Growing up with Lucy: How to Build an Android in Twenty Easy Steps [Paperback]

If you read his previous book "Creation: Life and How to Make It", you'll be aware of how radical his ideas can be. And perhaps not be so amazed at this next step in extraordinary ambition. But as he says, you can't jump to the moon incrementally. Reading this book is like trying to learn neurology and electrical engineering at the same time, with a bit of how to fly a plane thrown in for good measure. But it's so readable you can do it and laugh at the same time.

His project is to create a robot capable of developing a mammal-like intelligence (an orangutan is the current external model, mostly down to an ugly orange wig and long arms). Yet for most of the development time Steve says he feels like a passenger on the Titanic, expecting the financial crunch of his life savings running out while still a long way from the end of the journey. He's made time to produce around 250 pages detailing the genesis of his ideas, the physical constraints of producing a robot on the cheap, an outline of his methods for reproducing neurology in software, and a discussion of some of the implications of advanced artificial intelligence and lifeforms. He does not offer us his code to review and as yet has not produced any technical papers to satisfy the curiosity of the professional reader. This book is an overview but one that provides plenty to chew on whatever your customary field of endeavor.

Making an intelligent android is not necessarily a hopelessly overreaching task. Steve believes the human brain uses 'general purpose building blocks', each a variation on a basic design, rather than a spaghetti mass of all original wiring such as is found in simpler organisms. So when trying to divine the structure of the brain, it is, as Steve puts it, more like taking apart a lego house than trying to untangle a pile of Christmas tree lights. It could be tougher to model a worm.

But if seeing your brain as simpler than a worm's isn't worrying enough, how about having your whole sense of self undercut: " being of one mind does not imply that all the information passes through a single controlling structure". Steve has no time for the concept of a person sitting inside your head that is 'you'. In his view it is an illusion that there is either control or controller-- or even free will.

On the other hand he does believe that emotion is essential for the development of intelligence. And that the very human ability to imagine is key to how the brain models and predicts the way the world will act and enables us to act upon it.

Both the REM and the slow wave parts of sleep are explained by Steve's theories of how the brain wires itself up in the first place and then maintains its connections and infrastructure during sleep. His idea of a sort of mental test card signal that enables the wiring to set itself up originally and then reinforce itself later is useful, indeed vital when you realize that without this maintenance function our brains would, in his view, likely revert to mush. It also raises questions about what would happen in the sort of long sleep needed for extended space flights. According to Steve's theory we would have to keep dreaming or we wouldn't still be ourselves when we woke up.

Even if the entire project does not succeed there are the spin-offs: the new ideas about how our brains might work based on how he's making Lucy. Steve has to simplify (or at least ply Occam's razor enthusiastically) in order to cull things he can use from the mass of conflicting writings in neurophysiology. He thinks he knows how our visual system does a number of neat tricks: from using fuzzy images to increase visual acuity to extracting the visual essence of an object: a mental image with no rotational, positional, or size data attached to it. That may lead to breakthroughs in image recognition.

Steve theorizes that every cortical map must be thinking about something all the time. And if there are no signals demanding its attention then the map will generate some. Perhaps this is the explanation for the endless monologue that runs in everyone's head. And the visual day dreaming we do in vacant moments. Without these our brains would have to micromanage to keep busy or lose their connectivity as the circuits fade out from disuse.

Where this book breaks off the saga of Lucy, she is a one-eyed, legless agglomeration of springs and servos perched on a desk full of computers. She can only grunt and on a good day point at a banana if you ask her to. Yet she is one of the most advanced research robots in existence.

Steve's website: http://www.cyberlife-research.com/people/steve/

Lucy is an anthropoid robot. Built by the author, Steve Grand to test his ideas about mammalian brains. This book details the best theories the author has to explain brain workings. However to do this Grand has written a greatly personal, introspective and partly autobiographical book.

It is a nice read, a pop science book which take you through the fun of playing with the real world for it's own sake. If you disagree with any of the science, I'm sure that you are welcome to (I couldn't find a single theory originated by Grand, that isn't prefaced with "This may be complete rubbish but..."). The theories are sometimes quite far reaching, of course, so perhaps the apologetic stance is required. I found it slightly inhibitory, there are much more daring theories of mind.

If you are a professional in this area, then you will be aware that there is certainly a place for outside thinkers, without new ideas subjects like cognitive science, AI and neuroscience will surely stagnate. I think that conjecture is a useful augury to building theories, and if you can accept that this is what is presented this book is certainly stimulating.

If you are simply curious about brains this book shows you one explanation, without closing many doors to other ideas or getting bogged down in all of the conflicting theories that are currently running riot in the academic journals.

To me it was a testament of the work that can be done, without much specialised equipment, outside 'normal academic circles' by someone who is simple intrigued to find out more. Steve Grand is an inspirational character, who has forced the attention of the public, the media, and academia alike. If everyone was like him, I doubt we'd have been disappointed to find that the year 2000 didn't contain the flying cars and androids that we were promised by science fiction.

Maybe I'll go take another look at those ideas I had for rocket powered roller skates...