Darwin wśród maszyn. Rzecz o ewolucji inteligencji

by George Dyson

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.

Genres: Science, History, Nonfiction, Technology, Philosophy, Evolution, Biology

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

George Dyson is a scientific historian, the son of Freeman Dyson, brother of Esther Dyson, and the grandson of Sir George Dyson. When he was sixteen he went to live in British Columbia in Canada to pursue his interest in kayaking and escape his father's shadow. While there he lived in a treehouse at a height of 30 metres. He is the author of Project Orion: The Atomic Spaceship 1957-1965 and Darwin Among the Machines: The Evolution of Global Intelligence, in which he expanded upon the premise of Samuel Butler's 1863 article of the same name and suggested coherently that the internet is a living, sentient being. He is the subject of Kenneth Brower's book The Starship and the Canoe. Dyson was the founder of Dyson, Baidarka & Company, a designer of Aleut-style skin kayaks, and he is credited with the revival of the baidarka style of kayak. (from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Bradley · Rating 5 out of 5]

OMG, I never imagined that non-fiction could be this FUN. Not only fun but sometimes mind-blowing.

In a nutshell, we're taking a history of science course that leads with Evolutionary science in the nitty-gritty and leads us through the history of math and computer science evolution, leading us through Turing, missile defense analytics, Game Theory, and above all... Artificial Intelligence.

Let me clear on this, however. I've read a lot of these kinds of things before, so I really enjoyed all the new details that I may have missed or had now come to light in the full scope of what George Dyson has accomplished, but more than that, I REALLY loved the big picture that he painted.

This is history and science, yes, of course, but it's also philosophy. He made a very readable and rich book that pays huge homage to von Neumann. Emergence is the keyword... but don't take my word for it. This is one of the very best and most informative non-fiction books on Artificial Intelligence I've ever read, and it barely scratches the surface of actual Artifical Intelligence.

What it does do in spades is give us the foundation for all the directions it can take. And it also gives us fantastic insight into what we ARE.

Oh, and I ABSOLUTELY LOVED the passages about Olaf Stapleton. There's another visionary. :)

[Ushan · Rating 1 out of 5]

George Dyson, son of physicist Freeman Dyson, has no formal education; as a teenager he went to Canada, where he lived in a treehouse for three winters and built baidarkas instead of pursuing a more conventional career. He wanted to write a history of I am not sure what: computer science? artificial intelligence? evolutionary computation? but he is unqualified to do this, and does not realize that it is the case. I might smile at Nadine Gordimer's "Sam missiles" or "a reactor based on the harmless pebble a small boy takes home from the beach" but she is not claiming expertise in weaponry or nuclear energy. When George Dyson writes about "metalanguages, such as Java, that allow symbiogenesis to transcend the proprietary divisions between lower-level languages in use by different hosts" or claims that Turing's Automatic Computing Engine "foreshadowed the RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer) architecture that has now gained prominence after fifty years" it is not funny.

[Wayland Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

From what I read about this book, I was hoping for a history of computers and/or artificial intelligence. Instead, it's more a meandering piece with a lot of side trips. It studies the history of communication more than anything else, but only in specified instances. There is a lot of computer history, but it's in fits and starts and a bit disjointed. There's also some fairly detailed science in several sections.

Interesting subject, but it could have been executed a bit better.

[Rhys · Rating 3 out of 5]

Darwin Among the Machines is a fun book offering a perspective on the rise of the machines - self-acting, evolving machines achieving a level of consciousness.

As machines continue to become more complex and relational, it is suggested that we should create a digital reserve to allow code to evolve on its own - then domesticate the useful organisms, er, I mean programs.

"The Tierran reserve is envisioned as a cooperative laboratory for evolving commercially harvestable software of a variety and complexity beyond what we could ever hope to engineer. “This software will be ‘wild,’ living free in the digital biodiversity reserve,” proposed Ray. “In order to reap the rewards, and create useful applications, we will need to domesticate some of the wild digital organisms, much as our ancestors began domesticating the ancestors of dogs and corn thousands of years ago.” The potentially useful products might range from simple code fragments, equivalent to drugs discovered in rain-forest plants, to entire digital organisms, which Ray imagines as evolving into digital counterparts of the one-celled workhorses that give us our daily bread and cheese and beer – and eventually into higher forms of digital life."

