DARWIN
among the
MACHINES
the evolution of
global intelligence
George B. Dyson
1
George Dyson is the son of English
physicist Freeman J. Dyson and Swiss
mathematician Verena Huber-Dyson. He
was born in Ithaca, New York in 1953.
He left home at age 16, moving to
British Columbia to build canoes,
explore the Northwest Coast, and make
his home in a treehouse at a height of 95
feet. In 1978 his resurrection of the
baidarka, or Aleut kayak, was contrasted
with his father's design for an
interplanetary spacecraft in Kenneth
Brower's dual biography, The Starship
and the Canoe. He lives in Bellingham,
WA.
2
Freeman Dyson is a physicist and mathematician,
originally from Berkshire, England. He received a
B.A. from Cambridge in 1945. From 1947-49, he
spent two years at Cornell and Princeton, where he
studied under J. Robert Oppenheimer, Director of the
Institute for Advanced Study. He was appointed
Professor of Physics at Cornell in 1951 and two years
later accepted the Professorship of Physics at the IAT.
In the late 1950's, Dyson joined the Orion Project
research team, which was attempting to build a
manned spacecraft and send it to Mars. A long-time
advocate of exploration and colonization by
earthlings of the solar system and beyond, Dyson has
studied ways of searching for evidence of intelligent
life. He is the author of several books, including
Disturbing the Universe (1979), Weapons and Hope
(1984), Origins of Life (1985), and Infinite in All
3
Directions (1988).
4
On-line interview of Dyson with BBC
George Dyson and Darwinism
5
1
LEVIATHAN
Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), in
Leviathan, described human society as
a self-organizing system, possessed of a
life and an intelligence of its own. This
“Leviathan” was a collective organism,
transcending the individual beings and
institutional organs of which it was
composed.
6
Interwoven Threads in
Hobbes’ Thinking
Materialistic, mechanistic view of the
universe. All is substance. Substance
defines existence and motion defines life.
7
Interwoven Threads in
Hobbes’ Thinking
Even the mind is material. Thinking
emerges naturally from the suitable
arrangement of matter.
8
Interwoven Threads in
Hobbes’ Thinking
Reason can be reduced to mechanical
computation, an essential first-notion in
artificial intelligence.
9
How does this fit in with
Dyson’s overall theme?
There is no such thing as abstract
thought. That is, all thinking arises out
of matter. Implications? We can make
a machine think just like we do.
10
How does this fit in with
Dyson’s overall theme?
Hobbes envisioned a “higher”
intelligence in the sense that a kind of
intelligence can emerge from systems
with distributed parts (like human
government).
“Leviathan was a collective organism,
transcending the individual beings and
institutional organs of which it was
composed.” Hobbes
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“Although individual computers and
individual computer programs are
developing the elements of artificial
intelligence, it is in the larger
networks (or the network at large)
that we are developing a more likely
medium for the emergence of the
Leviathan of artificial mind.”
George Dyson
12
2
DARWIN AMONG THE MACHINES
In 1872, Samuel Butler anonymously
published Erewhon, or, Over the Range,
a satirical novel in an isolated valley
whose inhabitants had turned back the
clock so as to preclude the development
of intelligence among machines.
13
Butler’s Views on Darwinism
•Darwin did not properly credit earlier
evolutionists (e.g. Erasmus Darwin).
•Butler rejected the idea of evolution
and natural selection “without design,”
seeing some kind of superior
intelligence guiding the progress of
evolution.
•In spoofing Darwin’s theory, he posed
the possibility of the evolution of
intelligent machines.
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Important quotations from
Butler’s Erewhon
p. 25 -- If life evolved without any
direction from “above,” then why
should we assume that it will cease
evolving now? Why is it
impossible that mechanical life
evolve?
15
Important quotations from
Butler’s Erewhon
p. 26 -- Why should we assume
that mechanical consciousness is
not possible? Maybe we just can’t
understand it because it’s so
different from our own.
16
What Dyson does make clear is that
Butler kept going back to the notion of
some element of “design” in evolution some higher intelligence, be it God, or a
species level intelligence.
17
“Je pense, donc je suis.”
Our conception of the nature of
consciousness and intelligence is
intimately tied to our understanding of
the beginnings of life.
Important quotation -- p. 28
18
From Freeman Dyson -- Origins of
Life
It is widely accepted that life began
with replication, but Freeman Dyson
asserted that life began not once, but
twice.
Replication and reproduction
appeared at separate moments, and
the appearance of each in its own way
represents the beginning of life.
