Artificial Life Books

How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics

N. Katherine Hayles

Amazon Price: $15.30 List Price: $22.50 Usually ships in 24 hours By: University Of Chicago Press Amazon Marketplace: 39 new & used starting at $11.25

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Business & Culture -> Culture
Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Business & Culture -> History
Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Computer Science -> Artificial Intelligence -> Artificial Life

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The title of this scholarly yet remarkably accessible slice of contemporary cultural history has a whiff of paradox about it: what can it mean, exactly, to say that we humans have become something other than human? The answer, Katherine Hayles explains, lies not in ourselves but in our tools. Ever since the invention of electronic computers five decades ago, these powerful new machines have inspired a shift in how we define ourselves both as individuals and as a species.

Hayles tracks this shift across the history of avant-garde computer theory, starting with Norbert Weiner and other early "cyberneticists," who were the first to systematically explore the similarities between living and computing systems. Hayles's study ends with artificial-life specialists, many of whom no longer even bother to distinguish between life forms and computers. Along the way she shows these thinkers struggling to reconcile their traditional, Western notions of human identity with the unsettling, cyborg directions in which their own work seems to be leading humanity.

This is more than just the story of a geek elite, however. Hayles looks at cybernetically inspired science fiction by the likes of Philip K. Dick, William Gibson, and Neal Stephenson to show how the larger culture grapples with the same issues that dog the technologists. She also draws lucidly on her own broad grasp of contemporary philosophy both to contextualize those issues and to contend with them herself. The result is a fascinating introduction--and a valuable addition--to one of the most important currents in recent intellectual history. --Julian Dibbell

Darwin Among The Machines: The Evolution Of Global Intelligence (Helix Books)

George B. Dyson

Amazon Price: $16.10 List Price: $16.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Basic Books Amazon Marketplace: 41 new & used starting at $4.95

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Computer Science -> Artificial Intelligence -> Artificial Life
Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Computer Science -> Artificial Intelligence -> Computer Mathematics
Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Computer Science -> Artificial Intelligence -> Neural Networks

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 23 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Title sizzles, but book was unappetizing. 3 out of 5 stars.
7 of 7 people found this review helpful.

I bought this book in the hope of reading some intelligent speculations by the author about evolution, machines, and AI, which is what the title suggested I would find. However, it turned out to be a history of the evolution of computers with old speculations from the computer pioneers concerning the evolution of computers injected along the way. To be fair, the author does have an overarching thesis that he tries to weave into the historical narrative whenever some past speculation seems to lend it some support. It is that the World Wide Web - that well known network of millions of computers - may some day, at a certain critical size and running who knows what software (certainly not the author) will become intelligent in some way (also not specified by the author). Come to think of it, I think the author has used the historical angle of the book - the similar speculations of the computer pioneers of the past - as a device to lend credence to his thesis - a kind of proof by consensus. I remain unconvinced, however. His arguments (where there were any; it was hard to tell his arguments from narrative) were very weak and unconvincing. To his credit, the author did a tremendous job of scholarship for the historical side of the book. However, he left the speculative side undeveloped (at the most weakly developed) and, therefore, the book was unappetizing to me.

Editorial Review:

Here's a mesmerizing account of the evolution of machines and thoughts about machines, woven into a story about the evolution of intelligence. Darwin Among the Machines is not so much about how today's intelligence came to be, but about how it may further develop as humanity and computer grow closer together. George Dyson tells the story largely through stories--both historical and legendary--from the lives of scientists and philosophers who paved the way for today's cybernetics revolution, starting with the 17th-century insights of Thomas Hobbes. This book challenges the assumption that nature and machine are opposing forces. Dyson believes them to be allies.

An Introduction to Genetic Algorithms (Complex Adaptive Systems)

Melanie Mitchell

Amazon Price: $28.63 List Price: $35.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: The MIT Press Amazon Marketplace: 37 new & used starting at $10.00

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Computer Science -> Artificial Intelligence -> Artificial Life
Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Computer Science -> Artificial Intelligence -> Computer Mathematics
Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Computer Science -> Artificial Intelligence -> Machine Learning

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 17 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

"An outstanding introduction to a new and important field of computer science." -- Tim Watson, The Computer Journal

"This is a useful introduction to the subject and is well worth reading as an entry into evolutionary computing." -- Chris Robbins, Computing

Genetic algorithms have been used in science and engineering as adaptive algorithms for solving practical problems and as computational models of natural evolutionary systems. This brief, accessible introduction describes some of the most interesting research in the field and also enables readers to implement and experiment with genetic algorithms on their own. It focuses in depth on a small set of important and interesting topics--particularly in machine learning, scientific modeling, and artificial life--and reviews a broad span of research, including the work of Mitchell and her colleagues. The descriptions of applications and modeling projects stretch beyond the strict boundaries of computer science to include dynamical systems theory, game theory, molecular biology, ecology, evolutionary biology, and population genetics.

