Are the robots we create alive?
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I was recently pondering what it means to be a living thing, and then I thought about Robocode robots. Think about it, they react to their environment, they make decisions based on what they've learned, they compete with each other for survival, and some bots with genetic programming even reproduce in a way. Bots with neural networks are literally modeled after the human brain!
Is it really that much of a stretch to say that bots like Gaff or Engineer are as or more alive than a common worm, with ~300 neurons? Or, couldn't we at least say that if a single-celled bacterium can be considered a living being, so can a program that makes hundreds of complex calculations and decisions every second?
While we are talking about living machines, do you believe in the technological singularity? If so, when do you think it will happen?
Dunno... the amount of code in a bot is nothing compared to the genome of even the simplest organisms ;-)
Also, is something we simulate actually real? Tough questions...
Very tough question. I mulled it around for awhile. But I would have to say. No. But only just.
They are not free to reproduce within their environment. Even a virus can do that by interacting with its host. A virus has been hotly debated for years if it is a living thing. Since our robots cannot even do something so simple, I would have to say no.
But robots in some other programming games I would consider as alive (they can do most of what a robocode robot can, but also reproduce and possibly mutate/evolve). But again only to a point, we completely control their environment. If they could do what they do in our environment (outside our complete control), they would definitely be considered living.
