Artificial Life Books

Genetic programming is like a new Big Bang in computer universe.
Reach the automatic programming level is a revolution that will affect the way things are done today.

In a very cientifyc way, the book shows all the aspects of how to get ready for this evolution.

my five stars are just to counteract the single star from the idiotic reviewer who gave the book one star w/o even bothering to read it. i haven't read this volume yet either, but i just ordered it and it's on its way; i'm certain i won't be disapointed. i'm a programmer and an artist and i use GP effectively to evolve forms both sonic and visual. just because you know your field(s) doesn't mean you can't benefit from a knowledge of evolutionary algorithms, quite the contrary. we have koza and friends to thank for a lot of inspirational work. i for one enjoy the interaction that i have with my algorithms, and since i'm the fitness function, forms crop up which never would have if either i or the machine were working alone. apologies for being guilty of the same crime as said reviewer but i feel in this case it's justified.

The authors have written a fine book here and it has and will continue to be a source of good information on the subject. What is most interesting about the approach of genetic programming is that it does not make use of the inference methods of formal logic in the search for the correct program. Correctly observing that logical thinking is insufficient for invention and creativity, the authors follow the "logic considered harmful" philosophy in their attempts to get a computer to find a creative/original solution to a problem. And most importantly, they discuss fourteen examples where genetic programming has produced results that are competitive with human-produced results. The book is almost 1200 pages long, but without reading all the examples one could cover the main points in a reasonable time frame. The reader knowing the LISP language will appreciate the discussion more.

After a brief introduction to the book in chapter 1, the authors move on to a detailed discussion of the philosophy and approaches used in genetic programming. They list the five steps that must be done before applying a genetic algorithm to a problem and give an overview of the LISP background needed to understand genetic programming. The authors emphasize that the genetic algorithm is probabilistic in nature, with the initial populations, individual selection, and genetic operation chosen at random. They give flowcharts illustrating a typical genetic algorithm and program, and then show executable programs can be automatically created. A very extensive list of references on genetic programming is given at the end of the chapter.

In the next part, the authors discuss how to eliminate the requirement that the programmer specify the architecture in advance to the program to be created. After reviewing some methods that were previously used to make the choice of architecture, the authors move on to describing a set of architecture-altering operations that give an automated method for determining the architectures of evolving programs. The discussion on automatically defined recursion is particularly interesting.

The book then shows how to use the results so far to allow problem-solving to be done using genetic programming, the first one being the rotation of automobile tires and the second being evolving a computer program with the behavior of Boolean even-parity functions. This is followed by a discussion of how to use architecture-altering operations to solve a time-optimal control problem. The most interesting part of this discussion is that it illustrates the important point that disadvantageous actions should be taken in the short term so that the long-term objective can be achieved.

In chapter 14, the ant foraging problem is used to illustrate a form of the (Minsky) multiagent problem and architecture-altering operations. This is followed by discussions on the digit recognition problem and the transmembrane segment identification problem. The authors choose the Fibonacci sequence to illustrate how recursion can be used in solving problems with genetic programming. The necessity of using internal storage is illustrated using the cart centering problem.

The authors then overview the use of the Genetic Programming Problem Solver (GPPS) for automatically creating a computer program to solve a problem. Several problems are examined using this Solver, such as symbolic regression, sorting networks, and the intertwined spirals problem.

The next part then considers the application of genetic programming to the automated synthesis of analog electrical circuits. The authors judge, rightfully, that the design process is one that will be a good judge of automated technique versus one that was done by humans, especially considering the fact that analog design is considered by many to be an "art" rather than a "science". The authors show how to import the SPICE simulation system into the genetic programming system, and discuss how validation of circuit design using this simulator would be done by the genetic programming system. After showing how a low-pass filter may be successfully designed using the genetic programming system, the authors show how with a few changes it can be used to design many different types of circuits. Interestingly, the authors cite the rediscovery by genetic programming of the elliptic filter topology of W. Cauer. Cauer arrived at his discovery via the use of elliptic functions, but the genetic program did not make use of these, but relied solely on the problem's fitness measure and natural selection!

