Cunning Machines: Your Pocket Guide to the World of Artificial Intelligence by James Osinski

Author:James Osinski
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Computer Science, Computers, Intelligence (AI) & Semantics, Machine Theory, Programming, Robotics, Software Development & Engineering, Systems Analysis & Design, Technology & Engineering
Publisher: CRC Press
Published: 2020-02-10T03:00:00+00:00

Evolution Squeezed into Milliseconds

Evolution is a brilliant mechanism of nature, complex in detail but at the same time ingeniously simple in its assumptions. All living creatures strive for survival – this is the most fundamental instinct – to do anything possible to stay alive. A surrounded rat is aggressive and releases internal resources of such energy that it is sometimes able to successfully discourage even a group of two or three attacking cats. A fox trapped in a snare can bite off an entire limb just to get free. Survivors of sunken ships have been found alive (although extremely exhausted) weeks after the shipwreck. For the same reason, legends of the Fountain of Youth (a spring that restores youth to anyone who drinks or bathes in its waters) appeared in antiquity and the Age of Exploration when Columbus’ discovery of the New World brought new hopes and expectations. Paradoxically, many actually devoted most of their lives unsuccessfully trying to find the true location of the Fountain… The desire for eternal life changed from an instinct to an obsession. Still, the deepest thought encoded in all brains is the same. Every living organism on Earth, from insects to elephants, does anything it can to extend its existence. To achieve it, it tries to acclimatise to the surrounding environment as much as possible. That implies constant and nonstop changes in order to gather more energy (to find and reach food easier by having great eyesight and smell and manipulating limbs; to breath efficiently at higher attitudes), better avoiding trouble (they can run away faster from predators, possess indestructible armour, have very sensitive hearing and eyesight) and finally looking for a heathy partner to make sure their genes don’t vanish after death. That is what the technological race in the world of nature is all about.

Each entity in the world of nature strives for survival, safety, gene transmission and, if all the former requirements are already met, as comfortable life as possible. Adaptation to the surrounding environment is a key element to achieve these goals. Changes in body structure may be slow but are constant and more visible in each following generation. The history of life shows incredible application of modifications. For example, one of the most crucial, and spectacular as well, events in the history of the Earth was the vertebrate land invasion that started around 400 million years ago. You may wonder why I have just called this process a spectacular one. But think about this for a while and compare water-adapted fish and four-legged walking creatures. I would say it is much easier to say what makes them different than find some common features. Still, life evolution made a fish walk on land – something unexpected, even in the weirdest science fiction movies. Although the details are not fully agreed on by biologists, animals were strongly motivated to make that incredible step forward. Mainly because of slow changes in the marine environment that started to make it less and less

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.