[James Henderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

What do Thomas Hobbes, Erasmus Darwin, Samuel Butler, Alan Turing, Olaf Stapledon, and the RAND Corporation have in common? George B. Dyson explains what they have in common and more in his sometimes uneven but always fascinating book about "evolution of global intelligence" Darwin among the Machines. Dyson relates the story behind the growth of our global digital world through the individual stories of the above thinkers and more. They were all visionaries who saw beyond the everyday into the future and whose ideas led to the development of artificial intelligence and related fields that continue to undergo development in our new century. Dyson is good at relating these stories while weaving them into an evolutionary web that captures the changes that have occurred in the areas of digital computing and telecommunications, and the mechanics of the mind and artificial intelligence over the past century. The story that evolves from all his telling is both exciting and filled with possibilities for the future that border on science fiction. But in retrospect we see that science fiction has a way of becoming science fact. Readers who appreciate and want to learn more about the relationship of technology, humanity and nature will enjoy this book.

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fantastic reflection on the past of technology and artificial intelligence, as well as a considerably relevant look at what's yet to come.

I don't often read non-fiction, but I did enjoy this book. It does get particularly muddy / bogged down in technicalities at time, but that's the sort of thing you expect from a book like this.

All I'd say is just be sure the subject truly is something you're interested in - if it's not, then you'll soon lose patience with this one. No plot to speak of, it's pretty much just a very roundabout way of glossing over the evolution of "artificial intelligence", from the very primitive computers to the miniscule chips which have basically overrun our world.

Well worth a read if it's your sort of thing.

[Derek Henderson · Rating 1 out of 5]

A big hot mess. Dyson jumps around like a bluebottle from thought to thought, from person to person, until your head starts to spin. I rather fear he actually has nothing to say, but instead fills his book with never-ending quotations trawled from better tomes and cleverer heads. This quickly gave me brainache. Caveat: skimmed this one for my own sanity.

[Juris Arrozy · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have no idea what I just read. I think this is the first time that I don't even get a single thesis of a book after reading it for some hours. Ended up skimming the last half of the book.

Either the book is so badly written or I am too dumb. Probably the latter (or maybe both?), but on my defense I have seen similar comments to this book.

[Guy McArthur · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating and deep look at the origins of computing (and networking) as the precursor of machine intelligence.

[Francis Kilkenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

‘Darwin Among the Machines’ by George B. Dyson is an enjoyable read. It combines discussions of history, philosophy and literature to explore what intelligence is and how it evolves. The primary thread is a history of computing and a dose of biology, but touching many other subjects. The book is neither comprehensive nor very focused (which explains my rating), but it does dip into many fascinating intellectual spaces. The book left me with more questions than answers, but it was a nice jumping off point for thought. Definitely worth the read.

[Pau Fernandez · Rating 5 out of 5]

I remember trying to imitate the style with which Dyson cites other people, embedding quotes in the text itself. I enjoyed it a lot.

[Sam Bradley · Rating 3 out of 5]

felt this could have been a much more concise essay but otherwise dead interesting

[Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although well written, with interesting historical vignettes of computing, the fundamental premise was hard to follow.

A reasonable read though.

[Brian Weisz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Intellectual history of artificial intelligence. Written well before the current AI boom, and going all the way back to Thomas Hobbes in the 1th century. Very heavy read.