An interesting discussion is also given of the role of crossover in genetic programming by comparing the problem of synthesizing a lowpass filter with and without using crossover. The authors conclude that the crossover operation plays a large contribution to the actual solution of the problem.

Then later, the authors show how genetic programming actually evolved a cellular automata that performs better than a succession of algorithms written by humans in the last two decades. Specifically, they show how genetic programming evolved a rule for the majority classification problem for one-dimensional two-state cellular automata that exceeds the accuracy of all known rules.

Most interestingly, the authors show how genetic programming evolved motifs for detecting the D-E-A-D box family of proteins and for detecting the manganese superoxide dismutase family.

The actual performance and implementation issues involved in genetic programming are discussed in the last two parts of the book. They discuss the computer time needed to yield the 14 instances where they claim that genetic programming has produced results that are competitive with human-produced results.

The authors wrap things up in the last chapter of the book and discuss other instances where genetic programming has succeeded in automatically producing computer programs that are competitive with human-produced results. The evidence they have in the book is impressive but there are a few areas that will be ultimate tests of this approach, the most important being the discovery of new mathematical results or algorithms. It is this area that requires the most creativity on the part of the inventor.

The quest for *Automatic Programming* is the holy grail of artificial intelligence. The dream of having computer programs write other useful computer programs has haunted researchers since the nineteen fifties. In Genetic Programming III -Darwinian Invention and problem solving (GP3) by John R. Koza, Forest H Bennet III, David Andre and Martin A Keane, the authors claim that the first inscription on this trophy should be the name Genetic Programming (GP). GP is about applying evolutionary algorithms to search the space of computer programs. The authors paraphrase Arthur Samuel of 1959 and argue that with this method it is possible to "tell the computer what to do without telling it explicitly how to do it".

The main hypothesis of the book is that GP is not only the first instance of true automatic programming but also creative to such an extant that it competes with humans in solving very hard problems and therefore the solutions produced by GP can sometimes be called inventions, thus the name "Darwinian Invention Machine". The book starts by listing sixteen proposed attributes of any automatic programming system. The attribute list begins with obvious properties such as the ability to produce entities that can run on a computer, continues by describing components of full computer programs and ends by expressing fuzzier concepts such as applicability, scalability and competitiveness with human-produced results. The authors argue that GP definitely has most of the 16 attributes and at least to some extent possesses the remaining few. The last attribute, human competitive results, is in turn defined by a list of eight properties where each of them gives enough evidence to conclude competitiveness to results produced by the intellect of a human. This list includes concepts such as whether the results are pantentable, publishable in scientific journals or better then best known human solutions. GP3 reports 14 experiments by the authors where the they claim that GP produced results fulfilling one or more of these properties and thus are competitive with that of a skilled human such as an engineer, mathematician, designer or programmer. Examples of results with the "darwinian invention quality" include sorting networks, analogue electrical circuit synthesis and creation of motifs for protein family detection. Pointers are also given to human competitive solutions evolved by other researchers.

Overall there is no question that this is an important book putting the spotlight on one of the peak performing and most promising candidates for the general AI prize. There is no doubt that this book belongs in the standard library of all GP researchers or practitioners. This volumous book is a bit heterogeneous, probably stemming from the fact that is combined from a number of previously published papers with some new material. On the other hand is the volume important documentation of innovative work done by John Koza and his colleagues. In many place numerous pointers to work by other researchers are given but in the end I believe that the book would have a stronger case for presenting the GP state-of-the-art by including more references to similar research by other research groups.

However most important and intriguing thing about this book is the provocative questions raised concerning definitions and claims of human competitive performance, "Darwinian invention" and artificial intelligence - particularly whether we have already passed an important milestone in the history of AI - automatic programming.