The Allure of Machinic Life: Cybernetics, Artificial Life, and the New AI (Bradford Books)

John Johnston

Amazon Price: $32.00 List Price: $40.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: The MIT Press Amazon Marketplace: 28 new & used starting at $22.00

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Computer Science -> Artificial Intelligence -> Artificial Life
Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Computer Science -> Artificial Intelligence -> Computer Mathematics
Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Computer Science -> Artificial Intelligence -> Robotics

Editorial Review:

In The Allure of Machinic Life, John Johnston examines new forms of nascent life that emerge through technical interactions within human-constructed environments—"machinic life"—in the sciences of cybernetics, artificial life, and artificial intelligence. With the development of such research initiatives as the evolution of digital organisms, computer immune systems, artificial protocells, evolutionary robotics, and swarm systems, Johnston argues, machinic life has achieved a complexity and autonomy worthy of study in its own right.

Drawing on the publications of scientists as well as a range of work in contemporary philosophy and cultural theory, but always with the primary focus on the "objects at hand"—the machines, programs, and processes that constitute machinic life—Johnston shows how they come about, how they operate, and how they are already changing. This understanding is a necessary first step, he further argues, that must precede speculation about the meaning and cultural implications of these new forms of life.

Developing the concept of the "computational assemblage" (a machine and its associated discourse) as a framework to identify both resemblances and differences in form and function, Johnston offers a conceptual history of each of the three sciences. He considers the new theory of machines proposed by cybernetics from several perspectives, including Lacanian psychoanalysis and "machinic philosophy." He 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 conceptual conflicts—decodings and recodings—leading to a "new AI" that is strongly influenced by artificial life. Finally, in examining the role played by neuroscience in several contemporary research initiatives, he shows how further success in the building of intelligent machines will most likely result from progress in our understanding of how the human brain actually works.

Bayesian Networks and Decision Graphs (Information Science and Statistics)

Finn V. Jensen, Thomas D. Nielsen

Amazon Price: $63.96 List Price: $79.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Springer Amazon Marketplace: 39 new & used starting at $51.94

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Certification Central -> General
Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Certification Central -> General AAS
Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Computer Science -> Artificial Intelligence -> Artificial Life

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Probabilistic graphical models and decision graphs are powerful modeling tools for reasoning and decision making under uncertainty. As modeling languages they allow a natural specification of problem domains with inherent uncertainty, and from a computational perspective they support efficient algorithms for automatic construction and query answering. This includes belief updating, finding the most probable explanation for the observed evidence, detecting conflicts in the evidence entered into the network, determining optimal strategies, analyzing for relevance, and performing sensitivity analysis.

The book introduces probabilistic graphical models and decision graphs, including Bayesian networks and influence diagrams. The reader is introduced to the two types of frameworks through examples and exercises, which also instruct the reader on how to build these models.

The book is a new edition of Bayesian Networks and Decision Graphs by Finn V. Jensen. The new edition is structured into two parts. The first part focuses on probabilistic graphical models. Compared with the previous book, the new edition also includes a thorough description of recent extensions to the Bayesian network modeling language, advances in exact and approximate belief updating algorithms, and methods for learning both the structure and the parameters of a Bayesian network. The second part deals with decision graphs, and in addition to the frameworks described in the previous edition, it also introduces Markov decision processes and partially ordered decision problems. The authors also

• provide a well-founded practical introduction to Bayesian networks, object-oriented Bayesian networks, decision trees, influence diagrams (and variants hereof), and Markov decision processes.
• give practical advice on the construction of Bayesian networks, decision trees, and influence diagrams from domain knowledge.
• give several examples and exercises exploiting computer systems for dealing with Bayesian networks and decision graphs.
• present a thorough introduction to state-of-the-art solution and analysis algorithms.

The book is intended as a textbook, but it can also be used for self-study and as a reference book.

Adaptation in Natural and Artificial Systems: An Introductory Analysis with Applications to Biology, Control, and Artificial Intelligence

John H. Holland

Amazon Price: $25.20 List Price: $28.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: The MIT Press Amazon Marketplace: 39 new & used starting at $7.43

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Computer Science -> Artificial Intelligence -> Artificial Life
Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Computer Science -> Artificial Intelligence -> Computer Mathematics
Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Computer Science -> Artificial Intelligence -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Genetic Algorithms Classic for Engineering 4 out of 5 stars.
28 of 34 people found this review helpful.

