" Israeli scientists have devised a computer that can perform 330 trillion operations per second, more than 100,000 times the speed of the fastest PC. The secret: It runs on DNA."

Computer Made from DNA and Enzymes

Decius wrote:
] ] Evolving Self-Diagnosing Hardware was first attempted by
] ] the author for some toy circuits in the hope it would be
] ] possible. The toy circuits attempted where a two bit
] ] multiplier and a one bit adder. After hundreds of
] ] thousands of generations, circuits evolved performing
] ] full diagnosis using about half the overhead the
] ] conventional solution would have required. For example
] ] when using two-input logic-gate technology, a two-bit
] ] multiplier can be implemented using 7 gates. Adding an
] ] extra copy, and 7 more gates for comparing 4 outputs, we
] ] have an overhead of 14 gates for the conventional voting
] ] system BIST solution. After four million generations the
] ] GA found a circuit (diagram) with the same behaviour
] ] using only 9 extra gates. It is hard to work out exactly
] ] what operating principles underlie its operation but it
] ] looks like it tends to use more XOR gates which always
] ] propagate a bit flip in one of their inputs, and also
] ] exploits design diversity to compare multiple sections of
] ] the circuit simultaneously.
]
] I'm going to have to look at this in detail tonight.
]
] I'm a little sceptical. Its not "hard to work out exactly what
] operating principles underlie" a 9 gate circuit. "Exploits
] design diversity" sounds like something a politician would
] say. I'm fairly certain that karnaugh maps produce solutions
] that are proveably optimised for simple cases like this. If he
] got results from this technique he probably started with an
] improperly designed circuit.
]
] This is not to say that evolving hardware isn't interesting.
] It just seems like something isn't right with this example. A
] little math will tell me, and I'll post an update later.

Appears to be derived from Garvie's undergraduate thesis of 2001 and ties into other ongoing research at the Centre for Computational Neuroscience and Robotics. Anyone have insight as to the academic reputation of this group?

RE: Distributed Hardware Evolution

] Central to the experiment is Potter's
] belief that over time the teams will be able to establish
] a cultured in vitro network system that learns like the
] living brains in people and animals do. To achieve that,
] the information from the robot’s sensors is sent back
] through the system to the cultured network of cells in
] the form of electrical stimuli. By closing the loop, the
] group hopes the robot will learn something about itself
] and its environment.

Is this significant or just fringe science? Potential significance:

- Combination of biological and electronic systems. There's other interesting work in this field, some of which Potter has been involved with.

- Development of effective laboratory technique is an important contribution to research in the squishy sciences.

- An agent whose brain and sensors/actuators interact through the internet.

Researchers Use Lab Cultures to Create Robotic ‘Semi-Living Artist’

] At the World Economic Forum in Davos, prominent
] scientists and technologists offered their take on
] robots, cloning, digital life, and the

Fortune.com - Intro - Four Voices on the Future

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DNS Stuff: DNS tools, WHOIS, tracert, ping, and other network tools.

] Some Traditional Mechanisms of Governance Are Becoming
] Problematic
]
] New Governmental Mechanisms Are Being Enabled
]
] New Political Actors Are Being Empowered
]
] The Information Revolution Could Over Time Change the
] Role of the Nation-State:

Downstream impact could be vast.

The Global Course of the Information Revolution | RAND

] "Computer sentience is possible," said John Holland,
] professor of electrical engineering and computer science
] and professor of psychology at the University of
] Michigan. "But for a number of reasons, I don't believe
] that we are anywhere near that stage right now."
] ...
] According to Holland, the problem with developing
] artificial intelligence through things like genetic
] algorithms is that researchers don't yet understand how
] to define what computer programs should be evolving
] toward. Human beings did not evolve to be
] intelligent--they evolved to survive. Intelligence was
] just one of many traits that human beings exploited to
] increase their odds of survival, and the test for
] survival was absolute. Defining an equivalent test of
] fitness for targeting intelligence as an evolutionary
] goal for machines, however, has been elusive. Thus, it is
] difficult to draw comparisons between how human
] intelligence developed and how artificial intelligence
] could evolve.

Newswise

] Science fiction often depicts robots of the future as
] machines that look like people and feel, or at least
] hanker after the ability to feel, human emotions.
]
]
] A team at Vanderbilt University is turning this notion on
] its head by developing a robotic assistant whose goal is
] not to develop emotions, but rather respond to the moods
] of its human master.
]
] By processing information sent from physiological sensors
] the human counterpart wears, the Vanderbilt robot can
] detect when its master is having a bad day and approach
] with the query: "I sense that you are anxious. Is there
] anything I can do to help?"

Wired News: Feeling Blue? This Robot Knows It

Wrong.

This article appears in the March 2003 issue of MIT Technology Review. A subscription is required for access to the full text. It's also available in print on newsstands everywhere.

Do you have a good idea that In-Q-Tel should know about?

Can Sensemaking Keep Us Safe?

] Building Robot Soldiers
]
] Researchers are rushing to create battlefield robots that
] can assist humans in combat
]
All of the developments cited in the article are for non-lethal activities. But Michael Rogers antipcates the day when, "someday, in some army, robots will bear and fire arms on their own."

Building Robot Soldiers