Why this book, when there are several shorter books on GP, and its principle author, John Koza, has written two other, more general and equally voluminous books on GP? This book addresses how to evolve program architecture, that's why! Living organisms didn't grow arms and eyes through simple mutation. It required more subtle genetic operators. Traditional genetic operators (as used in genetic algorithms) may be sufficient for evolving solutions to optimization problems where the structure if not the specifics of each solution is pretty much the same. But to effectively evolve program structures, you need architecture altering genetic operators. This book provides motivations in computer science, foundations in biology, and explanations in English.

Although this book is very technical it is interesting. Don't be discouraged by that if you are considering purchasing the book. It is enlightening to know that we just recently realized there were such celestial bodies, which we used to call dwarf stars.

I took away from this book, that we are not alone. Whether you beleive in a higher power or not, it's time for our species to understand we are not alone. That the pulsars are understood by us now to possibly be a heavenly highway; the pulsars emitting light pulses much like our directional maps but of a higher sort. Some may be afraid when they realize this. But consider this: We have been alone for as long as our minds can remember and no harm has come to us thus far. It is neither a threat nor a bail out for our threatened planet. Perhaps, that is how we came to be on planet Earth?

I have been searching for much of my life for concrete proof of high extraterrestrial life. Before this book, I had only come across the same-ole 'testimonial' (and non-scientific) accounts, similar to those that are found on the Discovery Channel, for example, where people tell us they have seen UFOs or something, but can't prove it. This book on pulsars pretty much has proven to me that there is intelligent life throughout our galaxy. The very nature of pulsars, in addition to their layout around the galaxy, cannot be the product of random evolution of the galaxy. Neutron stars have never been observed by scientists, and thus are not scientific entities (they are only theoretical, and only the pulses have empirical). And there are so many well-known problems with the theory of neutron starts (how to neutrons line up together as they are supposed to according to the neutron star theory?). Thus, the problems with neutron stars in the scientific assumptions by experts, combined with the discoveries in this book, are so powerful that this book could involve some of the most earth-shattering information I have ever come across (and I have done a whole lot of reading in my life). I cannot recommend this book enough--it is scientific, professional, academic (in the truest sense), sober and rational, and empirical.

I have read many books of the author. The constant message he anxiously wants to send to humanity is that a possible danger, which will come from abroad (center of galaxy) and will cause an enormous destruction, might occur. The same message (among others) was sent by Helena Petrova Blavatsky in the "Secret Doctrine" in 1988. In our days, the author devoted his whole life to prove that this possible danger can be justified by experiments and scientific reasoning. It is worthy for each of us to pay some effort and spend some time to read his books, since the message of a possible destruction of humanity will finally change our lives and the way we think about everything.

I think LaViolette has a plausible claim when he mentions that Pulsars are the result of extraterrestrial intelligent. Being a fan of SETI and an amateur astronomer, I found the book very good. I also think we don't have the technology today to explain not even 1% of what is going on beyond the moon. I once read someone saying that we can't explain physical phenomenta of very small (quantum level) or very large objects, a galaxy for instance. That might be true. How do we validate that? Someday we'll have it. Thanks for your book Paul.

I enjoyed reading parts of this book that covered the astronomy and the astrophysics of the pulsar phenomenon. The author clearly knows his technical subject well and his presentation is non-technical and readable which may be viewed as a popular survey of the state of experimental knowledge of the pulsars. Additionally, the author also covers some very interesting scientific material on the effect of the active galactic core on Earth's climate. The author rightly points out the inadequacy of the standard light-house theoretical framework for pulsars and then uses the recent discoveries of periodic generation of cosmic ray fronts in the nucleus of our galaxy and builds upon its shortcomings to advance his hypothesis - namely that the pulsars are artificial.

