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The Allure of Machinic Life:Cybernetics, Artificial Life, And computer science/artificial intelligence John Johnston is Professor of English and Comparative Litera- “John Johnston is to be applauded for his engaging and eminently readable assessment of the Johnston ture at Emory University in Atlanta. He is the author of Carnival new, interdisciplinary sciences aimed at designing and building complex, lifelike, intelligent The Allure of Machinic Life of Repetition and Information Multiplicity. machines. Cybernetics, information theory, chaos theory, artificial life, autopoiesis, connection- Cybernetics, Artificial Life, and the New AI ism, embodied autonomous agents—it’s all here!” —Mark Bedau, Professor of Philosophy and Humanities, Reed College, and Editor-in-Chief, John Johnston Artificial Life The Allure of Machinic Life Cover image: Of related interest In The Allure of Machinic Life, John Johnston examines new Joseph Nechvatal, ignudiO gustO majOr, computer-robotic-assisted acrylic on canvas, 66” x 120”. Photo courtesy Galerie Jean-Luc & Takako Richard. forms of nascent life that emerge through technical inter- © 2003 Joseph Nechvatal. How the Body Shapes the Way We Think Cybernetics, Artificial Life, and the New AI actions within human-constructed environments —“machinic A New View of Intelligence life” —in the sciences of cybernetics, artificial life, and artificial Rolf Pfeifer and Josh Bongard Life Allure of Machinic The intelligence. With the development of such research initiatives How could the body influence our thinking when it seems obvious that the brain controls the as the evolution of digital organisms, computer immune sys- body? In How the Body Shapes the Way We Think, Rolf Pfeifer and Josh Bongard demon- tems, artificial protocells, evolutionary robotics, and swarm strate that thought is not independent of the body but is tightly constrained, and at the same systems, Johnston argues, machinic life has achieved a com- time enabled, by it. They argue that the kinds of thoughts we are capable of have their foun- plexity and autonomy worthy of study in its own right. dation in our embodiment—in our morphology and the material properties of our bodies. Drawing on the publications of scientists as well as a range of work in contemporary philosophy and cultural theory, What Is Thought? but always with the primary focus on the “objects at hand” — Eric B. Baum the machines, programs, and processes that constitute ma- chinic life—Johnston shows how they come about, how they In What Is Thought? Eric Baum proposes a computational explanation of thought. Just as operate, and how they are already changing. This under- Erwin Schrödinger in his classic 1944 work What Is Life? argued ten years before the dis- standing is a necessary first step, he further argues, that covery of DNA that life must be explainable at a fundamental level by physics and chemistry, must precede speculation about the meaning and cultural Baum contends that the present-day inability of computer science to explain thought and implications of these new forms of life. meaning is no reason to doubt that there can be such an explanation. Baum argues that the Developing the concept of the “computational assem- complexity of mind is the outcome of evolution, which has built thought processes that act blage” (a machine and its associated discourse) as a frame- unlike the standard algorithms of computer science, and that to understand the mind we work to identify both resemblances and differences in form need to understand these thought processes and the evolutionary process that produced and function, Johnston offers a conceptual history of each of them in computational terms. the three sciences. He considers the new theory of machines proposed by cybernetics from several perspectives, includ- ing Lacanian psychoanalysis and “machinic philosophy.” He A Bradford Book The MIT Press Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142 http://mitpress.mit.edu 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 John Johnston “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 978-0-262-10126-4 in the building of intelligent machines will most likely result from progress in our understanding of how the human brain actually works. 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 [email protected] .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 0030.5—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 life 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, evolutionary 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 excellent books and articles devoted to these topics abound, there has been no attempt to consider them within 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 x Preface challenge I have tried to establish an inclusive vantage point that can be shared by 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, more- over, the digital computer was an essential condition of possibility. Yet the development of the stored-program electronic computer was also con- temporary with the birth of cybernetics and played multiple roles of instigation, example, and relay for many of its most important conceptu- alizations. Thus the centrality of the computer results in a complicated nexus of historical and conceptual relationships among these three fields of research. But while the computer has been essential to the development of all three fields, its role in each has been di¤erent. For the cyberneticists
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