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

HISTORICAL MUSINGS AND FUTURE ANTICIPATIONS

Author George B. Dyson wrote in the first chapter of this 1997 book, “The emergence of life and intelligence from less-alive and less-intelligent components has happened at least once. Emergent behavior is that which cannot be predicted through analysis at any level simpler than that of the system as a whole. Explanations of emergence, like simplifications of complexity, are inherently illusory and can only be achieved by sleight of hand. This does not mean that emergence is not real. Emergent behavior, by definition, is what’s left after everything else has been explained.” (Pg. 9)

He observes, “Where logic led, electronics followed. Thanks to Gödel, Turing, and colleagues, the proof was there from the beginning that a digital universe would be an open universe in which mathematical structures of unbounded complexity, intellect, meaning, and even beauty might freely grow. There is no limit, in mathematics or in physics, to how far and how fast Barricelli’s numerical sybioorganisms will be able to evolve.” (Pg. 130)

He explains, “Higher-level representations, symbols, abstractions, and perceptions are constructed in a neural network not from solutions arrived at by algorithmic (step-by-step) processing, as in a digital computer, but from the relations between dynamic local maxima and minima generated by a real-time, incomprehensibly complex version of one of von Neumann’s games. It is what is known as an n-person game, involving, in our case, a subset of the more than 100 billion neurons, interlaced by trillions of synapses.” (Pg 158)

He acknowledges, “The goal of life and intelligence, if there is one, is awkward to define. A general aim can be detected in the tendency toward a local decrease in the entropy of that fragment of the universe considered to be intelligent or alive. This is a measurable way of saying that life and intelligence tend to organize themselves. Order, however, is only available in limited quantities, at a certain price. Organization can be increased or created only by absorbing existing sources of order (by eating other creatures as food, joining them in symbiosis, or by photosynthesis..) or by shedding disorder… In human society, money serves to measure and mediate local markets for decreasing entropy, whether it measures the refinement of an ounce of gold, the energy available in a ton of coal, the price of a share in a multinational organization, or the value of the information accumulated in a book. We invented the science of economics, but economy came first.” (Pg. 170)

He suggests, “Until we understand out own consciousness, there is no way to agree on what, if anything, constitutes consciousness among machines. The subject leads us into nonfalsifiable hypotheses, where the scientific method comes to an end. Three results are possible, given any supposedly conscious machine Either the machine says, ‘Yes, I am conscious,’ or it says, ‘No, I am not conscious,’ or it says nothing at all. Which are we to believe? All we can do at this point is use our imaginations.” (Pg. 210)

He points out, “When computers began to multiply in the 1950s, artificial intelligence was believed to be just around the corner. Artificial music was surely almost as close at hand. Forty years later artificial intelligence is still ahead. Electronics has enlarged our repertoire of instruments but has failed to produce anything more than a sympathetic resonance with the musical nature of our minds… The gap between the natural language of human beings and the higher-level languages and formalizations used by machines is slowly being bridged. But our music remains a foreign language to our machines.” (Pg. 218)

This book will appeal to this interested in future electronics, artificial intelligence, etc.

[Louisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

The appropriate thing to say, I suppose, is that this is a good overview of the emergence of artificial intelligence, starting from the 17th century with Thomas Hobbes and The Leviathan until the rise of the World Wide Web. Fascinating. Thought-provoking. Well researched. Darwin Among the Machines is all of that, for sure, so why can't I give it more than a meagre three stars rating?

The title refers to an essay written in 1863 by Samuel Butler, who argued that machines are a form of mechanical life that undergo evolution and could eventually overtake humans as the dominant species on earth. Dyson builds on this view and that of other visionaries, comparing the rise of machine intelligence with the evolution of multi-celled organisms, almost tearing down the wall between technology and biology. Almost.

So, are there thriving, thinking, artificial minds on this planet already? Are machines ready to take on a life on their own? Dyson hints at it, but he never explicitly says so. Instead, what we get is quotes from the work of Gottfried Leibniz, Charles Babbage, Alan Turing and others (though Hofstadter and Penrose are strangely absent). All this is interesting, and I particularly liked Chapter 2 on Samuel Butler and the story behind Erewhon. But this is where my problem with the book lies: it suffers from an overload of quotes. Every time when the arguments are starting to get interesting, when Dyson is on the verge of making his point - there comes another quote from Hobbes, von Neumann or Barricelli. There isn't much in the way of a conclusion and the book ends abruptly with - how could it not - a quote.

I did enjoy reading this and I thank the author for steering me towards Erewhon which I picked up right after finishing this. But I found myself wondering again and again, what do you think, George Dyson? Couldn't you just say it in your own words, for once?