And it is here that I part company with the author. From the inadequacy of the theoretical pulsar models he makes a leap of faith that pulsars are artificial constructs put out there by an extra-terrestial intelligence as warning beacons. And he assures us that the beacons are there to warn us against the next shockwave that comes of the active galactic nucleus.

He tries to make this plausible by pointing out to certain geometric relationships among various pulsars and their positions on the celestial sphere, by invoking probability theory, and by referencing ancient myths. All of that I found rather unhelpful in supporting his initial hypothesis.

I also did not like his specific usage of probability theory; I think that his treatment was too simple. He had to have developed different statistical hypothesis and then computed their likelihoods. Calculations in the same spirit as his could be used to claim that life was artificially created on Earth. I think the only reliable conclusion that he can draw is that the pulsars are not random phenomena (they do not conform to a Gaussian distribution) but neither does the distribution of galaxies in the cosmos and no one is yet suggesting that they (the galaxies) were put there by an extra-terrestrial intelligence!

Furthermore, to substantiate his initial hypothesis that pulsars are artificial warning beacons he takes detours into crop circles, phase-conjugate mirrors, UFOs, and a number of other subjects. Moreover, his hypothesis leads inexorably to the conclusion that the beacons are designed to warn Earthlings since none of the geometric relations that he has discussed will hold for any other location except the Earth vicinity. Then he is forced to entertain the idea that the aliens had visited Earth tens of thousands of years ago and decided to put the pulsars into their current locations to warn us of the next cosmic ray burst from the galactic core. So he has to assume more and more implausible things to sustain his initial hypothesis.

I cannot credit any of that for surely the beings who could build the pulsars could have encoded messages in the signals themselves rather than solely relying on the human observers' recognition of geometrical relationship in their position. And there is no message that anyone has yet discovered in these signals.

On the positive side, I learnt several new things reading this book; all having to do with solid scientific results. I learnt of Pulsars and their properties, I learnt how the ice core samplings have let us to discover the cosmic ray waves that come out of the galactic core every 13,000 years or so and their effect on the global climate, and I learnt of phase-conjugate mirrors in non-linear optics.

In fact, the precision of the pulsar periods and their glitches very much reminded me of the precisions and plateaus of the Quantum Hall Effect and the Fractional Quantum Hall Effect in Quantum Liquids with magnetic fields - and a neutron star is a quantum liquid with trapped magnetic fields within and around it. It might be possible to build better models that use the Quantum Hall Effect and the Fractional Quantum Hall Effect.

Many years ago, I read a science-fiction story in which the protagonist comes across a gigantic communication grid in space and follows the direction of the beam to a nearby globular cluster. Which makes me wonder if the globular clusters are also artificial; that clever extraterrestrials are pulling these stars together and keeping them in there as sort of a flotilla of civilized worlds? Well, if you like wondering about things like that (as I do from time to time) then the non-science part of this book is for you.

Not only does his book have a dazzling perspective into all the ways that the body is modified within modern practice he also brings it to a level that even the most novice of readers can grasp. Having been a philosophy student of Mr. Gray's in 1997 I must say it is not quite as enlightening as being in person with him, but it still shows his brilliance and true connection to the cyborg-mentality. Frankly if you can find a way to meet him, every second is worth it. But if you can't, this book is a good close second, and well worth your $ and reading time.

In Cyborg Citizen, the author argues that the creation of cyborgs calls for new definitions of citizenship. Examples can include Internet offerings and the legal and political issues raised by its use, and issues affecting the mechanization of humans with artificial parts. An intriguing survey of changing images of civil rights and liberties.