19
Molecules replicate. (DNA/RNA)
Cells reproduce. (protein)
RNA is the software -- linear,
sequential code.
Protein is the hardware -- more like
a neural network?
Contrary to conventional scientific
opinion, Freeman Dyson believed
proteins preceded RNA -- i.e.,
reproduction came first. (pp. 30,
186, 189)
20
3
THE GENERAL WIND
Like Hobbes, Leibnitz believed that
logic could be formalized in a system of
consistent symbols, manipulated
according to definite rules, and thus
mechanized.
The Step Reckoner
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The difference was that Hobbes
conceived of the mind as being a
temporary artifact of matter when
suitably arranged, and Leibnitz
conceived of the mind as a
fundamental element of the universe,
intrinsic to all living things but not
explained by the arrangement of
matter itself.
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p. 38 --“Once the characteristic numbers
for most concepts have been set up…the
human race will have a new kind of
instrument which will increase the power
of the mind much more than optical
lenses strengthen the eyes….Reason will
be right beyond all doubt only when it is
everywhere as clear and certain as only
arithmetic has been up until now.”
Gottfried Leibnitz
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p. 42 -- “A time may arrive when, by the
progress of knowledge, internal evidence
of the truth of revelation may start into
existence with all the force that can be
derived from the testimony of the
senses.”
Charles Babbage
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4
ON COMPUTABLE NUMBERS
Noteworthy thinkers from chapters 3
and 4:
George Boole (1815-1864)
Alfred Smee (1818-1877)
Kurt Gödel (1906-1978)
David Hilbert (1862-1943)
Alan Turing (1912-1954)
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Hilbert’s conjecture -- all
mathematical truths can be
reached by a sequence of welldefined logical steps.
Godel -- NOT!
Turing -- not everything is
computable
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5
THE PROVING GROUND
WAR!
And then there was …
Colossus…
ENIAC…
the Von Neumann model of
computation…
EDVAC...
etc. etc.
27
Even the founding fathers of the modern
day computer -- Alan Turing and John
Von Neumann -- whose models of
computation seem straightforwardly
procedural, developed notions of
“evolving” computation, whether they
modeled the physical workings of the
brain (i.e., neural networks) or learning
that procedes in an evolutionary fashion,
based on the dying out of unsuccessful
“ideas” (i.e., genetic algorithms).
28
Turing -- searching and learning (p. 71)
Von Neumann -- The Theory of SelfReproducing Automata, a precursor of
the study of artificial life (p. 109)
This and other works show the
beginnings of a connectionist model of
computation (p. 109)
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6
RATS IN THE CATHEDRAL
Von Neumann’s IAS computer
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7
SYMBIOGENESIS
Idea that living organisms evolve from
a succession of symbiotic associations
between simpler living forms.
According to Barricelli (1912-1993),
“genes were originally independent,
virus-like organisms which by
symbiotic association formed more
complex units.”
31
•Barricelli did mathematical simulations
of symbiogenesis, creating computer
programs where species of numbers
evolve.
•Suggestions of a “species level”
intelligence. (p. 115)
•Following in Barricelli’s footsteps,
Thomas Ray created Tierra, designed to
be a “fertile and forgiving environment in
which self-replicating digital organisms
can evolve.”
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8
ON DISTRIBUTED COMMUNICATIONS
History of distributed communication -from people waving lanterns to each
other to telegraph to networks of
computers.
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9
THEORY OF GAMES
AND ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR
Von Neumann’s work in economics and
game theory, as well as his ideas on
neural networks.
A side trip into cybernetics, the science
of communication and control theory,
studying systems that control their own
behavior through feedback loops
34
How does this relate back to
Dyson’s main theme?
Concepts of economics, cybernetics,
neural networks, and evolution are
interrelated.
35
How does this relate back to
Dyson’s main theme?
Economics can be viewed as the study
of how organisms and organizations
develop strategies that increase their
chances for reward. (Sounds like
survival of the fittest?)
36
How does this relate back to
Dyson’s main theme?
In a neural network, the flow of
information is analogous to the flow
of money in an economy.
37
How does this relate back to
Dyson’s main theme?
Like cybernetics, intelligent behavior
evolves from the ability to measure
and record the effects of a given
signal through feedback loops that
return a message telling how good the
result was.
38
10
THERE’S PLENTY OF
ROOM AT THE TOP
Self-organizing systems.
Dyson reconsiders the origins and
evolution of life, and returns to the idea
of species level intelligence.
39