Beta-Life: Short Stories from an A-Life Future

Computers are changing. Soon, the days of silicon-based logic-gate computing will seem like a quaint and distant memory from a charmingly clunky past. Likewise, robots—once designed by mere mortals—will be soon be devised solely by the ultimate designing agency, evolution (with the help of computer modeling of natural selection). Meanwhile, A-Life (artificial life) and mathematical biomimicry—algorithm-based virtual models that map the collective intelligence of nature onto manmade systems—...