Why does it seem that all books written about human interaction with emerging technologies are written in postmodernist lingo? Gray's book is not nearly as objectionable in this regard as others (note, especially, the works of Pierre Levy, for truly awe-inspiring levels of incomprehensibiliy). At times he hits on topics that struck me as having a lot of merit (he takes the editors of WIRED to task, for instance, for promoting a sort of hipster-oh-man-this-is-so-awesome approach to technology, and he appropriately skewers libertarianism, etc.). However, I saw two main problems with the book: (1) The author appears to see everything and everybody in the world today as a cyborg of some sort - for example, ultrasound renders the fetus in the womb a cyborg, etc. The concept is so widely applied that it ceases to have meaning. (2) The regrettable lapses into postmodernist drivel, while thankfully infrequent are still discouraging. There is also a little (not a lot) of political correctness a la feminist theory to deal with. For instance, he spends some time skewering (no pun intended) the development of penile implants (cyborg penises!), and points out that the existence of such a phenomena validates the male-centric nature of technology so insightfully criticized by feminist theory. Odd, but no mention of breast implants is made. Purely an oversight, I'm sure!

There are so many serious topics to deal with in the area of our current and future relation to technology - when will someone write a coherent book addressing them?? While this book is an occasionally enjoyable read, in the end it can't be taken all that seriously.

I had a high level of interest upon picking up this book, as cyborg technology and the philosophy behind it, after reading it; however, I have to say I was a bit disappointed. I gave it a rating of 3 stars, but I think it deserves more along the lines of a 2.5. This book professes to be about cyborgs, and it is, but Gray's definition of "cyborg" is so incredibly broad that it loses a huge part of its relevancy. He defines a cyborg as "a self-regulating organism that combines the natural and artificial into one system," and takes that as far as it can possibly go, calling unborn fetuses cyborgs if they are viewed by ultrasound, and the average citizen a cyborg for having immunizations. I am a cyborg because I wear glasses.

One aspect of this book that struck me is that nearly everything Gray discusses seems to be along the lines of either common sense of common knowledge to the type of person who would be reading this book in the first place. It is useful as a reference material to springboard off of and steal a few quotes, or perhaps a simple overview of some of the politics of a technological society, but not much more.

By the end of this book, one is tired of the completely over-used word "cyborg"; as it seems to apply to nearly everything and everyone in today's society; as well as Gray's frequent references to the late Christopher Reeves. Like so many movies today, this book is worth a borrow, but I wouldn't plop down my hard earned money for it. If you are looking for in-depth research surrounding the technolgy of cyborgs, look elsewhere.

Written in the personal, post-modern style, down to earth, and occasionally profound, Cyborg Citizen is an instructive meditation on the interpenetration of the machine and the human, the machine and the non-human, the human and the non-human. Hables Gray reviews most of the relevant academic literature (Haraway and others) draws examples of cyborg lifestyles from the news (Christopher Reeves and others), from pop culture (TV, Sci-Fi, comic books) to make his larger point that the signs of cyborgization are everywhere now, and that we are all cyborgs now, whether we know it or not. Though penetrated by technoscience, most of us are not aware of the extent to which we have become drafted in the great cyborg experiment. Hables Gray argues we need to find new ways of thinking about the intersection of science, technology, and living things in order to make better (or at least some!) choices about where the technoscience juggernaut is taking us.

He explores a variety of different areas where political thinking has either been ineffective or brushed aside by the exigencies of technoscience and capitalism: Frankenfoods, franken-species, cloning, in-vitro fertilization practices are all covered, as are transgendering and cyborgization in pursuit of sexual fulfillment. He does equal justice to all the complexities these collisions entail. That's why I didn't give the book the full 5 stars, actually, because not all these topics deserve examination at the same length. But that's a minor complaint, of course.

After reading Cyborg Citizen you will find examples of cyborgs everywhere. Of course, as tool users and builders and putterers, we've always been cyborgs -- as much shaped by our tools as the things we've shaped with them -- but the recognition of this fact and how it plays out across the realms of the civic, the economic, the scientific and technological as described in Cyborg Citizen will show the reader how far we are from Rousseau's state of nature -- if indeed there ever was such a place -- but that we may not have much further to go before the tools and cyborgs we build remake the world into place where we would not choose to live, indeed, a world where we may not be able to live. Not anti-techoscience, but rather, pro-thoughtful technoscience, Gray lays out the conundrums simply and argues that to be only pro or anti-techoscience is a luxury we cannot afford. Ultimately, he argues that as cyborgs we have to start thinking about what that really means.