This book presents an inspirational synthesis from mathematics, computer science and systems theory addressing genetic algorithms and their role in intelligent engineering/business systems.

Topics include: background, a formal framework, illustrations (genetics, economics, game playing, searches, pattern recognition and statistical inference, control and function optimization, and central-nervous system), schemata, the optimal allocation of trials, reproductive plans and genetic operators, the robustness of genetic plans, adaptation of coding and representations, and overview, interim and prospectus.

Inclusion of a disk of spreadsheet-based examples would have increased user-friendliness to the sometimes moderately-complex mathematics. Otherwise, this book is a well presented, and useful classic for researchers and software vendors seeking to develop more innovative intelligent products.

Editorial Review:

John Holland's Adaptation in Natural and Artificial Systems is one of the classics in the field of complex adaptive systems. Holland is known as the father of genetic algorithms and classifier systems and in this tome he describes the theory behind these algorithms. Drawing on ideas from the fields of biology and economics, he shows how computer programs can evolve. The book contains mathematical proofs that are accessible only to those with strong backgrounds in engineering or science.

The Large, the Small and the Human Mind

Roger Penrose

Amazon Price: $17.99 List Price: $19.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Cambridge University Press Amazon Marketplace: 68 new & used starting at $2.96

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Computer Science -> Artificial Intelligence -> Artificial Life
Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Computer Science -> Artificial Intelligence -> Computer Mathematics
Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Computer Science -> Artificial Intelligence -> Theory of Computing

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Will quantum physics let us reduce consciousness to computation? Roger Penrose says "no" with great force and eloquence in The Large, the Small, and the Human Mind. Prepared as a series of three lectures in Cambridge's Tanner Series on Human Values, the material is both meticulously thought out and informally presented, including many illustrations by Penrose and others. For publication, the author sought out rebuttals and commentary by philosophers Abner Shimony and Nancy Cartwright, as well as his own colleague and occasional rival, the well-known theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking. Penrose then reserves the last word for himself, an author's prerogative. The result is a sharp but polite argument on the nature of thinking and its reducibility. Readers familiar with The Emperor's New Mind and Shadow of the Mind will find the arguments from quantum physics fleshed out in greater detail, but also attacked with good-natured aplomb. Those who missed out on Penrose's older forays into this territory (or are somehow uninterested in the nature of thought) will find this an excellent broad overview of the modern conception of physics, from subatomic shenanigans to the radius of the universe, as well as a stimulating debate among several great modern thinkers. Despite Penrose's certainty that our brains can't be modeled by computational systems--and hence that strong artificial intelligence will remain in science fiction--the argument continues, and will continue for some time. The Large, the Small, and the Human Mind crystallizes that debate for readers who want to keep up with the latest thinking about thinking. --Rob Lightner

Artificial Life: A Report from the Frontier Where Computers Meet Biology

Steven Levy

Amazon Price: $18.90 List Price: $21.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Vintage Amazon Marketplace: 78 new & used starting at $0.01

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Computer Science -> Artificial Intelligence -> Artificial Life
Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Computer Science -> Artificial Intelligence -> Computer Mathematics
Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Computer Science -> Artificial Intelligence -> Neural Networks

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 14 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

An excellent intro to a new science 4 out of 5 stars.
6 of 6 people found this review helpful.

While the concept of artificial life has been around at least since humans developed self-awareness, the commensurate decline of religion and rise of the scientific method was necessary for it to become a point of real debate. However, it was not until September 1987 when the event occurred that established a-life as an academic discipline, namely a conference devoted to its study. This work uses that event as a starting point, and does a superb job of presenting nearly all perspectives, including historical.
Like its counterpart, artificial intelligence, the discipline of a-life suffers from a lack of definition. There is no agreement on what life or intelligence are. Additional disagreement arises over the following distinctive descriptions of life.

(a) Objects such as rocks can be assigned a life (intelligence) value of zero and as we move upward to humans and beyond, the measure of life (intelligence) characteristics is described by a smooth, continuous function where the first derivative never becomes very large, but is always positive. There is no clearly discernible boundary between life and non-life.

(b) Starting from the same initial position as (a), the derivative stays close to zero for some time, and then suddenly becomes unbounded, as the matter now possesses the fundamental essence of life (intelligence). That point of the vertical derivative is the boundary point between animate and inanimate objects.

