that there's some point to writing the code. Explaining how to think about the world, starting with understanding subatomic particles, atoms, then molecules, then autocatalytic networks, self-reproducing systems, adaptive systems, intelligence and mind is something Steve is very good at. Must come from all the thinking he does. He says that sitting in a darkened silent room and just thinking is one of his favorite occupations. It's left him with an almost Buddhist sense of detachment from reality as most people conceive of the world. For example his idea of a law of nature is: "Things that persist, persist. Things that don't, don't." Note the resemblence to Newton's: "A body in motion tends to stay in motion. A body at rest tends to stay at rest." After a few of Steve's thought experiments you find yourself coming round to his point of view.

He's pushing for a paradigm shift in our view of reality and like the others before him: Copernicus, Gallileo, Newton, and Einstein, to name a few of these scientific revolutionaries, he's finding it hard work standing the world on its head. But as with his predecessors once the ground has moved under your feet the new place you're standing seems completely right and obvious. It's a new way of seeing that is vital to continued progress. If there has to be a god I wouldn't mind letting Steve have a go at the job - as long as he isn't answerable to another marketing department controlling what his creatures look like. Those cutesy Norns ugh!

Sue Wilcox bio: Sue Wilcox writes about ALife virtual worlds and other other technologies that define the edges around and between lifeforms. She chaired the Biota ALife conference in San Jose in 1999. She has spoken about the future of Alife inside and outside the computer at international conferences for several years.

Quintessential popular science
In recent years the volume of popular science books has expanded exponentially. Unfortunately, publishers have lowered their quality thresholds in order to get more books out of the door.

All of which increases the satisfaction when you find one of the gems.

Creation is a book in 2 parts - firstly Steve Grand demolishes your view of the universe, and then he explains how he created 'life' in the computer program Creatures.

Without the early groundwork, the second part would be interesting but in a 'so what?' kind of way. But viewed as a whole, the Creatures program emerges as a very clever approach to artificial life.

In passing the book also looks at other approaches to artificial life, but not in great detail, and as such this book is quite narrow in scope, but not annoyingly so.

Creation makes you look at the world slightly differently and opens up a whole load of new possibilities, which is exactly what popular science books should do.

a lesson in life
i just finished this book and while the concepts are complex to understand i believe a few re-reads will help it sink in (the author has had his whole life to come to terms with them). The book is really a look at what causes and effects life, which laws cause and effect life to exist and advance. As a general guide to AI it is very good, he explains how humans work and how these ideas must be incorparated into a program for life to be simulated convincingly. It is very good at helping the reader understand that artificial intelligence is a tool and not a hindrance to the future, machines should be designed to have emotions from the beginning so that they CANNOT become a glorified calculator with a gun without reasoning. The book also helps you understand why AI has failed so far as it must be treated like life to act like life (duh!). You cannot design something to run before it can walk. let it work out how to walk and it will go on to figure out running by itself. It is only by giving learning oppurtunites that evolution can occur.

I dont think i have done a very good job of explaining things (i tried!) but if you want to have an insight into what makes us tick then go ahead, it is very interesting and thought-provoking to the point where you feel proud to be alive (or so you think). Find out for yourselves and go realise that life is complicated, very complicated.

p.s. im giving this book 4 stars because he didnt manage to explain how Homer Simpson's genetic makeup can exist, but maybe thats asking too much :)