IP: Re:Another view from Josh Lederberg on First Cells, Then Species, Now the Web

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

> To: farber () cis upenn edu
> Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2000 09:48:57 +1100 (EST)
>
> From: root () suburbia net (Charlie Root)
>
> > [ Josh is a Nobel Laureate djf]
> >
> > > To: Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>
> > > From: Joshua Lederberg <jsl () jl10 rockefeller edu>
> > >
> > >
> > > > Dave,
> > >
> > >
> > > Conversely:
> > >
> > >
> > > <<<<
> > > Microbiology=s World Wide Web
> > > by Joshua Lederberg
> > >   (excerpt from a column syndicated abroad)
> > >
> > > .fi
> > > All the fashionable talk about computer "viruses" is supposed to 
> explain what
> > > these culprits do by analogy to their biological namesakes. But it may be
> > > equally enlightening to think of the biosphere of the real, living 
> microbes
> > > as a world wide web of informational exchange.  Indeed, the two have 
> much in
> > > common, for living microbes exchange information with each other and their
> > > environment, with DNA serving as the packets of data going every which 
> way.
> > > What is different in the world of microbes is that they, unlike computer
> > > viruses, can evolve, and do so at a faster pace than their 
> hosts.  Microbes
> > > are in fact well designed to exploit this difference to their advantage in
> > > the war that occasionally erupts between them and other species.
> > > > > > >
> > >
> > > God help us, someday the computer viruses may also be designed to 
> "evolve".
> > > Or, unlikely, by happenstance.
> > >
> > >     Joshua
> >
> >
> >
> > For archives see: http://www.interesting-people.org/
>
> I only wish they could! The fitness population of computer programs
> are highly discontinuous.  Von-Neuman architecture (which all modern
> computers use) was designed to do what humans could not do, or at least
> not do well. VN machines are designed to be accurate and predictable.
> The trade off is that they are woefully brittle and inflexible.
> Economically this hasn't mattered too much, because we have a ready
> supply of flexible human beings who adapt code by hand. In VN
> machines, the genotype is the phenotype and single point mutations
> almost inevitably cause catastrophic failure. This is not the case
> with DNA based organisms where there are many layers of feed back
> and indirection, self-regulation, adaptive embryology etc, that
> cause the developing organism to adapt to point mutations in such
> a way that they are almost never catastrophic, are usually only
> slightly harmful and are rarely, but occasionally beneficial.
>
> Even if the chance of a beneficial mutation was the same (and it's
> not), the discontinuous fitness phenotype of evolving programs
> means that it is very hard for them to climb even a smooth fitness
> landscape.  However, for something like a computer virus, the
> situation is harder still.  The fitness landscape of the environment
> is highly discontinuous.  System call 185 has no relation to system
> call 186.  It's not an "almost 186".  Either a checksum routine is
> correct, or its incorrect.
>
> Biological RNA viruses are simple, have no embryology, and only
> extremely primitive feeback mechanims, yet even there, the very
> three dimensional nature of viral building blocks, the electrical
> inverse square law, smooth gradients and parallelism in chemical
> reactions, and even the adaptability of the host cell itself all
> conspire to produce an smoothly evolveable system.
>
> This does not mean computer viruses can not evolve. It just means
> that they can not for the foreseeable future evolve anything truly
> novel. Evolving priorities from a list of pre-canned strategies is
> easy. Coming up with an original hole is not.
>
> If we can come up with truly adaptable code, we will be able to
> solve many difficult AI problems. It's a great outstanding research
> area which so far has achieved only marginal results.
>
> --
>  Julian Assange        |If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people
>                        |together to collect wood or assign them tasks
>  proff () iq org          |and work, but rather teach them to long for the 
> endless
>  proff () gnu ai mit edu  |immensity of the sea. -- Antoine de Saint Exupery



For archives see: http://www.interesting-people.org/