Much of this book deals with cellular automata and the algorithms used to create them. Like so many new, perhaps revolutionary disciplines, the major players tend to be free spirits. Many of the people described here bounced around before finding their ecological niche in a-life. With the exception of the originators, John von Neumann and John Horton Conway, those who established the study of cellular automata as an academic discipline were academic outsiders who literally created it from nothing. The explanation of that is very well done. While most of the work has been done by computer, no previous knowledge is necessary to understand the text.
One item could have been better handled, but that is largely due to the problems with definitions. Like the workers in chaos, a-lifers tend to see what they want to see. For example, simple rules are used to create an image that either looks or acts like something known to be alive and this is used to argue that life is being created or that the rules that create life are simple. Which is an extremely weak argument. What is being created are items that human eyes interpret as looking like life, and as all psychologists know, the human brain processes images with a bias towards previous experience. The devil's advocate against is a shadow here. However, it is difficult to argue in the negative when you are aiming at a nebulous target.
Whatever your interest in a-life, you will find something of value in this book. Biologists and philosophers who teach general education courses will also find a good deal of discussion material. The hypothetical qualification has been removed form the debate, as there are now objects to argue about.

Published in Journal of Recreational Mathematics, reprinted with permission

Editorial Review:

Even as molecular biologists attempt to reproduce life in vitro, another group of scientists is creating life--or something very close to it--in silico, using computers to produce "organisms" that can move, see, feed, reproduce, and die. Photos.

Springer Handbook of Robotics

Amazon Price: $159.20 List Price: $199.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Springer Amazon Marketplace: 25 new & used starting at $147.78

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Computer Science -> Artificial Intelligence -> Artificial Life
Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Computer Science -> Artificial Intelligence -> Robotics
Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Computer Science -> Artificial Intelligence -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Robotics is undergoing a major transformation in scope and dimension. Starting from a predominantly industrial focus, robotics has been rapidly expanding into the challenges of unstructured environments. The "Springer Handbook of Robotics" incorporates these new developments and therefore basically differs from other handbooks of robotics focusing on industrial applications. It presents a widespread and well-structured coverage from the foundations of robotics, through the consolidated methodologies and technologies, up to the new emerging application areas of robotics. The handbook is an ideal resource for robotics experts but also for people new to this expanding field such as engineers, medical doctors, computer scientists, designers; edited by two internationally renowned experts.

Bruno Siciliano is Professor of Control and Robotics at University of Naples, President of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, and a board member of the European Robotics Research Network.

Oussama Khatib is Professor at the prestigious Stanford University in the USA, President of the International Foundation of Robotics Research, and a recipient of the Japan Robot Association Award in Research and Development.

The Essential Turing: Seminal Writings in Computing, Logic, Philosophy, Artificial Intelligence, and Artificial Life plus The Secrets of Enigma

Alan M. Turing

Amazon Price: $32.48 List Price: $40.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Oxford University Press, USA Amazon Marketplace: 34 new & used starting at $19.00

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Business & Culture -> History
Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Computer Science -> Artificial Intelligence -> Artificial Life
Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Computer Science -> Artificial Intelligence -> Cognitive Simulation

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Alan Turing was one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century. In 1935, aged 22, he developed the mathematical theory upon which all subsequent stored-program digital computers are modeled.
At the outbreak of hostilities with Germany in September 1939, he joined the Government Codebreaking team at Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire and played a crucial role in deciphering Engima, the code used by the German armed forces to protect their radio communications. Turing's work on the version of Enigma used by the German navy was vital to the battle for supremacy in the North Atlantic. He also contributed to the attack on the cyphers known as "Fish," which were used by the German High Command for the encryption of signals during the latter part of the war. His contribution helped to shorten the war in Europe by an estimated two years.
After the war, his theoretical work led to the development of Britain's first computers at the National Physical Laboratory and the Royal Society Computing Machine Laboratory at Manchester University.
Turing was also a founding father of modern cognitive science, theorizing that the cortex at birth is an "unorganized machine" which through "training" becomes organized "into a universal machine or something like it." He went on to develop the use of computers to model biological growth, launching the discipline now referred to as Artificial Life.
The papers in this book are the key works for understanding Turing's phenomenal contribution across all these fields. The collection includes Turing's declassified wartime "Treatise on the Enigma"; letters from Turing to Churchill and to codebreakers; lectures, papers, and broadcasts which opened up the concept of AI and its implications; and the paper which formed the genesis of the investigation of Artifical Life.