This is a terrific book. Turing is one of the most important figures of our time. Copeland's lucid and helpful introductions to Turing's key works make fascinating reading. (The hundreds of footnotes are testimony to the depth of scholarship that underlies Copeland's smooth prose.) Copeland makes Turing, and so the origins of the digital age, accessible to all.

Copeland's book is basically a collection of some of Turing's original papers, completed with a short introduction for each part of the book. I was disappointed by this book as (1) one can easily find copies of Turing's work on the web, (2) there is very little additional value in Copeland's comments, and (3) the papers are not reproduced in their original typeset and layout. Elsevier's "Collected Works of A. M. Turing" (4 volumes) does a much better job and offers Turing's complete work.

Enjoy this profound book by the father of the Digital Age. The Essential Turing is an excellent edition and long overdue. Turing's essential works are finally available in a single volume. Turing is one of the most important thinkers of the 20th century--he was rated up there with Einstein in Time magazine's 'The Century's Greatest Minds'. Copeland's lucid commentaries on Turing's work are fascinating and helpful. OUP is to be congratulated on putting Turing into the hands of the popular science book-buyer at long last.

A long overdue book. Copeland collects together Turing's greatest papers. As in where Turing tackled the fundamentals of what is now called a Turing machine - ie. a universal computer. Plus other papers where Turing ruminated on artificial intelligence, and founded that field. Plus coming up with the Turing Test for AI.

Turing's papers are interleaved with chapters by Copeland that give extra context to the times in which Turing lived. Notably on Turing's crucial contribution to the Enigma project at Bletchley Park during World War 2. It is no exaggeration to say that his insight into decoding the German encryptions saved the lives of thousands of Allied soldiers.

Valuable also is a reprinting of Turing's "Treatise on the Enigma", which was only declassified in 1996. Though by then, its essence had been known for decades. Finally, the book lets you read Turing's words on Enigma.

Copeland's "Essential Turing" reviews Turning's major writings and is a valuable source of knowledge for computer scientists and avid CS/Mathematics readers alike. Turing was a brilliant British mathematician, logician, and cryptographer and is widely considered to be the father of computer science. This book doesn't portray him merely as a code breaker but also provides commentary on his brilliant foundation work as on Artificial intelligence. Discussion on the ultimate Turing test (proposal for a test of a machine's capability to perform human-like conversation) and Entscheidungs Problem is worth reading.

I shelve this book next to Knuth's "The Art of Computer Programming" which may state what it's worth.

I am writing review this because a previous review may mislead some people. This book does not claim to deal with Artificial Life; instead, computers are used to provide a better understanding of life's processes, especially evolution. Given that this is the stated objective of the author, the book is excellent, well written, and rich with examples.

I have purchased multiple copies of this book because I have "loaned" my copies to people interested in computational evolution. When I leave administration, I would like to teach a course in evolution, and if it is not too far in the future, I will require this book as outside reading.

I am writing review this because a previous review may mislead some people. This book does not claim to deal with Artificial Life; instead, computers are used to provide a better understanding of life's processes, especially evolution. Given that this is the stated objective of the author, the book is excellent, well written, and rich with examples.

I have purchased multiple copies of this book because I have "loaned" my copies to people interested in computational evolution. When I leave administration, I would like to teach a course in evolution, and if it is not too far in the future, I will require this book as outside reading.

This book is a superficial discussion of evolution on earth, not artificial life. The actual content on artificial life and agents would make a mediocre and short magazine article. This book brings out the shortcommings of buying a book online because less than five minutes in a bookstore aisle would reveal the uselessness of this book.

