Neil Colquhoun's Journal

Infected Friday #08: Artificial Life, here we come!

friday - noun (sixth day of the week)

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There was a big news announcement yesterday about a huge scientific achievement led by Dr J. Craig Venter - the creation of artificial life.

Basically, a new artificial 'life form' has been created. More info on the announcement can be read here and on the BBC website here

In the horror world, it means that the stories and movies seem a little bit more plausible and realistic. The scary part for me is this quote by the science historian, George Dyson, who says '...from the point of view of technology, a code generated within a digital computer is now self-replicating...'

Now, what will happen if the code gets unleashed onto the internet? Will it infect other computers, worming it's way into the code and altering it? Will it act like a virus, destroying that which is healthy? And, will it move from machine to machine, growing exponentially, until every machine which relies on computer software becomes infected by the new creation? What then for our digital world?

Horror isn't always visceral. Horror can be subtle and creep up on you (pardon the pun!) then before you know it, BLAM, it's in your face! It's early days, although the creator must be pretty damn sure that he has made something special - after all, he's been working on it for at least ten years now!

A computer artificial life form that infects all the hardware in the world is a scary enough scenario but what about the physical application?

Again, I quote George Dyson's words in that 'From the point of view of biology, a code generated by a living organism has been translated into a digital representation for replication, editing, and transmission to other cells.'

In the physical world, what will we see if the new species is allowed to thrive? How will it evolve? How will it survive? Do we really want to allow an artificial creation to be released into the wild? What will it mean for us? What horrors will be created? What monster will be unleashed?

Will we all turn into zombies? Is this the beginning of the Zombie Apocalypse? Will the release of the artificial life form outside the lab be a thing of wonder which slowly turns us into the Army of the Undead? And, like the computer virus, it will grow exponentially, infecting almost everyone, until only a handful of people survive, taking a last stand against the hordes of the flesh-eating hordes!

Are we standing on the brink of something new and wonderful? Or are we standing at the precipice of something horrific and cataclysmic, like The Titty Twister?

I for one will be arming myself with my trusty baseball bat, barricading the doors and make every attempt to stay alive!

Well, that's it this week, my Legion of Infected Followers. A short post but just have a think about the implications of creating artificial life?

Stay Alive and see ya back here next week.

[posted by Neil]

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