Creation: Life and how you make it: Life and How to Make It [Paperback]

Steve Grand OBE is not a man bereft of ambition. His goal in this smart, wide-ranging and intellectually effervescent book is to describe, from the perspective of the computer boffin and Artificial Life expert, what constitutes the conscious essence of existence, what is intelligence, even "how we can make a soul". As Grand himself is responsible for one of the closest available approximations to Artificial Life, the cyberspatial entities called Norns who star in Creatures (the wildly popular computer game he programmed), it is hard to imagine someone better equipped to lead the layman through this challenging philosophical landscape.

The subjects covered are sometimes bewilderingly diverse. From cloud formation to neurochemistry to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, Grand devours, digests and regurgitates facts and concepts that help build towards his central premise, that Artificial Intelligence is not just a computer geek's wet-dream-it is with us already, and about to change the way we live. If the material seems occasionally a bit thrown together, and the ideas and notions almost too profuse, the author's animated, chatty, button-holing style ensures the reader never entirely loses the plot. Creation is arguably one of the most important science books of the year; it is certainly one of the most stimulating. --Sean Thomas --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

The first major popular book on artificial life by one of its leading practitioners.

Mankind now has within its grasp the power to synthesize true artificial life, playing out Dr Frankenstein's dream in both cyberspace and the real world. In this book, Steve Grand, a leading exponent of artificial life, provides the first authoritative and comprehensive tour of the frontiers of this burgeoning new creation. He surveys what has been achieved so far and looks at future possibilities for generating autonomous, intelligent, even conscious living things. The fundamental questions he tackles range widely: what is life? What should the minds, brains and bodies of these new life forms be like? What philosophical guidelines and computational frameworks are necessary? At the heart of this brilliantly accessible and thought-provoking book is the author's unique imaginative vision - a vision based on his experience of making some of the most advanced artificial life currently available.

Steve Grand was cofounder and director of technology at the UK-based CyberLife Technology. He left last year to start up Cyberlife Research, where he is attempting to build the world's first conscious machine. He is the inventor of the groundbreaking computer game 'Creatures'. A former visiting research fellow at the University of Sussex and columnist for a leading journal on artificial intelligence, he has written numerous articles and lectures widely on the topic of artificial life. He was nominated by The Sunday Times as one of 'The Brains Behind the 21st Century', and received a CBE in the millennium honours list for his contribution to the computer games industry.