This book is a must for the Biology scientist knowing a little about computers and how they work, if you want to study the Evolution and nature of life on a computer. I found it so overwhelming that I decided to become a Biology scientist and focus my life on making simulations of the Evolution of Life by making computer models. So many things to discover! So little time!

An excellent discussion on what life is, evolution, and how it all may apply to computer viruses and what we may learn from them. I would recommend all books on computer viruses by Dr. Ludwig.

I want This Boo

A great discussion of evolution - the author takes us through the basics of evolution, and the arguments for and against it, and how this all might apply to computer viruses. Also has an interesting virus designed to emulate Darwinian evolution.

Have you ever wondered if the theory if evolution is true? Evolution has passed into scientific doctrine, not because there is overwhelming evidence, but simply because there is no alternative. And yet, evolution seems to propose the impossible, that life could spontaneously appear from the random interaction of chemicals, and that the simplest single celled organism could, through mutation, transform itself into something as astoundingly complex as a human being. This book examines evolution using powerful new insights gained from the study of computer viruses and other artifical life programs. Computer viruses reproduce, mutate, are killed, become extinct, or prospher in much the same way as organic live forms. This book does not propose any alternative theory to evolution. It does, however, confront the reader with some impossible aspects of its fundamental principles. Even if we don't have any alternative but to believe in evolution, we should still approach that belief with all the caution we would give a theory that had many viable alternatives.

Recounting in successive biographic episodes the ultimately pathetic efforts of men to build, with their own hands, artificial humans, Gaby Wood offers a uniquely female perspective. Especially since the mechanicals were often meant to be women. Although very learned, the author does not aim at an engineering evaluation. Rather, the stories she tells will elicit in psychologically sensitive readers a mixture of laughter and horror. As was the case with the audiences in front of which these creatures were presented, readers will first be fascinated but then will turn away in revulsion.

This book is all over the map. Reading along you discover a number of very interesting facts about early robotics, cinema, toy manufacture and circus life. The facts are never brought together in any meaningful way. There seems to be a thread that can be constructed from the journey from the initial attempts at artifical life in the early Age of Enlightenment to the modern world of robotic manufacturing and artifical intellegence. This thread is never investigated in this book. It is actually a series of disjointed tales all dealing with the perception of "life" in various intellectual climes. It just doesn't seem to come together into any sort of intelectually satisfying way.

Edison's Eve (Edison's attempt to create a successful talking doll) is both the title of Gaby Wood's book and one of the centrepiece chapters of this journey on the quest for mechanical life. Other chapters concern the Doll Family of midgets, the movies of Melies, the automatons of Vaucanson and the deception of the chess playing Turk (not an actual automaton). These pieces do not always blend together smoothly but the author works very hard to connect all the dots. On their own, though, each chapter is fascinating and filled with memorable anecdotes and will have the reader looking at the world in a different way. An enjoyable read.

This is a great book for anyone interested in automata - and that includes computer people interested in artificial language, philosophers interested in what makes us human, cultural anthropologists interested in the interaction of humans and machines, and poets interested in all of the above. If you like this, try also The Turk: The Life and Times of the Famous
Eighteenth-Century Chess-Playing Machine by Tom Standage. Equally strange & pleasurable.

Adami's book is the first comprehensive review of issues pertinent to the field of artificial life. The book is a textbook based on his lectures at CalTech. Some of the topics are a bit brief (Turing machines are summarized in four pages) but that is to be expected for a book whose goal is to integrate concepts from the fields of biology, chemistry, statistics, computer science, information science, etc. I found the book fascinating and Chris includes a CD-rom and several chapters on the Avida simulation developed at CalTech. There are numerous references and problems at the end of each chapter.

This is the ONLY book I have seen which brings together all the many and various strands which are essential to the exciting new subjects arising currently around the question: What is Life? It is a stunning tour de force of the basic knowledge you need to possess to work in the areas of A-life or biological complexity.

