Book details of 'Live Robots: Software/Wetware/2 in 1 Volume'

Title	Live Robots: Software/Wetware/2 in 1 Volume
Author(s)	Rudy V. B. Wetware Rucker
ISBN	0380775433
Language	English
Published	April 1994
Publisher	Avon

---

Back to shelf Science Fiction
Amazon.com info for Live Robots: Software/Wetware/2 in 1 Volume

Score:

Vote for this book

The Virtual Bookcase Reviews of 'Live Robots: Software/Wetware/2 in 1 Volume':

Reviewer Rob Slade wrote:
This is a double volume, originally published as "Software" (1982) and "Wetware" (1988). The basic premise is the tension between "thinking" robots (called "boppers" or "bops") and humanity. Two items are of interest. The first is the development of machine intelligence, which we see only in retrospect. The growth of artificial cognition is promoted by a type of genetic programming. The original programmer builds "immutable" instructions into the robots to submit their software to some minor random variation every ten months. The robots are also to build replicas of themselves during the ten-month period, although these seem to be primarily for replacement purposes, rather than reproduction. The concept of "immutable" code is interesting here, since it would be subject to the same variation as all the other programming. As well, the ten-month "generations", and the few dozen initial robots, would result in a very slow evolution. The concepts, though, are quite sound, and very similar to "real" genetic programming. The other point of interest is raised in the last few pages of the latter book. A computer virus is let loose in order to foul up the network of the authorities for a few hours. (The virus is let loose from a graphic, but ...) The point is correctly made that once the existence of a network virus is known, effective defences take only hours to build. (In this case, that is all that is necessary.) A very good understanding of the concepts, for such an early (1988) work. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1994
Add my review for Live Robots: Software/Wetware/2 in 1 Volume