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



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