I should warn: it's not a book I could read through in an afternoon, by any means. At times the descriptions are a little cryptic, so that I had to work at understanding what was being said. But the effort I had to put in was always rewarded with greater understanding. Thank you, Chris Adami.

I bought this book to understand the mathematics and physics in A-Life and Complexity. Instead I found this book very long winded and difficult to comprehend exactly what was trying to be said. The content and layout of the book is great, just wish a better writer had been the author of this book. Lots of fancy, big words that are not needed to get the basic points across. Very hard to understand what is being said. It takes smarts and skill to explain complicated, abstract ideas in a meaningful manner. This book does not do that. I wish it did!

Adami demonstrates how to use the tools of artificial life to conduct pure scientific research. A very clear and readable textbook on the subject, Adami makes me want to go back to graduate school. Here is a chance to take an introductory course in an exciting field of research that is truely table-top science. I loved the book and I didn't even use the CD and software that came with it.

Freedman's book is a useful introduction to artificial
intelligence suitable for the lay reader. More technical
introductions exist in the form of the many good textbooks
on AI.
Brainmaker is a fun read but I do have a few criticisms.
Freedman distinguishes "old time" "good old fashioned AI"
g.o.f.a.i. from what he dubs "nature AI." I believe that he
has simply cobbled together some ideas and that his "nature
AI" does not exist as a coherent project.
Freedman seems to think that gofai was not modeled after
nature. I do not agree. Newell studied how people reasoned,
Boole was building a logic of how people think, and Rosenblatt
had real neural nets in mind. It is also inaccurate to call
gofai a failure. Sure there are lots of things that people
can do that computers can't. But there is also a long and
growing list of what computers can do and people can not. AIs
are good a modus tollens, humans are not. AIs are good at
long chains of reasoning and with negated terms, humans are not.
Computers can handle spaces having many dimensions, humans find
it hard to handle 3. Computers are good at probability and
math, people are not. And the list goes on and on.
Freedman's "nature AI" does not exist as a real AI subfield.
He has simply grouped together a number of new ideas, some good,
some bad. He also spends too much time on biology. If
there is any evidence that intelligence requires "wetwear" such
evidence is not presented in the book.

If you've ever read 'I, Robot' by Issac Asimov (or anything like it), this book should be required reading for you. It provides a fascinating and candid view into the history, research, debates and a detailed summary of the current progress in the controversial field of A.I. (artificial intelligence). I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and have shared it's title with many who have also enjoyed it. As an author and sci-fi fanatic, I found it's forthright, non-technical manner both refreshing and easy to read (finished it in one night), and the information provided to be excellent food for thought. Not too technical, this book can easily be understood by just about anyone, and SHOULD be read by anyone who has ever enjoyed reading anything involving robots or computers of any kind (even the average Star Wars fan will like this one). 'Brainmakers' is a must-read which has earned a permanent place in my personal library (which I might add is fairly extensive and somewhat exclusive). If you can find a copy, it's worth whatever price you have to pay for it.

This book is a collection EAP research material. It is very handy having it in one organized book that's always at your fingertips. The big problem for me was that the different EAP materials weren't covered uniformly. There was a huge emphasis on IPMC (most likely because that is the EAP that excites the editor the most). I was really hoping for more information on Ionic Polymer Gels (IPG) but found that they were only mentioned in passing (covering 2 pages).

You will most likely give this book a `5' if you are interested in IPMC but otherwise the local university library is the best bet for studying this exciting subject.

A delightful book dealing with the soon to be hottest topic in biomedical engineering, electroactive polymer actuators. Virtually every known method of generating displacement is introduced, except of course for the ones I have kept secret. This book is a must for anyone interested in actuators and sensors, including electrical engineers. Applications reach far beyond medicine, and there is simply no other textbook available that covers this topic. It is thorough in every way, covering the basic sciences, fabrication techniques and applications. I wish I could work in Dr. Bar-Cohen's lab!