[Selim Baydar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful,never have i thought so highly of a science history book,then again i do adore the subject. I think it was even better and more comprehensive than Turing's Cathedral, really got me thinking and i recommend it to anyone who wants to understand information and intelligence.

[Eleanor · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was the first non-fiction book that I got to on my 20 Books of Summer list. As I think I mentioned in my June Superlatives round-up, I have almost no background in computer engineering, evolutionary biology, or mathematics, so it was, to say the least, harder going than any of the fiction I’d read so far. Fortunately, George Dyson is a solidly competent writer; confusion never arose because he was confusing, just because I often didn’t have the knowledge that would have clarified things for me. He also has a distinguished scientific pedigree: his mother was a famous mathematician, Verena Huber-Dyson, and his father was Freeman Dyson, theoretical physicist and inventor of the Dyson sphere. (More in my wheelhouse was his grandfather, the Edwardian composer Sir George Dyson, responsible for the Evensong canticle settings Dyson in F [aka the Star Wars Service] and Dyson in G. And some other stuff, too.)

Read the rest of the review here: https://ellethinks.wordpress.com/2016...

[Steve]

Atlantic mag (Dec 2010) > Read Kenneth Brower's article on Freeman Dyson, a global warming skeptic. Kenneth Brower is the author of a book on Freeman Dyson & his son, George, entitled The Starship and the Canoe (1978). George Freeman is also the author of several interesting books. See the article that I saved to my iPad. Dyson portrayed as a very brilliant man, who has extended himself well beyond his area of expertise. Reminds me of Michael Crichton, who is also mentioned in this article, and my AAPG colleagues, who portray themselves as experts on global warming, just because they are geologists.
   Book of interest by George Dyson: Darwin Among the Machines ("a history of the luminaries of the information revolution"). Dyson currently working on draft of Turing's Cathedral ("[George Dyson] conceives as 'a creation myth for the digital universe'.") [Sa, 15 Jan 2011; 09:30h]

[Ben Hunt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mr. Dyson makes the thoughtful argument that the age of intelligent machines began with Hobbes' Leviathan: we live in a world haunted by the non-human intelligences of states, capital, etc. Machines that are made of human beings but not themselves human.

Science fiction authors and star-crossed computational scientists often have long-winded debates about whether machines can think, whether they would be smarter than us, deserve rights, etc. Dyson says they're already here, and they've already won.

[Max Shen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is by far my most favorite 3-star book for its incredibly detailed, intelligent, and well-written tour of the history of computing. Unfortunately I feel like it's too speculative and gives too much credence without sufficiently rigorous thought to some dangerously "out-there" ideas. The book's influence in this regard makes me uncomfortable given the widespread praise and attention it has received.

[TK Keanini · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not a big fan of Darwin, but I do like what George Dyson has to say in this book. You can read this the same week you read Kurzweil's "The Age of Spiritual machines". Those would go great together.

[mcburton · Rating 4 out of 5]

It has been a while since I read this book, but I remember really enjoying it. A nice history of machines/computing and a possible future where the "intelligence" of man and machine begins to blur. Anything by a Dyson is going to be good, you can always count on that.

[GertJan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Briljant boek over (kunstmatige) intelligentie, bewustzijn, evolutie, gebouwd op de fundamenten van denkers, uitvinders en wetenschappers tussen 1650 en 1990.
Lees je niet zo even uit en je zou willen dat Dyson een update schrijft voor een nieuwe editie.

[Matt Denninger · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some cool info but by chapter 3 I was getting bored and ended up skimming through the rest. I find the book lacked unity or a thesis. It seemed more like random history lesson essays on machines rather than a unified book.

[Phil Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

A neat read about the evolution of machine intelligence and the ethics related to that potential emerging issue.

[Douglas Summers-Stay · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked this partly because it was so much like the book that I'm working on. The subject is how machines are evolving intelligence. The author is the son of the Dyson who made up Dyson spheres.

[David Sasaki · Rating 4 out of 5]

http://el-oso.net/blog/archives/2009/...

[Jose · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great content. Ok writing.

[John]

evolution,futurism,history,nonfiction,science,technology,transhumanism,enhancement